Anyone use Mr. Money Mustache?

Question

Frank Jiang · Answer

My favorites are:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shoc...

- Describes required working time as a function of how much of your income you save.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/12/18/your-mon...

- Describes how to calculate all purchases you make in units of hours of your life instead of dollars.  Since your life is infinitely valuable to yourself, it puts your purchases in unique perspective.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/11/11/are-you-...

- Describes how to overcome 'temporal discounting' (stealing from your future self for present day happiness).

Lacee Beitler · Answer

thanks everyone!!

@Scott Trench - I started looking at his early posts, I definitely have enough to read through, but it's good to know he still posts!

@Joshua Martin - I hear ya on not biking everywhere. Would make my daycare drop off and pick up pretty interesting :) and best of luck on retiring in 10! I think I'll hold you to that! So will @Dave Carpenter :)

@Frank Jiang - thanks for taking he time to pull those links. Going to look at them today!

@Trevor Ewen - thanks for the article! Great read. Some of the stuff MMM does seems a little extreme, but I'm open to try anything!

Justin Young · Answer

MMM is extremely frugal. Like if you looked up the word frugal, his face should be planted in the definition. He runs a very informative blog but his forum is where the real money comes in for him. He rarely writes articles anymore because his forums are always active.

I would suggest you check out other blogs like Budgets are Sexy. J Money doesn't pretend he knows anything specific about finances but he brings a lot of humor into his articles. Very entertaining. He also runs a site called "Rockstar Finance" that allocates many interesting financial articles to one area. Definitely check that out when you have a chance.

Brian Lacey · Answer

and in regards to the extremes of MMM.

I do agree with a lot saying it's a bit much such as the biking.

But that's the MMM approach, taking things to their logical conclusion.

e.g. My car is empty 90% of the time. The other 9% I'm in it alone. Do I need a car then?

It's an acquired taste, but I like it. If nothing else, it's different and that is refreshing in a world of copy and paste.

Brian Lacey · Answer

I love MMM.

He doesn't make it too clear except early on, him and his wife are both very successful ever before the blog. Him in IT, and her as a realtor.

I love all of his posts. He got me onto LendingClub.

He's a big proponent of common sense.

- This is clear with as @Bryan Hancock referenced the Bogle-style indexing (Vanguard). Which is sometimes referenced by @Brandon Turner on podcasts in terms of ROI and anything less than say 5% "I could get that in the stock market" type mentions.

MMM is really a financial lifestyle blog.

I would referenced them for just about anything from traveling, credit card comparisons, investing, but not too much on active investing. Which is pretty much contrarian to the MMM lifestyle of purely passive investing.

He does use time as currency for a lot of DIY. Which is contrarian to a lot of other successful investors who believe time is your #1 currency. i.e. Why spend the time doing it, when you can pay someone else back? You'll get your money back down the road, but you won't get the time.

All in all, love MMM. Truly one of the great resources out there because of its well-rounded lifestyle application of commonsense.

Bryan Hancock · Answer

I have over 500 posts on the forum and have read many of the posts.  The forum and his philosophy emphasizes being a minimalist to "optimize" the time to be able to retire early.  To a degree this is good advice, but I feel like it is taken to illogical extremes and people would be better-served by investing an equal or greater amount of time learning to grow their income instead.  Overall the MMM forums are extremely educated and there are extremely intelligent people on them.  I feel like their approach minimizes ambition though and discourages people from starting their own business at the expense of using Bogle-style indexing.  If your goal is to free yourself from a W2 as quickly as possible the MMM approach is a very good one.  If your goal is to continue growing a business post W2 and increase your standard of living over time the MMM approach won't work.

It really all boils down to your goals.  I think many on BP would benefit a great deal from spending time on the MMM forums.

Trevor Ewen · Answer

@Lacee Beitler

Mustache is one of the original early-retirement writers who really took his experience online. The community has many more voices these days, but I still love his timeless approach.

Mustache is a definite minimalist and very focused on the extreme end of early retirement. Here is a great New Yorker piece on him:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/mr-money-mustache-the-frugal-guru

Dave Carpenter · Answer

@Joshua Martin now its out in the world. the BP community will make sure you are retired in 10 years!

Scott Trench · Answer

I've followed MMM for years! Love his blog. I like to think of my own approach to money as combining Mustachianism with BiggerPockets. I live super frugally, and also house-hack my way to vastly expedited passive income DIY stye. After three years or so, I've got a 2nd duplex to house-hack, and am working on properties 3 and 4 to come late this year, early next year.

He's slowed down with the frequency of his posts in the last year or so, but you should be able to get a ton of good information working your way through the early posts. The few he comes out with nowadays are also excellent.

Joshua Martin · Answer

Money Mustache is the man, but I can't consider myself a true 'mustachian' because I don't ride a bike everywhere (for crying out loud). That said, MMM, the MadFientist podcast, getrichslowly.com, and earlyretirementextreme.com have all revolutionized my views on money and what I do with every dollar. Like @Scott Trench, I'm combining the frugality of the early retirement community with the wealth building power of real estate.

And I plan to retire in 10 years ;) Seriously, I'm going to make it happen.

Best of luck,

And luck up 'the surprisingly simple math of early retirement' on MMM. Also listen to the mad fientist, he might be my favorite.

JTM

Anyone use Mr. Money Mustache?

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