I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
Wow. Four thousand dollars a month.
It was Automatic Money, rolling in like crazy with no effort on my part, absolutely no overhead, and it was remarkably reliable. Almost $1000 every week, $130 every day, or close to $50,000 a year, probably subject to exponential growth as well. And I just turned off this firehose of cash… over the simple issue of my choice of words on this blog.
$4000 a month is about twice the amount it takes to pay for my entire family’s living expenses. It’s also enough to pay the mortgage on a $900,000 house, lease several of the world’s most expensive cars, buy a family health insurance plan so extreme that doctors would be taking me out for steak and lobster dinners as part of each office visit, or have my family embark on a permanent trans-world adventure. But now, it’s gone. And it’s all because I refused to remove the word “Badassity” from that banner on the top of the site.
Is that crazy? Perhaps we need to know the history of the situation to judge properly.
Those of us who have been reading for a while know it has been a little crazy since the beginning. I just started typing some shit into the computer in April 2011, and the Spirits of the Internet decided on their own that the blog would become unusually big. I posted a little milestone article after the first million page views, and another after the second million. At that point, I noted that the little advertising boxes on the side of this blog were earning a respectable $500 per month, and that I thought it might eventually grow to $2000, enough to cover the entire Money Mustache family’s living expenses, despite the fact that they are already covered in other ways.
Right after that post in March, things got off the hook. I had accidentally stumbled upon the Cash Cow of the personal finance world without realizing it – credit card referrals. The way it worked, for me anyway, is that I got an account at an affiliate marketing company for bloggers and other web publishers. It’s called Flexoffers, although there are any number of competing companies. From there, you can cut and paste some javascript code into your own website that generates nice credit card offers for the consideration of your readers. Whenever a reader signs up for a credit card, the blog gets a surprisingly generous commission – often $100 or so.
Not being particularly interested in maximizing revenue, I sequestered my own credit card links into a little rewards credit card referral page in the “MMM Recommends” link above*. In the hope of making things more useful to readers, I evaluated each credit card offer myself, and sorted them so that the most valuable offers were near the top of the list. Then I went back to writing articles and forgot about it.
The thing is, the Mustachians who read this blog are a lot like me. They already use credit cards in their daily life. So, shit, if a credit card company wants to pay them $100 or more to sign up for a new card with no strings attached (or $200-400 with some strings you can carefully cut), they’ll probably seriously consider it. So as soon as I put up the page, Mustachians started signing up for those cards in droves. I even grabbed a couple of them myself, netting $1000.
In one post near the beginning of it all called “Maximum Mustache March – Update“, I mentioned the Chase Sapphire card I had signed up for. That triggered thousands of dollars in sales. After that, the trickle continued at a rate of over $900 a week.
As it turned out, the Chase company had the highest rewards for customers, along with the highest payouts for bloggers. Suddenly over 80% of the blog’s revenue was coming just from Chase credit card referrals. “Good for them”, I thought, “for finding a way to drastically beat all their competitors, score all the customers, and presumably still make money at it”.
I watched my growing Flexoffers account balance warily. Was this ridiculous stream of money for real? Was it really going to come to me? When would it stop? What does a shitload of extra money mean to a man who has already happily realized that he has no real use for way more money? I started planning an article to tell you all about it – you might have noticed the title “This Blog is Raking in some Serious Dough.. here’s how” in my list of draft articles. Here’s what the revenue stream looked like since the beginning of Money Mustache Time:
MMM revenue (click for larger view)
I found it fascinating, mildly addictive, and a bit disruptive. I found myself turning down carpentry jobs that I would have enjoyed doing, solely on the basis of having too much money: “Well, the blog is now paying me $1000 every week. Do I really want to go out and swing hammers and sweat for 25 hours to earn an extra $1000 when the money is even more irrelevant than it was a few months ago? Maybe I should be more like Bill Gates and start doing something involving vaccines in India instead of building yet another kitchen or front porch for someone?
In yet another proof of the amazing power of Hedonic Adaptation, I rapidly adjusted to the new level of income, and felt no happier than I did without it. Possibly even less happy, although there was the odd cheerful laugh at the thought that even the most expensive unexpected life event could easily be swept away effortlessly. But at the same time, I’m old enough to know that effort itself is a key part of happiness, so perhaps effortless solutions are not ideal anyway.
The one thing that didn’t change, is that I remained rock solid on my resolve not to inflate my lifestyle beyond its existing level of ridiculous abundance. Adding an even bigger house, newer cars, or fancier vacations would not be in the cards regardless of cashflow.
