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Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#11

Post by crabasa »

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…

The answers to your question is here:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/05/19/2016-spending/

tl;dr - He is still very frugal, unless you count his business expenses. He definitely works on his business and brings in income, but he gives much of it away.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#12

Post by AVTizzle »

robertcorey wrote: post #5

Mr. Money Mustache started me down the path of exploring my own personal philosophy. I now worship MMM as a diety (MMM !== Pete Adeney in my religion). Thanks for the teachings Pete.

Robert - what would you recommend as a getting started guide to MMM?

And how would you describe your personal philosophy?

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#13

Post by ashark »

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…

One of the things that made me stop reading him was when it became clear his "I'm totally retired and you can be too!" thing was BS. At the time he had like 3 part-time jobs (the blog, landlord, handyman, IIRC), with his savings being large enough that he could make a stupid "hey, you should stop paying so much for health insurance you idiots! Turns our if you have a lot of money in the bank and the skills to land a job with family coverage in a matter of months if you need to, you only need catastrophic coverage! I don't know why people say buying your own health insurance is expensive, it's not!" post, but not enough to totally retire on it (he seemed to be letting his investments grow by spending mostly his part-time job money, at the time, rather than investment returns)

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#14

Post by islanderfun »

theorique wrote: post #8
wpietri wrote: post #6

Oh god. I'm horrified by this. > People think of a cult as a bad thing [...] really, it’s just a social organization structure which is a basic built-in thing to human beings This is the naturalistic fallacy, or the is-ought fallacy. Other basic built-in things to human beings include ignorance, rage, greed, abuse, exploitation, and violence. A core part of civilization is deciding which of our basic built-in things…

Don't read too much into it. He's only using "cult" as a provocative term to describe a tribe of fans who passionately like a particular brand. Nobody's going to be committing human sacrifices or burning heretics on behalf of Mr Money Mustache any time soon.

> Don't read too much into it.

It's hard not to especially when comes to people in power and leadership.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#15

Post by froindt »

AVTizzle wrote: post #12
robertcorey wrote: post #5

Mr. Money Mustache started me down the path of exploring my own personal philosophy. I now worship MMM as a diety (MMM !== Pete Adeney in my religion). Thanks for the teachings Pete.

Robert - what would you recommend as a getting started guide to MMM? And how would you describe your personal philosophy?

Not Robert, but I would start here.

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

Start reading more from there and remember it's your expenses more than your income that matter most. Also remember he turned the dial quite far.

And this page is also quite good. You don't have to go as extreme as MMM, and doing so would burn out a lot of people.

https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/58j8...

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#16

Post by ghaff »

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…

Here's a New Yorker article about him: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/mr-money-musta...

I believe he has some rental income from properties he owns and he claims to only spend $25K or so per year, so the answer is probably closest to 1. His brand/blog does seem to be quite lucrative though. At this point, it would probably make more sense to limit the effort rather than shut anything down.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#17

Post by exergy »

wpietri wrote: post #6

Oh god. I'm horrified by this. > People think of a cult as a bad thing [...] really, it’s just a social organization structure which is a basic built-in thing to human beings This is the naturalistic fallacy, or the is-ought fallacy. Other basic built-in things to human beings include ignorance, rage, greed, abuse, exploitation, and violence. A core part of civilization is deciding which of our basic built-in things…

I'm going to use your comment to go on a bit of a rant. What is the purpose of your comment? Like, really. What are you trying to attain by stating what you did?

Your comment is pedantic and completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Derisive thing to say, perhaps, but this is classic HN. Miss the big picture for a useless little nugget that is of zero consequence.

For the current case, for example, a certain amount of a lot of those supposed "vices" that you listed are healthy. Greed and jealousy make you strive, ignorance give you peace of mind, rage is cathartic. So, OK, I'm guessing we both agree that there should be limits on such things. Scientology, bad. Cult involving biking to work, good.

"A very convenient one for him here". Huh?

Your comment just seems to be a portal into a conversation involving endless squabling about a topic that has nothing to do with MMM.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#18

Post by robertcorey »

AVTizzle wrote: post #12
robertcorey wrote: post #5

Mr. Money Mustache started me down the path of exploring my own personal philosophy. I now worship MMM as a diety (MMM !== Pete Adeney in my religion). Thanks for the teachings Pete.

Robert - what would you recommend as a getting started guide to MMM? And how would you describe your personal philosophy?

I would recommend reading through the entire blog archive, all together it's about the same length as a book. You can skip over articles on things that aren't interesting to you, for example I don't care about real estate.

My personal philosophy is a combination of all the different sources I have been exposed too. My main influences would be the mustachian thought sphere (MMM, The Magic of Thinking Big, Stoicism), secular western buddhism (Buddhism Plain and Simple, In the realm of hungry ghosts, The magic of tidying up) Game theory probabilistic thinking (Poker background).

When I first started reading MMM I was already a very tribal person. The us vs them mentality really appealed to me because I was used to strongly identifying with minority tribes (atheist, vegan). After I started studying buddhism I've been able to let go of some of the tribalism of mustachianism , but the frugality and the powerful self belief have remained. This is an example of my personal philosophy forking from a monolithic belief system.

I also have a couple dieties I worship. MMM is the god of frugality and not being a wimp. RNGesus is the god of accepting random bad stuff. I'll spin up/down dieties to put on my altar depending on my current priorities/ needs.

I know recommending you a bunch of books isn't really a proper response, but a proper definition would be the length of a book and I haven't written that yet.

What I would recommend to everyone is to study different belief systems and roll your own religion. Our brain is designed to consume faith-y belief systems. It's arrogant to believe those mechanisms in your brain won't latch on to something. It should be something your consciously decide on and design.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#19

Post by joeax »

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 smug (calling himself a "cult", or "Good news, there's a recession coming"). His faithful mantra of "retiring at 30" is a pipe dream unless: (1) you have a big income i.e. $200k per year by the time you are 25, (2) have a software engineer wife that makes as much as you and have no kids, or (3) inherited a large sum to begin with. All of his case studies are about him and his wife who were pulling $100k before they "retired", or the lawyer who was pulling in $160k a year at 26. Kudos to them, but good luck trying to retire as a welder or car mechanic making $50k.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#20

Post by dionidium »

wpietri wrote: post #6

Oh god. I'm horrified by this. > People think of a cult as a bad thing [...] really, it’s just a social organization structure which is a basic built-in thing to human beings This is the naturalistic fallacy, or the is-ought fallacy. Other basic built-in things to human beings include ignorance, rage, greed, abuse, exploitation, and violence. A core part of civilization is deciding which of our basic built-in things…

It's also important to figure out which of our built-in behaviors are ineradicable, so that we can develop systems that help route around our worst impulses. Much of conventional society and its norms was geared toward this and it's something we do a really poor job of understanding as we tear those walls down.

If cult behavior is built-in, then directing that energy into reverence for Mr. Money Mustache seems like a positive to me.

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