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Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

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Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#201

Post by conroe64 »

grosskur wrote: post #151
conroe64 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not going through a tax free retirement account, I'd advise against mutual funds, since the profit is taxed every year. Instead, I'd recommend using a stock newsletter. There is a rating service that independently tracks the profits of 180 stock newsletters and has done so since 1980. It's called the Hulbert's Financial Digest. From this you can pick one with a good track record, and then invest directly i…

I agree mutual funds are less tax efficient. However, they have an advantage of trading at NAV, which means you don't pay a bid-ask spread when buying or selling. According to The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing, the January 2001 issue of The Hulbert Financial Digest stated: "Among the 160 or so newsletters the HFD monitors, the market-timing recommendations of only 10 have beaten the stock market over the last decade…

Thanks, I didn't know ETF's were treated like stocks for tax purposes.

Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#202

Post by DifE-Q »

Swizec wrote: post #154
jasonkester wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> travel a lot. That takes money. Not at all. If you talk to a few dozen people who "traveled a lot" before they turned 30 (including me, the person to whom you're replying), the single most common thread in all those stories will be how cheaply they did it. Life on the road costs ~$500/month. Life in an apartment costs ~$2000/month. One of the simplest ways to save money when you're not working is to ditch all your…

$500/month? But a simple train ticket that takes you 600km away will set you back $100. Here in Europe at least. And I probably spend $500/month just on food and caffeine. Hell, the basic government fees (insurance, pension etc.) to keep my sole proprietorship running costs me 300 euro/month. I really don't see how you could live on the road on $500/month, you're making stuff up.

I travelled around the middle east for 6 months spending $100 per month in 1997. I hitch hiked and slept with Bedouin or in monasteries. It is possible in other parts of the world too - maybe not Europe though. Save Europe for when you are rich.

Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#203

Post by mdturnerphys »

jawngee wrote: post #189
jasonkester wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but how much are trains and coffee in Thailand? China? India? Malawi? There's a lot of world out there beyond Europe. For the vast majority of it, $500 goes a long way. Try to keep in mind that there are lots of things that are possible that you don't yet know how to do. It sounds like you're just now learning that you can travel cheaply on the road (from people who have actually done so, no foolin'). Rather th…

I live half the year in Vietnam, half the year in NYC. I'm mildly frugal, but Vietnam still runs me about $2K a month, $1.2k if I don't leave my apartment. NYC, a frugal month costs me $3.5k. SE Asia is cheap, but its not as cheap as people think it is.

My wife and I spent a month in Thailand a few years back. We paid $120 for an apartment in Bangkok for the month, including utilities, and spent about $6/day on food. Travel to and hotels in Laos, N. Thailand, a beach town, and Cambodia probably cost us about $300.

I do speak the language, but that only helped with finding a cheap (i.e. Thai-priced) place to rent.

Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#204

Post by kragen »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #183
kragen wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone took such advice, they'd all be working for only ten or fifteen out of their 80 years of life, instead of 40 or 45. So you'd only need a third as many total jobs to provide full employment. And those jobs would be focused on things that actually benefit their consumers.

The person renting has to make their money from somewhere - it can't be rental properties all the way down the heap. Oh there's something to be said for living within your means, certainly. People seem to waste a lot of money on things that don't really make them happy. But it seems to me that people with relatively high areas of local utility probably shouldn't start talking about how everyone can act - their soluti…

True enough. You can't have everyone owning two full-time-occupied houses; the mean number of full-time-occupied houses owned per capita by the population has to be 1, modulo things like abandonment and cohousing. But you probably could have 90% of the adult population living off investments. With AI it could be 100%.

Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#205

Post by rubyman »

jasonkester wrote: post #185
Swizec wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$500/month? But a simple train ticket that takes you 600km away will set you back $100. Here in Europe at least. And I probably spend $500/month just on food and caffeine. Hell, the basic government fees (insurance, pension etc.) to keep my sole proprietorship running costs me 300 euro/month. I really don't see how you could live on the road on $500/month, you're making stuff up.

Sure, but how much are trains and coffee in Thailand? China? India? Malawi? There's a lot of world out there beyond Europe. For the vast majority of it, $500 goes a long way. Try to keep in mind that there are lots of things that are possible that you don't yet know how to do. It sounds like you're just now learning that you can travel cheaply on the road (from people who have actually done so, no foolin'). Rather th…

Yeah, I agree. Don't spend money seeing Europe until you are old and have money. You won't be able to properly enjoy Europe unless you can stop worrying about your daily spend. Places like Laos and Bolivia are the way to go when you're young: super cheap and lots of adventure!

Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#206

Post by kragen »

driverdan wrote: post #192
jasonkester wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> travel a lot. That takes money. Not at all. If you talk to a few dozen people who "traveled a lot" before they turned 30 (including me, the person to whom you're replying), the single most common thread in all those stories will be how cheaply they did it. Life on the road costs ~$500/month. Life in an apartment costs ~$2000/month. One of the simplest ways to save money when you're not working is to ditch all your…

Your numbers are very skewed. Those are not average. Living on $500/m is going to significantly restrict the places you can go. "Apartment life" doesn't need to cost $2000/m unless you live in a very expensive city. Get roommates, eat at home, use public transportation / bicycle / motorcycle / scooter or an inexpensive car. Traveling can cost significantly less than most people expect when you use points / miles and…

You can still visit Switzerland while living on $500 per month, especially if you can manage to avoid hotels. You probably can't stay there too long, but you can visit.

Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#207

Post by to3m »

encoderer wrote: post #67

I don't like how judgmental he is about lifestyle choices alternative to the ones he's made. I, personally, enjoy going out to eat, I enjoy the "$100 happy hours," I'm in Turks and Caicos right now on a stretch of the most beautiful beach I've ever seen and I enjoy that, too. Oh, and I don't particularly dislike working. I'm a well paid highly skilled engineer building cool things for a fantastic .com that takes care…

I suspect profligacy and indebtedness are criticized on the basis that many people who practice them come to regret it later, no matter how much of a good idea it seemed at the time, when they end up in poverty. A bit like how smoking cigarettes and/or eating an unhealthy diet and/or not taking exercise can lead to health problems.

Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#208

Post by hobbescalvin »

jasonkester wrote: post #153
Swizec wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterexample, here is a list of things you should do before you turn 30: http://www.policymic.com/articles/7704/29-amazing-things-you... While many of the examples are silly, I agree very much with all the advice to travel a lot . That takes money. Actually most of the things on that list go way beyond "live cheaply", and I agree with that. Anyway, as my economics professor said in college. There are those peo…

> travel a lot. That takes money. Not at all. If you talk to a few dozen people who "traveled a lot" before they turned 30 (including me, the person to whom you're replying), the single most common thread in all those stories will be how cheaply they did it. Life on the road costs ~$500/month. Life in an apartment costs ~$2000/month. One of the simplest ways to save money when you're not working is to ditch all your…

He's right. If you travel to the right places when you're young, you will actually spend less than if you were just carrying on with your life as usual. I did an around the world trip when I was 23 and only spent $8000 total (5 months on the road and 13 flights).

Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#209

Post by kragen »

Swizec wrote: post #154
jasonkester wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> travel a lot. That takes money. Not at all. If you talk to a few dozen people who "traveled a lot" before they turned 30 (including me, the person to whom you're replying), the single most common thread in all those stories will be how cheaply they did it. Life on the road costs ~$500/month. Life in an apartment costs ~$2000/month. One of the simplest ways to save money when you're not working is to ditch all your…

$500/month? But a simple train ticket that takes you 600km away will set you back $100. Here in Europe at least. And I probably spend $500/month just on food and caffeine. Hell, the basic government fees (insurance, pension etc.) to keep my sole proprietorship running costs me 300 euro/month. I really don't see how you could live on the road on $500/month, you're making stuff up.

> $500/month? But a simple train ticket that takes you 600km away will set you back $100. Here in Europe at least.

If you hitchhike, walk, or bicycle, you can avoid the trains. Even if you take a train every three weeks, that's only US$130 out of your US$500 budget.

> Hell, the basic government fees (insurance, pension etc.) to keep my sole proprietorship running costs me 300 euro/month.

Typically backpackers pay very little in taxes because they aren't making any money, or if they are, they're doing it under the table.

> I really don't see how you could live on the road on $500/month, you're making stuff up.

No, there are a lot of people who do this. You should meet some of them. Sign up with Couchsurfing and host them.

Re: Meet Mr. Money Mustache, the man who retired at 30

#210

Post by kragen »

DifE-Q wrote: post #202
Swizec wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$500/month? But a simple train ticket that takes you 600km away will set you back $100. Here in Europe at least. And I probably spend $500/month just on food and caffeine. Hell, the basic government fees (insurance, pension etc.) to keep my sole proprietorship running costs me 300 euro/month. I really don't see how you could live on the road on $500/month, you're making stuff up.

I travelled around the middle east for 6 months spending $100 per month in 1997. I hitch hiked and slept with Bedouin or in monasteries. It is possible in other parts of the world too - maybe not Europe though. Save Europe for when you are rich.

How did the sleeping with Bedouins thing work? Do you, like, walk into a coffee house in a Bedouin neighborhood and hope to meet someone who will invite you to stay at their house? Or is it more a meeting on the road kind of thing? Do the monasteries charge you hotel-room-like fees, or do you have to belong to their religion, or what?
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