But then all of this changed in a heartbeat, with the arrival of an email from my friendly Flexoffers representative. To paraphrase his message to me:
Mustache! We’ve got an emergency!
Chase has reviewed your blog, and they don’t like the banner. It is “inappropriate content” in their view. Also, you should probably change the slogan you created using “WTF!?” as a describing factor for one of their rewards cards.
“Well, shit”, I thought. “Didn’t we already know this was too good to be true?”
I had enjoyed the irony of this blog speaking out against paying ANY credit card interest, yet receiving huge payments from credit card companies. They were issuing cards to a bunch of highly savvy financial hackers, who were maximizing the rewards while simultaneously setting automatic monthly payoffs from their well-funded ING Direct accounts and Google Calendar alerts to cancel the card accounts just before any annual fees kicked in. If these card companies depend on interest payments to make a profit, the Mustachians were surely a source of losses for them. On the other hand, with the billions of dollars of annual income earned by this blog’s readership, there were surely profits to be had in the long run through good business relationships.
So I wrote back to the guy:
”Tell Chase to read the blog. There’s no inappropriate content here. We swear and we rant, but when it comes down to it, we’re talking about honesty, integrity, hard work, and becoming very wealthy. There’s no reason for a big corporation to shy away from this.
But if they still insist that I remove the word “Badassity” from my banner, then unfortunately we’ll have to part ways, because even that small act would be selling out the very integrity that we speak so highly of in this blog.
I felt pretty buzzed after writing that email. Was I really willing to give up all that cash over one word?
But inside, I knew the answer was “Fuck Yeah!”
Because this is really a test of what financial independence is all about. If I give them one word, what do I do when they stumble across other articles like the one called “How Much is That Bitch Costin’ Ya?”, or the fact that almost every one contains some sort of profanity? If I’m willing to make my own writing shittier just to comply to a corporate monitoring program, then why not just go right back to an office job? After all, I could also make $20,000 unneeded dollars a month as an Engineering manager, and all I have to do is sacrifice all my free time and throw around a lot of buzzwords and kiss the asses of those above me in the hiearchy!
So really, in a slightly irrational way I was hoping that Chase would not see the light and that they would indeed cancel Mr. Money Mustache from their referral program. It would make a great story of corporate cluelessness. A company shooting themselves in the foot due to the incredible bureaucracy that forces low-level people to set aside their own judgement in favor of following a bland rulebook designed to prevent dangerous creativity.
It’s much like the media and the big-business blogosphere itself. If you dare to be different from the crowd, you’ll pay the price. You won’t get the big advertisers, the big sponsorships, or the mild-mannered mainstream media feature stories.
The next day I received a short reply saying, “Chase still decided to cancel your account, since they feel you don’t fit with their brand”.
So here we are. And it feels absolutely GREAT! What could be a better use of Fuck You Money, then to actually say Fuck You (politely) in a situation where it counts so much? What better definition of the word “Badassity”, than the willingness to stand up and refuse to erase it from your own website, even in the face of mind-numbing financial consequences!?
If this blog were the only thing between my family and a homeless shelter, I’d surely be a banner-changin’, credit-card-hustlin’ fool. Just as the indebted office worker faced with an abusive manager will bow down and do the shitty work, year-in and year-out. Just as the politican without their own cash or grassroots fundraising will sell out to corporate fundraisers every time. Just as the new parent will give up time with her own newborn baby and spend 50 hours a week working and commuting to avoid losing seniority in the company.
Even in this little niche, if you look around at established personal finance blogs, you’ll find they have become credit card selling machines! I mean shit, Chase just recently introduced a “Disney” credit card. I saw it in my list and deleted it immediately, thinking “Why would anyone want some crap Disney points when they could just have cash?”. But it had a great payout, and lo and behold, the PF blogosphere is ripe with “reviews” of the new Disney card.
The world needs Fuck You Money. All of us do. You get it from lowering your expenses, saving your income, and curing your insatiable desire to always have more of everything. Once you get it, you can be freed from the idea of wanting more money when you already have enough.
This will also be a great test of my theory that honesty makes you richer in the long run. I’m tossing aside $50,000 per year in the interest of sticking to my guns. I’m willing to bet that in the long run, I’ll end up even richer by remaining honest. The best part for you as a reader is that this experiment will cost you nothing – I’ll let you know how it turns out.
* After stripping out all the Chase stuff, my credit cards page is looking a little bare these days with the exception of the $250 cards from Citi. We’ll see if we can find a less fearful company (or Chase rep) to step back up to the plate eventually. If this article ends up becoming popular and coming to their attention someday, they might feel fairly dumb for their decision.
