Mar 19, 2012
Many new readers have been asking me for car advice recently, and there have also been some useful discussions on the matter in the Money Mustache Forum. I find myself typing out the same list of recommendations over and over again, so I thought the best strategy would be to dig in, do some up-to-date…
Mustachians are a tech-savvy bunch. From what I’ve heard, engineers and other professionals are way over-represented in the audience compared to the general population. We may think we’re pretty smart, but we are actually some of the biggest suckers out there when it comes to the unfortunate condition known as gadget addiction. I’m right there…
I’ve noticed a trend among financial bloggers recently. People have started playing around with high-reward credit cards for fun and profit. Signing up for them in bulk, scooping the signing bonuses, strategically using the good ones, and cancelling the duds. Now, I’m no novice to the idea of a cash back credit card: I used…
After the latest progress report on the Foreclosure Project, several people were inspired and wrote to me with this question: I’ve always wanted to be able to do more of my own projects around the house, but I don’t even know what tools I would need to get started. Where can I get this information?…
As anyone who has read more than a few MMM articles has learned, the key to becoming rich is living an efficient lifestyle. When it comes to your choice of car, this means making sure you choose one that is optimized for whatever you will use it for the most. While this sounds self-evident, it is…
When you hear people talking about their cars, you usually hear ridiculous terms like “dealer”, “interest rate”, and “payment”. Mr. Money Mustache has already laid down the law on this issue in the past: You should never even spend all your money on a car, let alone more than all your money. So why does everyone…
MMM-MMM!! I sure hope your Thanksgiving dinner was as delicious as mine. You can see my plate right over there for comparison. Well, to be honest, that was just my first of several plates of deliciousness. Great food, great times with family, and… a trip out to the shopping mall the next day or even in…
While we were all sitting around anticipating the upcoming closing on the bank-owned house down the street, a comment came in on that first article in the series. A guy named Joe told us this: “This house is cash flow negative with 100% financing (and the many issues you are ignoring like maintenance/repairs, vacancy,…
You and I are about to embark upon an adventure together over the next few months! Have you ever wondered what is involved in buying a bank-owned home at a massive discount, renovating it back into nice condition, and then selling or renting it out at a highly profitable rate? Well, a friend and I…
(note: this is a dated article that referred to a sale so the links stopped working. I updated them in April 2012, but they’ll surely change again someday) Hello there. I don’t really have an article for you today, but I stumbled across an interesting-looking sale at one of my preferred bike stores, Nashbar.com. They’ve…
Ahh, Building Things. It’s a hobby I have talked about many times before, but a recent experience has completed the transformation of carpentry from “enjoyable pastime” all the way up to “Lifetime Religion” for me – something that deserves its own article and its own place on the bookshelf of Top Ways to Be a…
Look at this amazing picture I covertly took on a walk through my neighborhood just this past weekend. It reminded me that it’s time to talk about cars again, because I love them, and because almost everyone is wasting way, way too much money on their cars. The average person’s car transportation costs ALONE ($8,000…
Even in the most carefully run and financially independent of lives, there will be some wrenching twists and turns. Friendships and businesses will fail. You or your loved ones will get sick and some of them will die. Kids will have plenty of trouble on their long road to adulthood – if they even make…
In early April of 2011, I started a blog. Although I secretly hoped that lots of people would end up reading it, it was partly just a form of personal therapy – a place where I fight back against a world that had obviously lost its mind, by sharing some financial and living advice that…
The highest form of payment you get for writing a blog like this is happy stories from readers. Although all this Sensible Living stuff becomes obvious after a while, there are still new people showing up every day with all sorts of monetary problems. The full-on crazy life with the double-financed-SUV-ultracommuting, insurmountable debt, and deteriorating…
Quite accidentally, it looks like we timed our last talk about the stock market pretty darned well. Back in February 2025, the market put the perfect cap on a multi year climb before stepping onto the wild roller coaster we’re currently riding. Since then it has seen some of the steepest drops and recoveries in…
