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Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#81

Post by ForRealsies »

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.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#82

Post by UK-AL »

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/

Those numbers dont really work in the uk.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#83

Post by astura »

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.

What's worse is when one of these "how I became a millionaire before 35" stories gets posted somewhere like Reddit, legitimate comments such as this one are heavily criticized as "you're just being mean(!?)" and "its because you're jealous."

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#84

Post by TylerE »

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.

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.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#85

Post by imgabe »

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.

You can substitute "financially independent" if it makes you feel better. Many people continue doing things that generate income even though they don't need the money. It's worth noting the difference between someone working because it's what they enjoy doing vs. someone who is compelled to work by financial necessity.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#86

Post by ashark »

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.

His community takes the cue and runs with, too. Any hint of, "wait... this post is useful for saving only if I already have a ton of money and/or already don't have a job and therefore have little to no time pressure in my life. Rich people pay less for stuff, retired people have lots of free time, that's well known and not insightful. Some of the cutting-spending stuff here is good, but this particular thing is incredibly unhelpful." is dealt with harshly, no matter how justified.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#88

Post by jacquesm »

reboog711 wrote: post #69
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…

In fairness the bulk of The Millionaire Next Door subjects owned their own business and could often pull in salaries of $500K+ per year.

Yes, owning your own business can be a good way to end up 'middle class' or 'comfortably poor'. But it works and that's good enough for me, and I never paid myself $500K per year either. And still had my first property paid off 20 years ahead of schedule.

Things that helped:

- ability to save

- driving cheap cars (my current daily driver is 20 years old)

- very little debt (usually only to finance the next property)

- buying quality stuff and what I need

- living in a country where healthcare can't bankrupt you

- with free education (though that is changing now)

- making reasonably good money because of my chosen profession

None of the above would matter much if I would work as a store clerk or something like that, that's a much harder situation to get out of.

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#89

Post by cheetos »

the_gastropod wrote: post #56
jrochkind1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? In the U.S.? Case study? Without kids and if you don't really spend any money on recreation or vacations (before or after retirement), maybe. Or if you somehow have a job that will give you a pension (with health insurance?) at 50, sure!

I suggest just reading MMM. It's all about savings rate. As an example, I live in Brooklyn, NY (one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S.) In 2016, I spent $32k ($24k was rent!) Assuming a $50k income, that'd be a ~36% savings rate, which requires a 23 year career. Assume someone making $50k lives in not NYC, I imagine this scenario could be a lot better. For a more extreme version of MMM, read http://earl…

> In 2016, I spent $32k ($24k was rent!) Assuming a $50k income, that'd be a ~36% savings rate, which requires a 23 year career.

Assuming a $50k income post-tax

Re: Interview with Mr. Money Mustache

#90

Post by stevenj »

craigcannon wrote: post #2

Hey! Thanks to many of you for suggesting Pete as a guest on the podcast. Let me know if you have ideas for other folks. You can comment here or email me - craig@ycombinator.com

Is there a way to see all the guests you've had on the podcast -- just a simple list without having to scroll through all the pages?
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