Mr. Money Mustache

ScottyJack (or maybe it was MC2) turned me on to MMM.

Interesting MMM graphic:



I like the idea of the three kinds of spending: useful, ridiculous and saving. Especially the idea that some ridiculous is required, but the ratio is the rub.

Funny you started this thread, Harv.

I was in Lowe's early this AM doing some "useful" spending and while checking out I was asked to apply for a credit card. I politely declined, and expressed to the women running the register that imo credit cards were the root of all evil. She looked at me like I had 3 heads, apparently she's a fan of those damn things. Sure, in today's society we're forced into having credit cards but some peeps live on the damn things. In my line of work I deal with peoples credit all day long. The amount of credit card debt that some people carry is absolutely mind blowing ......then again our National Debt is wayyyyyy beyond that, so I guess it's just the American way

I'm with SJ. Somewhere he posted he'd like to go back in time. I would too. I like the thought of horse trading better than buying on credit.  

campgottagopee wrote

I'm with SJ. Somewhere he posted he'd like to go back in time. I would too. I like the thought of horse trading better than buying on credit.

I'd like to go forward in time. We know the past, at least what recorded history teaches us. I'd like to know the future I won't live to see.

Highpeaksdrifter wrote

campgottagopee wrote

I'm with SJ. Somewhere he posted he'd like to go back in time. I would too. I like the thought of horse trading better than buying on credit.

I'd like to go forward in time. We know the past, at least what recorded history teaches us. I'd like to know the future I won't live to see.

Interesting thought. To me the future is scary. I like security, and don't like change.......maybe that's why I'd like to go back simply because I know what I'm getting into.

Do it boys ,  it WORKS !!!


was a hyper saver for my entire working life and was a debT free situation long before  planned early retirement at 51,

We put both kids thru graduate schol debt free and now , NOW retired for the past 20 yrs and enjoying the rewards . So yeah  i ,m nuts But , as an economist i understood the notion of " enough" and the trade off of making a life NOT just a living . Started my plan in my early twenties and  understood that compounding is a miracle so always taught my students and later my colleagues about maxing out pre tax savings and THEN save a bit more .

SO long story short , you fantasize about living the good life and retiring at a reasonable age with good health etc ... You MUST have discipline,  live well under your means, dont chase crass commercialism , and PAY YOURSELF and start living LIFE

The only thing i wish i HAD done was write the damn book  😜

warp daddy wrote

Do it boys ,  it WORKS !!!


was a hyper saver for my entire working life and was a debT free situation long before  planned early retirement at 51,

We put both kids thru graduate schol debt free and now , NOW retired for the past 20 yrs and enjoying the rewards . So yeah  i ,m nuts But , as an economist i understood the notion of " enough" and the trade off of making a life NOT just a living . Started my plan in my early twenties and  understood that compounding is a miracle so always taught my students and later my colleagues about maxing out pre tax savings and THEN save a bit more .

SO long story short , you fantasize about living the good life and retiring at a reasonable age with good health etc ... You MUST have discipline,  live well under your means, dont chase crass commercialism , and PAY YOURSELF and start living LIFE

The only thing i wish i HAD done was write the damn book  😜

He speaks the truth!!!

He always does ^^^^^

Thank you Men !! I appreciate that , speaking plainly and with conviction is a big thing with me . i find most can handle it and THIS notion of self reliance and self financial discipline is really NOT all that difficult when you keep your LONG term objective in front of you . Ie getting a LIFE , early enough ro enjoy it .

i always teach this stuff to young people when the subject comes up and it comes up OFTEN.  

Camp , ur on target about the credit debacle . i learned from my dad who was a regional mgr dor what is now Equifax , he often spoke to me about the financial becale of over extension of debt , so from day one i used my credit card BUT always paid off thbalance and paid ZERO inteest . ...... My wife early on before we married was a banker before becoming an educator later on . She too saw the incredible debt loads and what often results from same .

Do it men !! Smartest move u can make .

Everything Warp Daddy says about financial discipline, always paying off credit cards, living within means, etc. is great advice, but...

warp daddy wrote

My wife early on before we married was a banker

LOL, marrying a banker is a pretty nice shortcut to retiring at 51.  

