30 comments

Introducing the ¡Random! Button

Hey, what’s that new button at the top of the web page?

A Random Article Generator, courtesy of our technical wizard Mrs. Money Mustache. Thanks Mrs. M!

Since this blog has grown into quite a behemoth over time (170 articles so far), the newer readers have only seen the most recent ones.

Some have started from the beginning and are embracing the challenge of catching up so they can earn the title of Senior Mustachian and add a Mustache to their icon in the comments section.

But not everyone has that kind of time on their hands. For those people, the ¡Random! button is just the ticket. Click it and get a randomly selected blast from the past. If it seems like a boring or irrelevant one to you, just flush it away and try again with another click on the button.

The feature is especially useful for office procrastinators, who have to deal with a five-day-per-week working schedule, and are disappointed that MMM articles usually only come out two or three times a week. How can they get their fix? Sure there are a thousand other personal finance sites on the web, but they don’t have any punching or swearing!

The most avid user of this feature may be Mr. Money Mustache himself, as I go back and nostalgically read some of my old shit in order to have a chuckle, then notice various embarrassing mistakes and rewrite portions to be more up-to-date. Over time it should be quite a nice feature, and I very much appreciate the addition.

  • Christine Wilson January 22, 2012, 11:18 am

    I’m shocked to be the first commenter. I guess most of your readers are not sitting by their computer programming on a Sunday like I am. Like the new random button ;)

    Reply
    • MMM January 22, 2012, 12:00 pm

      Very speedy trigger finger, Christine :-)

      I wasn’t expecting to get a lot of comments on this post, since it doesn’t have much actual content.

      But the Mustachians have been becoming an increasingly chatty bunch recently, such that even non-controverial posts end up getting over 100 comments. I guess this is a good thing, especially considering that you are all setting internet-wide records for “most constructive and positive group of commenters”. Other bloggers are jealous.

      Reply
      • rjack January 22, 2012, 12:31 pm

        “But the Mustachians have been becoming an increasingly chatty bunch recently, such that even non-controverial posts end up getting over 100 comments.”

        This might be mitigated if you added forums. :)

        Reply
        • Mrs. Money Mustache January 22, 2012, 12:49 pm

          Yeah, yeah…. you guys are so pushy! ;)

          I’m working on it…

          Reply
          • Christine Wilson January 22, 2012, 5:01 pm

            Oh yes I expected a lot of comments for this post too.. You give me blog envy.

            Very nice addition Mrs. M. Now where’s the forums? ;)

            Reply
  • James January 22, 2012, 11:19 am

    I started following your blog in October, but only recently started commenting and catching up with past posts. I’m happy to say I caught up to the post I started with this past Wednesday, and I’m really glad I read the past posts. I’ve started making major changes to my lifestyle thanks to you, and I fully expect to owe you credit for taking years off my wait for retirement!

    Reply
    • MMM January 22, 2012, 11:55 am

      Wow, thanks James!
      I would normally award you permission to add a Mustache for your avatar/gravatar, but I see you already have one, built into the beard. Good job ;-)

      Reply
  • JNU January 22, 2012, 11:40 am

    I like the idea of a Random button. I might have to steal it!

    Reply
  • Amicable Skeptic January 22, 2012, 12:26 pm

    I have now managed to go back and read all the past articles, but now I’m afraid you’ll update one with some golden nee nugget of info but I’ll never see it. Can Mrs. M whip up some fancy-ness to show senior mustachians what articles have had significant updates or something?

    Solution 2: Every year go back and re-read every single article again to find edits and re-absorb the mustachian word. Super bad ass, but also a linearly increasing time suck :(

    Reply
    • Tina January 22, 2012, 2:05 pm

      I agree with Amicable Skeptic. It would be great to have a quick visual clue to the articles that have been recently updated. Maybe an (updated: _date_) after the title?

      Good stuff, MMMs!

      Reply
      • MMM January 22, 2012, 7:48 pm

        Hmm.. I’ll keep a log of any old posts that get meaningful upgrades. I don’t want to change the actual article titles, since that would make things unsightly, but maybe there is a way to search for recently updated ones.

        I’m sure you won’t be missing much by ignoring them, either – it’s not like these are classic Star Trek episodes or anything – just blog posts :-)

        Reply
  • chris January 22, 2012, 3:14 pm

    Isn’t it wizardress? Just kidding, all in good humor…first-time commenter, long-time reader

    Reply
  • Vanna January 22, 2012, 4:46 pm

    I LOVE =RAND()!!!! :) Thanks!

    Reply
  • Andy January 22, 2012, 5:00 pm

    I actually just finished reading the last article last night. I started reading from the beginning (April) last week. Love the blog, brother!