Article: How To Start a Blog
Where to next? Check out a Random Article
|
Stay in Touch: Subscribe to posts by e-mail, RSS Feed, or follow MMM on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the Conversation: Learn from Like-Minded Mustachians in The Money Mustache Community |
Mr. Money Mustache is a family man living in the United States who retired from work, relatively wealthy, at about age 30. After several years of retirement, he noticed that his still-working peers were envious of his lifestyle. They were making more money than he ever had, yet they were somehow still broke. So he decided to write this blog to educate the world on how it is done.
You just blew Chase’s mind.
Ok, this is tough – I really don’t care for the swearing. I’m a mom with 5 kids looking over my shoulder. I can’t have them read these posts, but VERY MUCH want to! “See kids – this is how it’s done!” But I can’t because I don’t want to expose them to the language. (They have some other adults that they hear this from constantly, so it’s already something we’re working on. Don’t want our “heroes” to be an “issue.”) So…. I’d personally really LOVE it if the language disappeared. Having said that – I would have done the exact same thing you did. WHAT IS THE POINT OF BEING FINANCIALLY SET IF YOU CAN’T SAY F-OFF WHEN NEEDED?! Yes, I agree – one step of concession would simply lead to several more. As a faithful reader, I would love to see the swearing stop. (pretty please??) Nevertheless, you did the motherf*cking right thing. (kids aren’t down stairs. ha ha ha!)
Raech, it’s a good thing I wasn’t reading your comment with my kids looking over my shoulder. I mean, one word with all capital letters, I could handle, but *two in a row*, or even a *whole sentence*, now that is pretty offensive.
;~)
Lol! :-) I’ll tone it down a bit, sorry for my exuberance. Ha ha ha. Got caught up in the “moment.” (yes, silly sarcasm.)
Go MMM! And fantastic holidays!
if BADASSITY offends you, then so should being in debt.
i shall not be stripped of my badassity, dammit
you earned my trust months ago
this article reinforced my feelings
way to go!
I needed to read a post like this today to remind me I’m doing the right thing. Six months ago I changed jobs to be 5 miles from home and work much less hours since my first child is due in August.
It has gone really well so far, until yesterday someone reached out asking me to interview for a position that pays $20k more but includes a 1 hour commute versus my current 10 min driving (or 25 min biking). I said it’s intriguing but I’m not interested, and I have been second-guessing myself since then.
Time is more valuable, right?
Yeah, you definitely made the right choice there, even if money were the only factor. Adding 100 minutes to your daily commute for a piddly $20k would be a fool’s choice!
CPA should be able to figure out pretty easy if this is worthwhile or not. By my estimates that 20K will net you less than $15 per hour of commuting. Not worth it in my opinion.
Way more valuable. I have a 10-12 min driving commute, and I still look for ways to minimize that…aka, work from home to save that 20-30 min at least one day a week.
You are my hero and I wish you were my dad.
Haha.. thanks – but how old do you think Mr. Money Mustache IS, anyway?! Can’t I be your brother or something?
I think MMM is only 1 year my elder. But given how badass you have proven yourself to be vy sticking it to the man, I think you could have done it (fathered children as an infant, that is). Wow, I just really creeped myself out. I am going to go back to hiding in my lurking hole now (THIS is why I never comment).
You can’t be my brother, because that would make me the black sheep of the family… I don’t think my ego could handle that.
I think that you may have stumbled upon something here… MMM is really the worlds most interesting man!
He doesnt always drink beer, but when he does, he prefers Dos E.. uh, it would have to be a homebrew :)
Congrats on the stand, MMM, I did the same thing with one of the companies I affiliated with back when I ran a website, but didnt have quite the same consequences money wise.
You are da man. Even if I was in your shoes I don’t think I would have given it up as I could have rationalized it would be good for increasing buffer or doing something more noble with the funds. Although I think you are spot on that they or others could continue to ask you to make changes and at any moment choose for no other reason to drop it anyway.
Complete Badassity.
From reading the comments, I think this website could use an automated F-filter. Just like google tranlator: you could read the website in its original form, or if it pleased you, in F-filtered form. Different folks respond differently to the same words, sometimes just because of where they live and who they have been exposed to. If the only people you’ve heard swearing, were foaming-at-the mouth angry, and you hadn’t heard much tongue in cheek swearing, then the emotional content of the blog wouldn’t come through properly. My husband just about falls over laughing if I ever swear.