Funny but she was a statements CLERK , not an officer it was her first job out of High school and was 18 thru 21 yrs of age while she held the job Then was a STAY AT HOME mom till our youngest went to college in 1987 . but she UNDERSTOOD how to save .  

campgottagopee wrote

I was in Lowe's early this AM doing some "useful" spending and while checking out I was asked to apply for a credit card. I politely declined . . .

I hate going to a store and getting solicited every time I go to the register. No, I'm not interested in whatever card you want me to sign up for, whatever survey you want me to fill out, whatever charity you want me to donate to, etc. I've said that to clerks a couple of times, telling them to tell their managers that I don't like being solicited every time I come to their store, but it usually draws horrified looks from other people as if I'm the asshole in this situation.

Credit Cards by themselves don't bother me and once you reach a certain level of advanced mustachianism, you start doing things like airline miles hacking and manufactured spending to max out the benefits. I'm not at that level yet.

Anyway, getting back on topic, I've been tooling around on the MMM page for a couple of years now, and I keep going back to this post:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/17/the-race-to-retirement-revisited/

Basically, he describes how a couple in a dual income household, earning median salaries can retire after 13 years of work with no raises (assuming a meager 5% return and not including pensions, promotions, or social security). My path will be slightly different (I mean, I have to buy skis, bikes, and lift tickets, of course. I'm not a barbarian.), but hopefully my time frame (starting from 2 years ago) is similar.

The real lessons are to just optimize everything. Every monthly cost should be scrutinized and whittled down in whatever way you're comfortable with (and possibly ways you're not entirely comfortable with). Using MMM tips, I pay a lot less than I used to for electricity, insurance, maintenance, cell phone, TV, and other stuff. I've still definitely got room to cut (I still have cable because I like to watch the Mets and Game of Thrones, I still dry most of my clothes in the dryer, I still eat out too much, spend too much on food, drive too much, and drink at bars too much), but my savings rate is still pretty good and the money is there for me to take in the future.

I will probably never achieve the 70-90% savings rate of some people on that site (I've still got a relatively high mortgage payment and I will never make that much money), but 11 more years of work sound about good for me. I'm already kind of sick of working in a cubicle.

I don't think I'll ever truly retire... I'd like to end my current career early, and find something I can get more satisfaction from, and finish out my days performing that task part time.    We have 35 mortgage payments left.  Once the mortgage is paid off, I plan on ending my career in IT Data Science, and moving into something in the outdoor recreation field.

My budgetary practices have always matched the MMM methodology.  No credit card debt.  We eat out once a month.  We live in a fairly modest home.  I drive a 2002 Toyota Tacoma with 292,000 miles on it, and I plan on getting to at least 250,000 more miles out of it.  My ridiculous spending has always been focused on Skis, Snowboards, Bikes, and various other forms of outdoor gear.  That said, it's a battle to keep my wife in check.  She does not understand the concept of disciplined spending.  In my opinion, the vast majority of her purchases qualify as ridiculous.  She works, and makes good money, but as is true with many women, she takes reckless spending to a whole new level.   

To me, retirement is basically doing what you'd rather do, not driven by the amount of income it produces.  Hell I want to ski, mtb, hike and blog, and keep my hand in SEO/SEM for my own clients (Plattekill, Mad, Garnet Hill, Square Eddy, Nesters).  No way does that produce a living wage.

I checked out the MMM forum and a recurring theme is that you have to have full spouse buyin or be single. I'd say I have partial spouse buy in, we do an OK job of saving, better than most, but nowhere near MMM or MC levels.  I get itchy when we flush money down the crapper. But then I don't consider any expenditure on skiing to be wasted and that's not exactly objective.

Harvey wrote

To me, retirement is basically doing what you'd rather do, not driven by the amount of income it produces.  

I couldn't have said it better myself.  

nepa wrote

Harvey wrote

To me, retirement is basically doing what you'd rather do, not driven by the amount of income it produces.  

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Agree

I'm a simple person...I don't need a lot of cash to sit in a tree and shoot stuff

nepa wrote

I don't think I'll ever truly retire... I'd like to end my current career early, and find something I can get more satisfaction from . . . Once the mortgage is paid off, I plan on ending my career in IT Data Science, and moving into something in the outdoor recreation field.

