Jul 13, 2016
If you’re going to become rich, you need to either earn way more money than you spend, or spend way less money than you earn. This is the basic math of it, which even the worst complainypants cannot dispute. The whining usually starts when Mr. Money Mustache starts talking about how to implement the ideas above.…
The great thing about this unusual lifestyle you and I lead is that it automatically reinforces and rebuilds itself from all directions. Although Mustachianism is built on the idea of embracing hardship, it becomes so automatic that it is soon the only way you could imagine living. Because of this amazing tendency, it is often…
By this point in our conversation, it should be pretty obvious that Badassity is a trait to be treasured and cultivated. Although it is only a fabricated word, the underlying meaning of bold determination and persistence in the face of difficulty is one of the most real and useful tools in the mixed bag of attributes they…
Despite the fact that I am Mr. Money Mustache, I now realize I have led quite a wimpy and pampered life when it comes to the area of food. As a young child, I was reportedly one of the pickiest eaters in history, refusing to try anything that wasn’t prepared at home, in exactly the…
“I used to read Mr. Money Mustache”, some people say these days, “Until he got all rich and fancy so that he no longer understands the common person’s plight. Stash probably doesn’t even practice any of these money-saving things he preaches any more!” When I read things like this, I can’t help but laugh. Because…
Have you ever noticed that as a whole, our society has its daily habits almost completely backwards? We’re generally so “busy” that we don’t have time to get much exercise. And then we spend countless sedentary hours sitting in our cars each week because we think that car driving saves us time. To fuel our…
So here we are just a month later, in a full-blown economic panic, and at the start of the most sudden recession ever. The pandemic has spread much further and faster than most uninformed people (including me) would have ever guessed, and the whole world is on some form of lockdown. Nothing quite like this…
“Dear Mr. Money Mustache… I’d like to retire soon. I’ve had a good career and the numbers say I’m just over the threshold, but I’m still afraid. It would help if I had a solid plan for what to do after retirement – perhaps even make some money eventually. Because I think it would help…
Kicking Ass with Money is much like healthy eating and joyful living. It’s a series of daily habits that get you ahead, rather than a one-time heroic effort that fixes all your problems so you can go back to whatever you were doing before. Because of this parallel, the subject of food is one of the…
A Note from the Future: This article was first published in June 2017, and at the time of course we had no idea when the next recession would be. Some doomsday types thought it was imminent, and others thought the boom was just getting started. In retrospect, the correct answer turned out to be “33…
It has been a quiet year here at Mr. Money Mustache, and for good reason. It seems like a lifetime since my life has been normal. Even as I write this, I’m thousands of miles from home in Northern British Columbia, closer to the Arctic Circle than I am to the sunny, peaceful bike and beertopia…
As I wrote that last article on making sure your life isn’t too busy, a nagging thought kept coming up in my mind. It went something like this: “Sure, Mustache – you’ve found great value in simplifying your own life. But you’re kind of known for being the Anti-Commitment guy. You get uneasy if somebody tries…
If you set aside your fancy adult concerns for just a moment and think deeply, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this entire world is really just a giant zoo. It is a giant zoo packed with silly animals, and we’re just the one who takes itself most seriously. Every speck of life exists simply to…
If you ask a modern member of today’s American Elite to review Mr. Money Mustache’s childhood and educational history, the report would probably come back dripping with sympathy and disdain. I went to public school (the only school, really), in a lower-middle income small town. I didn’t join many extracurricular activities or attend any private…
One of the biggest causes of my optimism for humanity’s future is something I call the Rise of the Benevolent Billionaire Nerds. See, in the olden days, it seems that the people who rose to great power were the most aggressive ones. Warlords and Imperialists. Then the steel and railroad titans, the Mafia, and more…
In my half of the Earth, we’ve recently drifted past the Winter Solstice – the shortest, darkest, day of the year and usually one of the coldest too. Some might consider this a depressing time, but for me it is cause for optimism. After all, if life is already this great right now, can you…