Baddassity, baddassity, baddassity! Glad you haven’t given up on your freedom of speech ;)
Thanks so much for this post, together with your other post that you linked to at “effort itself is a key part of happiness”. It’s really helped me to understand some of the decisions that I face when it comes to how I can make a living. I don’t have any ethics-type questions to deal with (having settled those long ago), but I still have questions about what kind of life I really want to lead that will cover expenses and savings. I’ve read many of your posts about making what appear to be sacrifices in order to avoid having to make worse sacrifices, but this one really hit home for me because I’ve often been tempted by the idea of easy money and wonder how I can get some of that. Clearly the answer is Fuhgeddaboudit. Okay, hard work it is.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing this article. This is such an awesome example of how fuck-off money can help a person maintain his integrity.
Damn. Just Damn. The reason all of us are cheering in the comments is because there is little bravery and integrity in this world, and seeing it is awe inspiring, which is prob more sad than anything.
Wow, I’m really impressed. Good job sticking to your guns. I don’t know if I could have done the same. Awesome!
what Chase should have done, had they been thinking instead of reacting, is engage with you to offer an affiliate card:
Chase MMM Badassity Sapphire.
I’d have traded my recently acquired Citi card (thanks for the referral, MMM) in a heartbeat to carry an official MMM Badassity Sapphire. How big a sheep am I?
MMM: You are truly a Canadian at heart still with your colourful language skills. Bunch of hosers at Chase eh?
Honestly I happy to see another speak their mind and follow their heart instead of pocketbook.
Also something to note is that more than a few countries out there allow for business to add an extra transaction charge for those using credit cards. I see nothing wrong with it honestly, a lot of big ticket items that people use credit cards are very low profit margins and 1.5 to 3% credit card fee really eats at the bottom line.
Holy integrity, Batman!
I did sign up for ING and bought some tools through another site mentioned here. Hopefully others will do the same to make up the revenue shortfall and keep the cash flowing to this unique site.
If it’s any consolation to the MMM family, I just tapped the Chase corporation for another $1500 in free travel rewards; just doing my part to starve the great vampire squid.
I LOVE how not ALL of the references to their cards have gone away. They say “bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.” I disagree, and will help badmouth them with you all you want!
If integrity and freedom is what you want, why not take off all ads and remove all the credit card offers? After all, aren’t you against credit cards anyway? Let’s face it… The blog is a business.
Thumbs Down to this complainy pants post. You obviously miss the point of the blog and the post.
This blog is about helping people see the light of financial freedom. It just happens to earn money by helping people. :)
Tanner’s right – I have no problem earning money and I do it almost every day. I just don’t compromise in areas that are important to me to do it. So on this blog, I only run affiliate links for stuff I actually use and like myself.
Against credit cards!? Of course not – they’re useful, convenient, give a wise user hundreds of dollars of cash back per year and I’ve never paid a dime of interest on them! I’m definitely against anyone ever running a balance on one of those things, but that’s a different issue, addressed in many parts of this blog.
Also, not only will all the proceeds of this blog go to charity, but hopefully over 90% of everything I ever earn in my LIFE will go to charity. That’s an incentive for me to earn as much as possible and compound it as well as I can.
You’re more authentic and honest than Chase will ever be.
Thanks for keeping it real!
Math teacher,
MMM has been completely transparent with his attempts to monetize this blog, and why he has done so. It most certainly is not “a business.”
Everything that MMM recommends offers a real value to his readers, so what does it matter if he gets a cut of it? I like that I can purchase something through an affiliate link of his, because it is a small way for me to pay him back for the priceless knowledge and inspiration he is offering.
Also, the credit cards he recommends actually offer his readers ways to profit, which, from my understanding is the reason he promotes them in the first place. So, before you write off the blog as nothing more than a business, take the time to really figure out what he’s doing. I bet you come to a different conclusion.
Tony,
I’ve been reading the blog over the last year so I’m well aware of MMM’s POV. It just seems odd to come out pounding one’s chest about integrity and not selling out and go half way. If you don’t need/want the money from the blog DON’T monetize it at all. Just watch… soon enough there will be a MMM book, book tour, lectures, etc. It really is a business since MMM’s POV is to look at everything as a business.
Math Teacher,
I didn’t know you had been a long time reader, so I apologize for making the assumption.
From your comments, It seems that you find the idea of having a business, and having integrity as being mutually exclusive. Maybe I’m reading into your comment a bit too much. Yes that must be it, because surely you don’t think business in and of itself is an evil thing.
