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Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#201

Post by elihu »

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…

At least with the Affordable Care Act (which survived yet another repeal-and-replace attempt this week), it's possible to buy insurance on the open market with a pre-existing condition (which I assume that almost everyone older than their 20s or 30s has at least one). So for now health insurance is an expense you can plausibly budget for and not something that's completely unattainable at any price.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#202

Post by markdog12 »

sidlls wrote: post #34
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…

That's what almost every one of these success stories, blogs, etc. are. They're very heavily weighted toward survivor bias and elide much context around being born into relatively privileged circumstances.

Maybe other bloggers were "privileged", but MMM grew up in a family that didn't have a ton of money, and he payed for his own college via jobs he worked as a teenager. In short, he worked his ass off.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#203

Post by ashark »

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…

One of the key insights about his situation, I think, is that you can live on his under-30K budget and not feel super poor, if you don't have regular 9-5 job with a fixed location, if you don't need to worry much about good schools (can homeschool—these two things combine to mean you can choose inexpensive housing with fewer other trade-offs, which makes it easier to have a paid-off house), and if you already have a lot of money and in-demand skills so you can reasonably have much lower insurance spending generally, and especially health insurance. The overwhelming bulk of his budget savings comes from already having lots of money and from having plenty of time to DIY stuff others might pay for. The rest is useful but relatively marginal.

His blog's good for reinforcing that you can spend less money when you already have money, so it's heartening in that it tells you your target income for retirement can be much lower than the income you need pre-retirement. It's not especially helpful for getting there.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#204

Post by JoshTriplett »

stlHusker wrote: post #191
JoshTriplett wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, doesn't take into account healthcare costs See http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/11/01/our-new-237-per-mo... and http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/17/its-all-about-the-...

"Third level of safety: optional part-time work." Don't you find it hilarious that a blog on financial independence tries to talk about safety nets vs. risks and devolves to: Well, sh*t just get a job I guess, but call it optional because you are "retired"? I do. It is how you end up with 80 year old wal-mart greeters.

> Don't you find it hilarious that a blog on financial independence tries to talk about safety nets vs. risks and devolves to: Well, sh*t just get a job I guess

Not at all. If you retire early, one of many backup and contingency plans, somewhere down the list, could very well be "I could always go back to work". Doesn't mean you aren't retired.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#205

Post by [deleted] »

J-dawg wrote: post #183
stlHusker wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think his definition of "retired" is pretty simple: his family could cover all of their living expenses from investment income alone. When you think about it, this is pretty much what we mean by "normal" retirement as well. If a 70 year old retiree does some maintenance on his rental property we don't accuse him of lying about being retired. Your point about medical bills doesn't really hold water. I'm sure plenty…

[deleted]

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#206

Post by robertcorey »

lovich wrote: post #92
robertcorey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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), s…

How do you go from atheist to creating your own deities that you add and remove at will?

I am 25 so I grew up online during the golden age of internet atheism. r/atheism was still a default sub, 'The God Delusion' was released in 2006 when I was 14. What I came to realize is that I was essentially worshipping my logical analytical mind and believing that if I had a enough processing power I could think my way to any solution. Eventually what I came to realize is that the logical conscious mind we are always aware of isn't necessarily making the decisions, nor does it ever have a complete picture of reality. Once I believed that my logical mind was n't capable of truly capturing reality I felt comfortable training myself to believe in things that weren't "true" since nothing as perceived as the conscious mind is really "true".

And there you are lighting incense to an action figure with a mustache on it to help contemplate doing your own bike repairs (: .

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#207

Post by markdog12 »

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…

> Also, he seems to pretend as if he is the first person ever to live like this but there are many others that simply never thought of themselves as special in any way. See also: the millionaire next door.

He believes the world would be a better place if most people lived a bit more like him (independence, hard work, frugality, etc). I don't see anything wrong with blogging about it. Also, he certainly doesn't claim he's the first person to live like this, and regularly cites influences, including an entire post dedicated to Millionaire Next Door: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/14/weekend-edition-bo...

And the book he credits with changing his life: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/28/weekend-edition-th...

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#208

Post by ForRealsies »

jacquesm wrote: post #195
ForRealsies wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! You need an incredible flow of income to become wealthy (selling your company, book you wrote becomes a hit, etc). You cannot accomplish step 1 through a job. Rich people telling you to invest in mutual funds and treasuries to become wealthy are frauds. That's what you do to MAINTAIN wealth, not to generate wealth.

> You cannot accomplish step 1 through a job. Well, as the linked article and the various blog posts show, that isn't exactly true, especially not for people in IT. In IT you can accomplish step 1 through a job.

You cannot scale yourself. You cannot demand a 200% raise from your boss. You can control your $COST_OF_LIVING, you can job hop to increase your income, but it is bounded. Just as a doctor can increase his number of patients but cannot work more than 60 hours a week.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#209

Post by bluetwo »

sowbug wrote: post #159
bluetwo wrote: post #100

For a guy who claims to be retired he sure seems to work a lot.

Feeds into the universal basic income philosophy: if you don't have to work to survive, you might still work on things you care about.

Do you think he is doing this for free? I don't.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#210

Post by arthurjj »

mod wrote: post #188

Something that seems to be lost in this thread, which looks to be mostly a debate about whether or not early retirement is feasible for normal people: For normal people, MMM strategy is about making uncomfortable decisions (plain, reliable used cars, no fine dining, no fancy houses, no downtown-big-city living locations) to avoid the most uncomfortable thing of all: work. If you would rather have a job your whole lif…

> People who are driven to early retirement & financial independence are people who DESPISE jobs and are willing to spend their whole life at a much smaller income bracket in exchange for not having one.

I was surprised by the negativity in this thread until I read this sentence. Most readers here though have the option of either finding a less terrible job or starting our own companies. When neither of those are an option eating beans sounds pretty good.

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