Yeah, if I don't make my number and need to supplement (or if I get bored, but I'm not really sure how that would happen), I'm tempted to pull the plug here and try to do a Ski Instructor in the winter/Park Ranger in the summer thing. Another part of Mustachianism is that you're just saving money so you can have the freedom to do whatever you want in life, whether that's retirement, a second career, a part time gig, whatever.

That said, it's a battle to keep my wife in check.  She does not understand the concept of disciplined spending.  In my opinion, the vast majority of her purchases qualify as ridiculous.  She works, and makes good money, but as is true with many women, she takes reckless spending to a whole new level.  

Yep, the most common thread on the MMM forums is "How to get my spouse on board?". It's not always the woman who is the spender, though.

It's not how much you save, it's how much you spend. However, no matter how much you save life can throw you a wicked curve ball and retiring early can be very risky unless you are very well off. The current state of medicine may extend your life horizon well beyond anything you expect and the medical bills associated with it may also be staggering. The idea of saving heavily is correct, the idea of eliminating all waist from your spending is also good, heck - I don't let even a bottle deposit slip through my fingers anymore. But as is also stated, retirement should not mean you stop working - it just means stop doing what you hate and do what you like even if you only make a small amount from it.

The true Mustachian may be that guy pulling up at the Warrensburg bottle return in the rusted out 20 YO Subaru wearing an old flannel shirt and worn out blue jeans, you look over in your new beamer and think, what a low life, he looks back and smiles because he's got no debt and multiple mills in hard liquid assets.

nepa wrote

That said, it's a battle to keep my wife in check.  She does not understand the concept of disciplined spending.  In my opinion, the vast majority of her purchases qualify as ridiculous.  She works, and makes good money, but as is true with many women, she takes reckless spending to a whole new level.   

LOL, don't get me started...

You never know what twists life is going to bring.  When I was MC's age (mid-30s, right?), I was single, embraced mustachianism and was well on the way towards ending my traditional work career by age 50 or so.  Then at 39 and against all odds I met this girl while I was rock climbing in the 'Dacks, got married a year later and started a family.  Now, a dozen years later, I'm in my early 50s with a wife and 2 kids (one of whom we got the usual way, the other was kinda expensive), a bigger house and everything that goes along with that.  All on 1 income, mine.  Assuming the kids go on to 4 years of college, Daniel would graduate 11 years from now (he's in 5th grade) and Sylvie a whopping 15 years from now (she's in 1st).  I'm gonna be working for a while yet...

Believe me, no regrets.  All I'm saying is sometimes life just works out a little different from the way you planned.

The point  you made about health insurance coverage into early retirement is  VERY critical . That cost often escalates beyond the CPI and one,s  health is  a major variable that often despite your best efforts to stay in shape can produce some very serious issues . It is difficult to avoid impacts resulting from the gene pool and heredity.

Personally we were indeed fortunate enough to have  continuous coverage from employment that continues now as secondary coverage .

warp daddy wrote

The point  you made about health insurance coverage into early retirement is  VERY critical . That cost often escalates beyond the CPI and one,s  health is  a major variable that often despite your best efforts to stay in shape can produce some very serious issues . It is difficult to avoid impacts resulting from the gene pool and heredity.

Personally we were indeed fortunate enough to have  continuous coverage from employment that continues now as secondary coverage .

You may have health insurance now, large corporations are dropping their retirees like hot potatoes, reading the fine print in the benefits manuals and it's not a guarantee. Heck - even a GE benefits manager sued GE over this because the line she was told to feed her people was that these benefits would be there until they die, she lost the case. You worked for a municipality or university, guess again - Detroit declared bankruptcy and left their retirees in the tank, universities could easily do the same. Heck - if Uncle Sam can fuck with Social security - anybody can screw you out of your pension. So don't be so foolish as to make that your foundation, think of it as an added bonus too what should be a retirement you built on your own. You need multiple legs in that retirement stool where any one of them can support you if need be and you need to know how to and have planned your retirement around living on very little if need be.