So, lets go ahead and agree that yes, this is a business. He has been totally upfront about monetizing, and what amount of bullshit he is willing to accept to monetize. Chase’s bullshit was more than he was willing to tolerate, so he said “nope, I don’t need your money.” That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still want some people’s money. He is just unwilling to sacrifice the values that he has defined for himself. That, good sir, is integrity.
We can call it integrity in business if you like. But either way, I’m damn impressed by the act. I also don’t consider it chest pounding. I think it was meant as a teaching point to show people what is possible by taking control of their financial lives. It goes so far beyond not having to work for a living. It means you don’t have to compromise. Ever.
Tony,
Absolutely there is NOTHING wrong with running a business. I run a business that has VERY high integrity. They are not exclusive. MMM has high integrity too — he spends time, effort, etc to run this blog and he should make money off it. I just have an issue with the fact that he says he doesn’t need/want the money but will still hock bikes, credit cards, etc on the site. MAN UP MMM— if you don’t want the money, either donate all the proceeds of the blog to charity or turn off the affiliate stuff. If you do want the money that’s fine too but just be clear with the readers.
Dude. Seriously? Seems to me someone has their jealous-pants over top of their complainy-pants today.
If you were financially independent and continued to work at your job, would you expect them to pay you?
If your buddy told you about a sale on something that you had been looking to buy, would you punch him in the face?
If someone recommended a way for you to make $400 by simply filling out a form, would you call him a sell-out?
FUCK NO. You’d call him a bad-ass.
Honest to God bro I think you’re nuts. You should just give up the banner imho
It’s the principal of the matter, Saving “FUCK YOU” to the banks. Power in it’s Truest Expression!
There is nothing $4000 per month adds to MMM overall happiness. So really, by taking the money and giving up the banner, he is giving something for nothing. Bad deal for MMM.
You’re missing the point. As Triple M said it could grow to more than just a banner. Chase could simply send an email telling him to remove paragraphs or even entire posts because they don’t like the language or even the topic. Triple M is avoiding Chase lording over his blog. This is his blog, not Chase’s.
That sir, is why he kept the banner.
Before you all go calling Chase evil fuckers, remember this…
Just as MMM is saying F you to Chase, Chase has the right to say F you to MMM. It’s their brand, and they can protect it however they like. In this case, I think they are being a bit ridiculous if they truly believe their brand could be damaged by the word “badassity”. The more likely story is that the high amount of referral revenue caught their eye, they started reading the content, and realized that they were losing $50k annually on referrals to MMM in addition to $200k in cashback bonuses to MMM readers because you are all a bunch of people in the financial know. If they read the content, they’d also know that MMM wouldn’t censor himself just to keep working with them (vs. terminating a strong affiliate for no reason). If that’s the case, can you blame them?
In the end:
1. Chase is smart for not losing more money.
2. MMM gets a cool opportunity to flex his independence muscle.
3. Readers should be complemented that they were eating into Chase’s profit margin.
Either way Chase would find any reason to never pay MMM!
Agree 100% G.E.
I’ve got a different theory than G.E. I don’t think big credit card companies are that clever in their low-level operations.
I bet they have a cautious and inefficient legal/marketing department that tries to keep them out of trouble from the literally hundreds of thousands of blogs and websites that are serving up Chase referral ads. They don’t want to get the wrong image in a generally socially conservative populace, so they try to stick to very clean and tame marketing platforms – that’s where the money is.
I happen to know a Chase branch manager here in my city. He told me that high-income/high-credit-score people like MMM readers are actually really good targets for the bank, despite never paying interest on credit cards. They spend a lot (generating merchant fees), open bank and investment accounts, never default on their loans, and are generally low-maintenance on a revenue-adjusted basis. This is another reason I’d doubt that MMM got dumped based on low-revenue customers.
So while I don’t feel they acted unethically in any way when they dumped this blog, I think they acted dorkily. Some junior-level person saw a superficial problem – swearing, and lacked the authority to evaluate it at a higher level. That’s the kind of corporate clunkiness I need to steer clear of if I want to run a blog that can speak freely, which is why I felt fine about not complying and losing the income.
You know that is quite likely, but if their principles are not to offend people in order to make more money, I think that’s ok.
I work for a large company with a very active department to prevent image issues, and we escalate for customer experience vs. perceived offense all the time. Perhaps I assume too much about other companies (or even other departments in this company).
Quite possible.
Another theory: affiliate manager saw the content and thought: “shit, if it gets back to an exec that I let our ads show on a site with profanity, it’s going to be on me”. Chase is probably as bureaucratic as they come, after all. That affiliate manager, while saving his/her job by cancelling the relationship, probably died a little inside, and then subscribed to MMM b/c they realized they need to get the F outta town.
