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Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#161

Post by kbutler »

CodeCube wrote: post #79
branchless wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"I can't support the idea of letting a family buy food for decades, then something happening, and they're starving with nothing to show for the tens of thousands of dollars they have spent on food."

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#162

Post by yessql »

nilkn wrote: post #73
hammock wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Or god forbid, you work a little bit to supplement your nest egg during those 43 years.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#163

Post by stlHusker »

RestlessMind wrote: post #49

The biggest question I face regarding early retirement in the USA is how to handle health care expenses, because the situation is so messed up. There is huge uncertainty around the future of healthcare, especially regarding coverage and quality. So far, all the early retired people I have seen have either a working spouse or have retired abroad. It would be great to know if people here, especially those who retired e…

From my own experience, most people have not. I work in aerospace and there are a large number of employees with 30+ years tenure who are of retirement age who need to stick around because of the quality and cost of the health insurance coverage. Engineers with good salaries who have saved much more than the average Joe, much more than most "financially independent" bloggers.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#164

Post by stefantheard »

macNchz wrote: post #138
stefantheard wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What avenue is there to retire at 30 if you make 200k by 25? I must be missing something massive.

I'm not a subscriber to this strategy, but the theory goes that if you save, in that scenario, 80% of your take home pay (annually saving ~$100k, spending ~$20k), you'll have, say, ~$500k invested in 5 years and can safely withdraw 4%/$20k per year indefinitely. Then you can quit your 200k job, 'retire', and enjoy the same lifestyle as you lived while employed. Personally I agree with the message about the power of s…

I agree with your approach and that is what I have implemented so far as well. As much as I would love to have the 40-60 hours a week I work back to myself, it is just much too difficult for me to live off of only 20k or less per year. I am not interested in living like that anymore, I'm too familiar with it.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#165

Post by baccredited »

craigcannon wrote: post #62
_jal wrote: post #52

Allow me to just throw out that I love the transcript. I know it is a lot of work, but I wish more podcasters would publish them. I watch/listen to very few podcasts; don't drive regularly, which is where I would normally consume them, and otherwise tend to skip them because so many are a tedious waste of time. Plus, I just prefer text to video. So, thank you!

Glad you like it! Always helpful to know what's worth the effort :)

Can you help me find the RSS feed? I'm trying to subscribe in a popular iOS podcast player (Overcast) and struggling to find the feed.

Never mind found at: backtracks.fm/ycombinator/ycombinator/feed

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#166

Post by School-Cotton »

TylerE wrote: post #84
hammock wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where are you LIVING on that kind of money? Even in a small town you're looking at probably at least $750/month for a place that's not a roach motel.

I paid $220/mo for a room in Tucson during 2012-2013. Nice and big one-bedroom houses are close to the university are like 400-500 nowadays. Obviously having kids changes things.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#167

Post by ghaff »

_jal wrote: post #52

Allow me to just throw out that I love the transcript. I know it is a lot of work, but I wish more podcasters would publish them. I watch/listen to very few podcasts; don't drive regularly, which is where I would normally consume them, and otherwise tend to skip them because so many are a tedious waste of time. Plus, I just prefer text to video. So, thank you!

They're really not a huge amount of work if you pay a nominal amount to have it done for you. After I edit a podcast, I get mine transcribed by CastingWords, clean it up minimally, and paste it into the blog post I do for the podcast with show notes, etc.) e.g. http://bitmason.blogspot.com/2017/07/red-hat-mark-wagner-on-...

If I want to do a longer blog post based on the interview, it's also nice to just have the transcript to excerpt from.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#168

Post by ahelwer »

stlHusker wrote: post #127
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-...

You can't claim to be financially independent and come back two years later with this gem: "The secret is that my wife is no longer really retired, and in fact she started a business that is now big enough to FUND OUR ENTIRE FAMILY'S LIFESTYLE." http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/03/06/etsy-shop/ If not outright dishonest, it certainly gives the off appearance that you can't put any weight in the numbers he is throw…

All of these concerns are real. You'll be reassured to learn that health costs are probably the fourth-most discussed topic in the MMM community, after safe withdrawal rates, asset allocation, and game plans during the next big market crash.

MMM's blog posts are very basic - you won't safely retire early if all you do is read them. Fortunately, people are responsible and put slightly more effort into planning their entire lives than uncritically following some blog post on the internet. For example, many people are planning on using a 3.25% withdrawal rate rather than 4%, and have much more in bonds than the 100%-equities-or-bust message on the blog.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#170

Post by sliverstorm »

ForRealsies wrote: post #81
jacquesm wrote: post #26

The MMM way is more about locking in your luck than anything else. Be frugal, when lady luck smiles and you have a lot of income make sure you do not waste the proceeds and avoid living above your means at all costs. Having skills is a plus and in his particular case it helps if you are good at building a personal brand so you can ride the self help bandwagon. Very useful information compared to most other self help…

Being frugal is the biggest baloney to wealth. People like you and I obsess over it because $COST_OF_LIVING is the one variable of the Income Wealth Equation we can control. You want to become wealthy? Affect millions.

It's a two step process.

1) Make lots of money

2) Don't spend it all

You need to succeed at both steps to be wealthy. However doing well at either step will still improve your circumstances.

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