    Reply
    • MMM January 22, 2012, 7:49 pm

      HARDCORE MUSTACHIAN! — so now, where’s your picture?? Go fiddle around on Gravatar.com and make one. Anyone with time to read 600 pages worth of a blog in just two weeks, definitely has time to make a picture ;-)

      Reply
      • Peter January 23, 2012, 9:21 am

        I may have to take you up on that offer. I finished reading all your posts a couple weeks ago. There is some freaky wall paper at work that looks like there’s a red eyed guy with a moustache in the pattern. I’ve been wanting to take a picture and turn it into my avatar here.
        Now I’ll actually get around to it.

        Reply
        • guitarist86 January 23, 2012, 8:10 pm

          Let’s see if it shows up now

          Reply
      • Valerie January 23, 2012, 11:42 am

        Wow! I found the blog last August, decided I loved it, then went back to April to catch up over the course of a few days! (And I thought that was a little crazy!)

        Reply
  • Marlene January 23, 2012, 8:31 am

    hey – when did you change the title-lay out? currently or am I just blind?

    Reply
    • MMM January 23, 2012, 10:01 am

      Ding Ding! First person to mention the new logo! (or banner, or whatever it is).

      I just made a more exciting title font – which consisted of me scribbling idly for a while as I took part in a boring phone conversation with a credit card company. And I changed the tagline from “Putting the Cash in your ‘Stash” to the current one. I have about twenty silly lines like this stored up so I figured it would be fun to rotate through them.

      All this happened about a week ago. I really like it though, I think it adds more personality to the page instead of the mundane font I was using before. More graphic design changes coming over time, surely at a continued snail’s pace.

      Reply
  • zackrobbin January 24, 2012, 7:02 pm

    Sort of disappointed that it’s not really a Random Article GENERATOR like you said at the beginning.
    Still, a Random Article Selector is a great idea for a site of this size and level of awesomeness. Keep it . . . um . . . Musty!

    Reply
    • MMM January 24, 2012, 7:23 pm

      Haha.. I agree, I was exaggerating when I called it a Generator. That would indeed be a great thing though – it would allow me to become one of those bloggers that posts several times a day.

      Reply
  • Gerard June 20, 2012, 8:30 pm

    When this was first introduced, I was blase, as I was pretty sure I’d read all the posts. But actually I’m really liking it. Every now and then I go back and read an old post and get something new or different out of it (thanks, I guess, to knowing different stuff now than I did then).

    Reply
  • SamanthaNichole February 20, 2013, 11:28 am

    MMM,
    I love this Random Article button and have used it many times. I am setting up my own blog and would like to add such a button. Can you offer any advice about how you added it to your site? When I google for this information I am getting answers that involve using code and as a newbie I don’t want to mess up my site since I don’t really know what I’m doing yet. Thanks for your time and I LOVE your blog.
    ~SamanthaNichole

    Reply
    • Mrs. Money Mustache February 20, 2013, 12:18 pm

      Hi SamanthaNichole!

      We use the Random Redirect Plugin for Wordpress (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/random-redirect/).

      The link says the plugin has not been updated for 2 years, but it still works fine on our site. You install it and them simply add a ?random to the end of your site URL and you’re on your way to a random article.

      Reply
  • SamanthaNichole February 21, 2013, 7:16 am

    Wow, thanks for getting back with me so quick. I know exactly which plugin you are talking about so i will give it a try. This is one of the very few blogs i come back to regularly looking for the next post. Thanks for all you do. May i link to you once my site is launched?

    Reply
  • lentilman March 16, 2013, 3:39 pm

    Ha, Just using the Random button and ended up at this page! Well, off to another page now.

    Reply
    • Heath May 1, 2013, 11:08 am

      I too just used the random button and ended up here. There must be come kind of cosmic significance in these kinds of recursive events….

      Anyway, I’m loving the Random button! I’ve read all of your articles by this point (caught up early last year, actually), and now I use the Random button to get my daily fix of MMM and keep refreshing my memory on Mustachian principles and techniques!

      Reply
  • Archon October 19, 2016, 7:36 am

    I love the punctuation. ¡Random!
    Every time I look at it, I read it in my head as if it’s being shouted by a mustachioed, exuberant band leader (heavily trilling the R) while the trumpets of his mariachi band begin the next tune.

    I’m almost through all the articles, and I’m noticing that MMM has a definite strength that hasn’t really been acknowledged as a money saver, even though it enriches everything he does. He chooses to have fun with things when he can. Not just the obvious things where fun is invited, but every aspect of his day. MMM is way better than I am at having every action be well-considered, and it seems like “what can be done to this thing that I’m going to do anyway to put a smile on my (or someone else’s) face” is part of that consideration. ¡That’s a hell of a habit! It’s stoicism with a smile. It seems like social success would follow such a person around whether they knew it or not.

    Do you have any advice for cultivating this sort of thing? I do it a bit anyway, but I see the odd mention of some of the games you play with your son etc. and I think “¡I’d never have come up with that myself!” This kind of fun creativity is surely part of MMM’s blogging success, but I think it might be more important if it seeps into the rest of someone’s life too.

    Also, ALT+0161 (numpad) is my friend today. ¡i¡i!

    Reply
  • David January 23, 2017, 12:42 am

    Got here from the random button.

    Reply

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