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Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#71

Post by jacquesm »

arethuza wrote: post #61
jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a pretty healthy attitude to debt and in plenty of countries that are less consumption oriented he would be pretty normal. I know lots of mustachians here in Europe who most likely have never ever heard of him.

Actually, that's a good point - I've known quite a few people who lived carefully off of investments/property. Fairly common in some (usually rather posh) circles in the UK.

When I sold ww.com the first thing I did was pay taxes (rather a lot), the second to dump the remainder into property to rent out. It doesn't bring a whole lot but far more than the bank or even index funds would bring, and that's at friendly rates rather than market rates.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#72

Post by imgabe »

dsacco wrote: post #4

Something I’m curious about regarding Mr. Money Mustache - is he actually retired, in the sense that he doesn’t do anything to bring in income (except through passive index investing)? It seems like he has a brand that is pretty lucrative, so it’s unclear to me if he: 1. has enough money to be functionally retired at his current lifestyle, but chooses to continue his brand anyway, 2. has enough money to be functional…

He's functionally retired. He was living off income from his investments before he started the blog.

The blog happened to take off and bring a windfall of money that allowed him to make some purchases he might not have otherwise made, but he posts his budget every year and it's pretty clear he could easily live off only his investment income, and does for the most part. He also gave a six-figure amount away to charity last year.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#73

Post by nilkn »

hammock wrote: post #46
joeax wrote: post #19

I've been reading his blog for a few years, and he does some have some insightful advice on shedding unnecessary expenses and living on a frugal spending diet. I've been able to get down to one car that is almost paid off, and double my savings and investment portfolio. My favorite article from him is living close enough to work to bike (although working from home is most ideal). However, his blog comes with a bit of…

To apply MMM's ideas, on a 50K salary assuming monthly expenses of 1,250 (that's the hard part), if you put away 50% every year you can retire on a 375K nest egg (4% safe annual draw) after 15 years, or age 37. Roughly.

Assuming you only live to be 80, you'll have to stretch out that $375k nest egg for a whopping 43 years of inflation, rising healthcare costs, and unpredictable market conditions. And God forbid you reach 80, run out of money, and then... keep living, old and frail and weak with no job prospects. FIRECalc suggests a probability of about 20% of running out of money by age 80 with a 4% annual withdrawal rate (adjusted for inflation).

Plans like this just seem downright dangerous to me.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#74

Post by jacquesm »

ahelwer wrote: post #54
vasilipupkin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Seems totally stupid. Like why is it better to have 3 jobs ( blog, handyman, landlord ) than one normal job ? to me retired is a person who specifically lives strictly off the money they have. I mean sure, if you prefer to work as a handyman or run a successful blog, by all means do that, but calling yourself retired seems inaccurate. I am retired but I have 3 jobs. ooook.

Ha. The MMM community calls people espousing this sort of view "the retirement police". I have no idea what this complaint intends to accomplish beyond adherence to some kind of radical linguistic prescriptivism. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/13/mr-money-mustache-...

And that's another thing that I don't particularly like about MMM: the incessant shouting down and name calling of anything and anybody that dares to question him and his statements.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#75

Post by branchless »

astura wrote: post #47
UK-AL wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficulty with the bike thing, is that the closer you are to cities the more housing costs. The housing expense often costs more than owning a cheap car.

He touches on that in this post (with numbers): https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/07/27/rent-vs-buy/

He owns and rents several properties. Rentier activity like this pushes up housing costs.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#76

Post by toasterlovin »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #48
kdamken wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you know what retired actual means here. It doesn't mean never working again, it more refers to being financially independent. If he wanted to stop all those projects and never do anything again, he could. But that would probably be boring, so he pursues things that interest him, some of which net him income. He's gone over his family's spending before, if you want to read more - http://www.mrmoneymusta…

Beautiful. Since we get to make up our own definition of what retired means, I guess I am also retired. re·tired rəˈtī(ə)rd/Submit adjective 1. having left one's job and ceased to work.

I think a better term for what he preaches is financial independence.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#77

Post by jacquesm »

phaemon wrote: post #55
jacquesm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how you define retired. Most people define being retired as living a life without obligations required to bring home the bacon and by that definition MMM is now retired (at his expense levels), but when he made the claim at first I felt he was overselling it. But the blog ads bring in much more than he is spending + passive investments ditto so if he would stop working / bringing in other money besides…

>when he made the claim at first I felt he was overselling it. In what way? His passive investments were bringing in far more than his spending, so in what sense was he "overselling" it?

He had to go on the 'carpentour' to not eat into his savings.

Retirement means not having to work, period.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#78

Post by barkingcat »

astura wrote: post #44
joeax wrote: post #19

I've been reading his blog for a few years, and he does some have some insightful advice on shedding unnecessary expenses and living on a frugal spending diet. I've been able to get down to one car that is almost paid off, and double my savings and investment portfolio. My favorite article from him is living close enough to work to bike (although working from home is most ideal). However, his blog comes with a bit of…

MMM is too smug and pushy for a good portion of the general public. His writing can awfully hostile, it could be toned down a bit and his message would get further - some of his advice is very sensible. The problem with frugal blogs (in general) is they do one or more of the following; push penny pinching 24/7, "if you aren't eating lentils everyday and living in a cardboard box you're fucking up," they are too conde…

Also, doesn't take into account healthcare costs and things like hurricanes and floods and disasters that afflict a lot of people.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#79

Post by CodeCube »

branchless wrote: post #70
astura wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MMM is too smug and pushy for a good portion of the general public. His writing can awfully hostile, it could be toned down a bit and his message would get further - some of his advice is very sensible. The problem with frugal blogs (in general) is they do one or more of the following; push penny pinching 24/7, "if you aren't eating lentils everyday and living in a cardboard box you're fucking up," they are too conde…

He has several rentals and lives off other families. We can't all do that. It's not a real, scalable solution. It's not genuine.

Personally, I find rent-seeking landlords to be an unethical pursuit. I know that's not a mainstream thought, and is the underpinning of many people's income strategy ... but I can't support the idea of letting a family live in a property for decades, and then something happening, and they're on the street with nothing to show for the tens of thousands of dollars they have given in rent.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#80

Post by ahelwer »

jacquesm wrote: post #74
ahelwer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha. The MMM community calls people espousing this sort of view "the retirement police". I have no idea what this complaint intends to accomplish beyond adherence to some kind of radical linguistic prescriptivism. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/13/mr-money-mustache-...

And that's another thing that I don't particularly like about MMM: the incessant shouting down and name calling of anything and anybody that dares to question him and his statements.

This would be a meaningful comment if your critique weren't appallingly mundane.
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