I love your latest theory, GE – let’s go with it. (And welcome, all Chase employees!)
Well said, theres always two sides and its good to get a peek at the other one.
Badassity personified !
They are just using profanities as an excuse to dump you. They are banks, they would sleep with bad mouthed cannibal vampires if that was making them money.
They don’t like the content as it shows people hot to take advantage of them for once.
MMM,
You are a True Founding Father for this and future generations to come! Teach well, remain honest and courageous, and millions will follow your amazing lead to better lives! Thanks you for you BADASSITY!
Awesome article, your inability to sell out just reaffirms why I read your blog…the only one I read.
On another note to the other readers, I have been a Software Engineering manager before and Mustache’s description is 100% true…sit around throwing buzzwords around and give off the perception you are working hard and accomplishing things.
oo, chase just took a punch in the face!
Does this mean MMM that will consider joining us in the camp who believe in never using credit cards at all for anything?
This post made me happy.
Financial Freedom Through Badassity; Badassity Through Integrity and Profanity.
Enjoy your vacation.
Damn, MMM. You are one bad ass mother fucker.
First off, congratulations on having a lot of integrity. It warms my heart to read stories about people standing up for what is right.
Secondly, even though you had good intentions, credit card companies are slimy predatory userers. They are part an axis of companies that are basically legalized mafia with the government as their enforcement wing. In order to create an egalitarian society where love and creative acts drive interpersonal relations we need to strike deep into the hearts of these immoral machines, people need to:
cancel their credit cards
move their money to credit unions
use debit cards
create low interest or no interest public borrowing pools
institute community medicine practices
incorporate live and let live cities and counties in undeveloped or semi-incorporated areas.
and many more things than I could list here…
We need to unequivocally destroy corporations that exist to generate profit or transfer wealth rather than contribute something of beauty to the world, using the weapon of financial warfare. Steve Jobs was one of the greatest CEOs of all time because he recognized that the profit motivation was a sickness, and instead he focused on creating works of art.
Do not buy their products
Do not mention them by name (which they can change or spin) but instead attack their corrupt industry
Describe their malicious ways to everyone who will listen to you for more than five seconds
Socially ostracize people who work for them (just make sure they know why they are on the outside)
Promote healthy, sane alternatives at every opportunity
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
GO YOU! Epic story, this is the reason I read this blog. Someone has to say fuck you to the money and its awesome to read about you saying it, we can all do well by following such principles, everything we put online these days should fit with our principles – too often we chase money we do not even need!
This is why you are the man. Luck plus talent plus you being the man is going to make you rich. Again. :)
The issue I have with it is that for all the corporations I have worked in the managers, directors, executive level leaders would swear all the time especially in smaller meetings. My last Director would call people *ssholes and tell them their work was Sh*t. I mean I am sure not all corporate america is like that but I am sure chase has their share of leaders who would probably have to be fired since they weren’t “sharing” the company image.
It’s the two-face of Corporations that rubs me the wrong way. Where they give lip service to morals and employees but their actions tell us that what they really care about is extra $$ for their shareholders at the expense of their morals, standards, employees, and clients/customers.
Wow. You won’t change one word on your blog for $50,000 … and that number could double or triple as your readership increases? Wow. Who knew that selling credit cards paid so well?
Here’s an idea for you to make some income. Have you considered selling your house every two years? A married couple can keep $500,000 profit every two years … tax free. Buy a house. Renovate. Sell. Repeat every two years.
That was a fantastic way to make lots of money a few years ago.
Not so sure now. My wife is retiring and she’s going to get her broker’s license. I’d love to get back into RE–my wife could buy and sell the property and I could fix it up.
It’s a truly beautiful f-in’ thing to see MMM turn down the easy money and take a stand for his freedom of expression. Principles and ethics still matter.
Keep kickin’ ass, brother!
MMM: This is beyond FUCKING awesome. (I learned to swear on my mother’s lap, and I won’t be stopping anytime soon).
We need an occasional hero or at least one stand up guy/gal now and then to shore up our faith in humanity.
So anyway Dude, can I interest you in running for president?
There won’t be much competition going on :)
People will be stupid enough to vote for someone else :(
You will be so proud when little MM drops the F-Bomb for the first time!
Only if he uses it well.
Obviously, since he’s over six he has more than a passing familiarity with the beginner swear words already. The key is to encourage skilled swearing. Don’t direct the words at people, use them in the wrong company, or overuse them to the point of uselessness. But in general, believe it or not, we think swearing is not a bad thing – I don’t apply age discrimination in the area of language selection.
