Jan 27, 2020
These days, I do a fair amount of informal financial coaching for both old friends and newer acquaintances. It’s a pretty amazing experience, almost as if I were a real doctor – people let down their guard and talk about the details of their financial lives, without the usual hangups and secrecy that tend to…
Well, I might as well come clean on our spending for last year. It either went up, or way up, depending on how you want to account for things. Every year, this annual report seems to come out a little bit later – mostly because I’m no longer all that interested in how much money we…
Luxury, luxury, luxury. What a strange and grand country this is, where the necessities are virtually free, so we end up spending most of our income on optional luxuries in the quest for ever-fancier pants. The Money Mustache family is no exception, and 2013 was another tight navigation along the border between “Enough” and “Too Much”.…
Wow, has it been a year already? Every year, the Money Mustache family is forced to drop its drawers and reveal everything we spent money on, in as much detail as possible, to you the readers. It’s a fine annual tradition that is meant to set the stage for both learning and friendly competition. If…
Once a year the rubber really meets the road for the Money Mustache Family, when we have to add up the entire amount we spent on everything, and reveal it to you the readers for comparison and scorn. Last year’s Exposé had us spending a fair amount, but with bold predictions of grand reductions in…
Mr. Money Mustache is a bit of a Natural Frugalist. For me, buying anything beyond groceries is like giving birth, where there is great thought, planning, and nine months of physical stretching and pain involved before the actual wallet emerges slowly from the pocket. Because of this, I find that I spend very little when…
Almost nineteen years into early retirement now, I’ve come to realize that the complete freedom of this lifestyle can be a double-edged sword. You’ve already heard me raving plenty about the upside: having the freedom to raise a son from the day he was born to beyond his eighteenth birthday with no compromises. And then…
Here’s a little quiz: Suppose you are living an extremely happy life – all your material needs and wants are met, and there is still money to spare. Then suddenly, you get even more money. Do you: For many people, this might seem like a trick question. After all, needs are cheap but how…
I generally keep this place pretty well disguised as an Early Retirement Financial Blog, but secretly it is a Life Improvement Blog. The glitzy monetary veneer allows me to get lots of media attention and scoop in readers, because everybody wants to read about money, and everybody wants more of it. “Meet the man who…
Here in the MMM family household, we live a lifestyle that could be considered unrecognizably oddball, or classically familiar depending on who you ask. Although the fairly well-appointed house in an expensive area probably does a good job at reassuring certain neighbors that we fit in, our lives are pretty different. We spend most of our time…
This is kind of a special moment for me. Since the year 2007, which is eight years ago or 20 percent of my time alive on this Earth, I have been stuck with a less-than-ideal real estate situation. And it is just about to be resolved with the happy CHA-CHING! of a cash register. To…
Mr. Money Mustache can tend to get a little high-level at times, talking about all these feelings and philosophies that underlie the proper path to wealth. But you can’t just smile your way to the top – there are real numbers at work in the background, whether you understand them or not. These can gang up and…
I’ve decided to grant myself the rest of the year off. But don’t worry, I’m extending the same privilege to YOU as well. As those of us in the North endure the coldest and darkest days of the year, everything seems to shut down. Some of this is a good thing – the holiday season…
With over 500 articles published as of 2020 and still going, this has become a huge blog. But some people allege that it’s a good one, and thus they want to read as many of those posts as they can. In the olden days, that meant going to the first post, and reading and navigating…
Well, I’m almost done rebuilding that house I have been working on since last fall. There was a big push through the electrical and insulation stages, and then I happily handed the place off to Agustin and his crew for drywall*, which is now in its final days as well. Insulation was a big step…
I’m pretty sure we’re all being scammed. I have been collecting evidence on this for over 15 years now, and it’s starting to look pretty compelling. If you’re skeptical, see what you think of these stories: Happily Oblivious In my own life, I’ve rarely had much occasion to think about cleaning. Sure, if a surface…