On a subjective note, I have had credit cards with half a dozen banks and companies over the years, and none have treated me as poorly as Chase.
Once I was a less-savvy college student. Though never late on a payment, Chase jacked my interest rate to 29.99% because I missed a $5 payment on an Old Navy card whose first bill got sent to the wrong address. That practice is now illegal, but they proceeded to always take the low road when I called them. Bank of America, ING and Wells Fargo have all been far more respectful and willing to help during hard times, though (as I said) I always pay on time. The sweetest day of my life was closing my two accounts with Chase and never looking back.
Of course, I never should have carried a balance in the first place. Now, though, I have far more disposable income, a BoA Cash Rewards card that has paid back a lot, and if I ever do use credit again, it will not be with Chase.
I know it’s a bit irrelevant, but on both a kudos/respect and personal level, I say, “ROCK ON, MMM.”
From a Baby, but Growing, Mustache
Chase? Bad risk control is more like it. Badassity would have saved them a few billions in their trading perhaps?
Props for integrity! I would’ve compromised with “naughtybuttery” and enjoyed that sweet moolah… probably why you’re FI and lovin’ it and I’m a wage-slave in medicine reading “don’t jump” books :(
People should always skip to the latest comments, because there is distillation. It is the modern equivalent of efficiency, relying on others with patience and emotion. The world is drowning in raw data, and none of it sufficiently interesting. I’m sorry to say that I scrolled through most of the responses, because, let’s admit it, most of all of this commenting is popcorn – crunchy air that doesn’t stick when we think about it later. Good luck MMM, but your 4000 claim is a little hollow since it was like just for a month or two that you were making all this ‘integrity’ cash. Maybe, as a true mustachian, you could receive this new, excessive hose of cash and try to put out the fires of poverty or depravity as only someone like we could – that is my new aim in life. But you pass on what I can only imagine Chase would call a tiny leak in their monumental cashflow, and claim imperviousness – it’s not quite ‘badassity’ in my book, it’s a little too….
After reading most of the comments, I had a thought. MMM could have stopped the swearing for a lttile while anyways and become a philanthropist where he donated all the Chase money to all the starving children right in U.S.A.
But where do you draw the line? First they ask you to get rid of badassity, then they tell you to get rid of all the swearing in past and future articles, then they might not like that you’re mentioning a competing card and maybe they even start asking you to push a particular credit card… who knows where it might go? It’s a slippery slope.
There are other ways to make money and help people.
Neat idea Pachipres – I might have done that if I believed it was the way I could do the most good in the long run. But as the article points out at the end, I have a theory that taking this alternate path will lead to unpredictable good outcomes that let me earn and give more money over time. Get Rich With Honesty.
Here’s an example: because it was unusual, this article itself became a bit of a viral spreading thing, and has already been viewed by at least 20,000 new people that had never seen the blog before. I can see that many of them are sticking around to read more. If the act of not selling out helps me earn more readers permanently (and maybe even a faster growth rate), the value created could easily be much more than $4000/month. Plus, if being more honest helps me meet more people, who I can later team up with to do even bigger things, we could multiply that further.
Side note: While starving children anywhere are an emergency, in general I’d probably follow the model of Gates/Buffett and the book “The life you can save” and do a big part of the donating towards the poorest countries in the world with less emphasis on the US. But I haven’t finished the research yet, which is why I haven’t done much foreign donation yet.
This is why I read every article you write. You cut through the bullshit and get directly to the heart of the matter. Selling out is a slippery slope and more importantly, being financially secure will grant more happiness than a new TV ever will.
Rock on MMM!
I originally read this post and was kind of put off the blog. I couldn’t grasp not taking free money…
3 days later and I’m only through to Februarys updates.
Great work on the blog, but please refrain from posting for a few days, so I can get fully up to speed.
Good move sir!
My favorite part was “A company shooting themselves in the foot due to the incredible bureaucracy that forces low-level people to set aside their own judgement in favor of following a bland rulebook designed to prevent dangerous creativity.”
Thanks Joe! .. although when you point it out like that, that’s a pretty damned long sentence I crafted there. It was late at night :-)
To clarify, we haven’t had a chance to look at the web site much since this article was posted, as we left on our summer trip.
MMM and I are happy to recommend products/services that do not pay us commissions. After all, we recommend the library, products on Amazon.com (no commissions available in Colorado), Vanguard and tons of other stuff that does not pay us at all.
As MMM has mentioned many times, if the product happens to have a commission link, then he’ll make sure to use it. We don’t choose to recommend something just because it has a commission link.
So, if it turns out that the Chase card is still the best deal/value for you guys, MMM will add it back in. The link was automatically removed by Chase when our account was deactivated. We haven’t had time to fix or change anything since this article was published.
Thanks for all the great comments, by the way – they were an entertaining read!! :)
Hope your house is okay with these fires–and you’re safely away on vacation–please let your loving readers know all is well?
MMM, I think I love you.
Fuck yeah! I applaud you for STICKING IT to the man! The world needs more Mr. Money Mustaches. :)
Hi Mr. MM,
I saw that you had a backfile of potential topics and one of them was fasting – do you think you could cover that in the near future? Thank you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCYbZZTEwiM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
MMM. Crank this and dance with Mrs. MMM.
You are my hero.
Brotherbryan
Reading this article just made me love this blog 10x more than I already do!
*slow clap*
Just fyi for anyone worried about profanity – get Google Chrome and download the simple profanity filter extension and *poof* no more profanity when you read.
It’s my first time here (came through Couple Money) and I am impressed. You have integrity and I’m proud of you!
Fucking Bravo, MMM! Rock on!
THATS why I love reading this blog. If that doesnt prove why we all need FU money, I dont know what would. If you ever come into Edmonton, email me. I’d love to pick your brain to improve my standing, and I’d buy you a beer for sure!
Triple M, you’re my hero.
Could you make a mirror site (edited) and send that money to a charity? Like me?
…..Or they pulled the plug on you,and being the clever hairy lip that you are, put a nice spin on it for an extraordinary blog post….
Love your post, MMM!
I just checked Wisebread PF blog list, and you have moved up to number 79, +10 spots this week. You’re gaining traction!
There are things I love to do, that cost a good amount of money. Travel and cruises for example. Never seems to get old for me, but I don’t do them every month, more like twice a year. As long as the enjoyment factor of each is at the lefthand side of the happiness curve you graphed, they are WORTH it to me!
Can’t stop thinking about this post. What if you changed it to bada$$ity?
Kinda fits the theme of the blog and might placate the legions of poo. I just can’t get by unplugging an ATM if there is a third way to be found. Little MM may appreciate the college fund.
If ever you writea a MMM book, please call it “Fuck You Money”. I can’t think of a better fitting name!
It’s all a question of whether a given business is for-profit or not-for-profit. While the latter may have other considerations and values (e.g., freedom of speech), the former’s meaning of life is, with utter singleness of purpose, nothing but profit maximization. Profanity has rarely been a hindrance to profit, so in this case, FlexOffers are the ones who failed to act in their shareholder’s best interest, which they are legally required to do.
Wow! I had no idea that your blog was so huge!
Loved this post. The integrity mixed in with the badassity. AS a fellow pf blogger I don’t know if I would’ve had the gonads to give up for 4K of easy money. Then again credit cards have never really worked for me so Kudos to you buddy.
$20,000 per month as an engineering manager? I feel I get paid pretty well as a “normal” engineer, but much much less than that.
Probably some industries/places, but that seems like a lot of cash from where I’m standing.
You’re right, that IS a ton of money in my book. I was assuming a pretty high (Director) position with a big company in Silicon Valley.
Many Engineers are making that type of money even in the midwest. I make $185k in the midwest working as a Reliability Manager. Certain skill sets seem to tip the scale.
Hi,
First of all, I admire that you’ve stood up for your principles. Good job!
However, you might want to consider a compromise that lets you say what you want without interference and their desire not to have their product sold by a website full of cursing.
You could set up another website whose sole purpose is to allow your readers to sign up for this product. This website puts in a link to the other website.
You get the income stream.
The company gets the sales.
You say what you want on this blog with no one but its readers the wiser.
They have their “delicate sensibilities” unsullied by swear words.
And we all get to laugh at you sticking it to the man for $4000 a month.
Just a thought…
Just stumbled onto your blog and this article. I now have new respect for you (someone I’ve never known) AND for Chase. Refreshing to see it played out the way it did. Two parties able to stick to their guns to prove a point.
Appreciate what you’re doing, and just learning about blogging myself. I particularly liked the Fuck You Money portion of the post above, which is what I referenced in my posting today, in a discussion of what Wealth means. I thought you’d appreciate it:
http://www.bankers-anonymous.com/blog/what-is-wealthy/
So, now that you’ve removed “badassity from your top banner, will you get the $4,000 a month back?
Hi Kim,
Badassity is still there – look at the coin.
Regardless, the arrangement we had with chase was an affiliate agreement. They have removed us from their affiliate program and so far have not indicated that they want us back. :)