Another Engineer retiring in his 30's. (credit, increase, medical, refinance)

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by davebarnes

Easy to retire in you 30s from an engineering career.
You work at a startup and get lots of stock. Company gets purchased. You collect millions.

Except lots of startups fail.

The boring, but repeatable way is to earn high 5 or low 6 figures and save/invest at least half for 10-20 years. It works.

[NewbieHere]

Originally Posted by flyingsaucermom

Oh wow... I just looked it up... I don't know what to say.. I guess he's a mere mortal like the rest of us?

He has a strong personality and probably stubborn as hell so I can't say I'm shocked. But I don't think it fundamentally challenges his personal finance advice and achievement. Maybe he just went too far with it.

I'm not much of a believe in anything, but sacred texts and old philosophers' writings the world over tend to be filled with good life skills advice.

Everything in moderation... even frugality.

He and his wife are both disegenious. She sells soap bar for $7 each. Who really could afford that?
I personally think they fit perfectly as a couple, selling dreams like Martha Stewart in the old days with her lifestyle, her recipes were crap though, but I loved her books.

[NewbieHere]

Originally Posted by flyingsaucermom

No, in fact he likely feels liberated.

I always got the feeling that the "family man" lifestyle felt uncomfortable for him. When he talked about his son I usually cringed. He didn't mention his wife much at all.

I guess I don't talk about my husband and kids all that much either, but when I do, I'm pretty darn clear how important they and their well-being are to me. Like, the point of this joint frugal, mustachian living with my husband is entirely to set up the kids.

With MMM.. I felt like he was more doing it to give the bird to societal chains.

True, whatever post I accidentally read there, he mentioned eating lunch with his son. Never mentioned his wife except she took care of herself. I guess they have been divorcing for a while, he might not have been forth coming with the readers. I understand, how do you sell the dream, when your kid comes from a broken home, even living gingery on talipia(I won’t eat this fish) or on nothing. If we can believe the nothing part. He seems to hide a lot of expenses.

[countrylv22]

Originally Posted by 22003yo

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015...view/#comments


Is one of the first things I see on the home page. Most likely he makes the money through affiliate marketing.

I do not see adds of any type on his blog? I do not understand how he is making money off of his blog?? The link just has comments from his readers...

For example with the City Data forum, if you are logged in you do not see that many adds, but if you try reading the forum without being logged in, the adds are obvious.

But in the case of MMM blog, I do not understand??? How is he making money?

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer

The article doesn't go into the details. However, I'd like to know how this couple lived their lives to save enough to retire on.

Sure, you can retire in your 30s if your combined salary is $135,000 and you live like a pauper for several years. Few people would be willing to do that though.

It revealed enough to give you an idea. They lived in the student ghetto and drove a beater car. Extreme frugality. She dropped out of the workforce when they had a kid so their combined income was more like $200K+ for a decade. They still had to pay taxes. 7.65% for FICA/Medicare. Standard deduction. Figure a 20% to 22% effective Federal income tax rate for their dual income years.


The problem with these stories is what happens when he's 50, totally out of the labor force for a decade+, and they run out of money. You don't get senior engineer comp with a 10 year work gap. Your skills went obsolete. Since 2010, everybody is a hero since the market did nothing but go up. That isn't the normal way of it. Even worse, these people won't get much of a Social Security check because they have nothing like 35 work years in the system. Layer in a "life happens" event or two and they have a huge problem.

[eliza61nyc]

Originally Posted by boxus

Lol, because you have to make actual money to retire so early, if at all. Low wage jobs will not provide such funds to do so.



Forty years ago the entry barrier was low for those things, and areas like boilers which now days, they will not even look at you unless you have a degree.

thanks Republican, lol while I enjoy those types of stories I think people refuse to accept that what the world was like in the 60's and 70's is not what the world is like today.

I'm a chemist, started my career in the oil refinery business. Security guards at my job have to have an associate. We rarely hire anyone with out a degree. Engineers? lol no we are not hiring those without college degrees and forget moving up.

So I pretty much read these type of articles with a smile. I do like that he said it's about what each person wants. Do I want to live in a rundown student housing and ride a bike for transportation? nope. not my lifestyle.

[Threestep2]

Both have been out of their fields, the kid is not getting younger, neither are they.

[cjseliga]

Originally Posted by countrylv22

I do not see adds of any type on his blog? I do not understand how he is making money off of his blog?? The link just has comments from his readers...

For example with the City Data forum, if you are logged in you do not see that many adds, but if you try reading the forum without being logged in, the adds are obvious.

But in the case of MMM blog, I do not understand??? How is he making money?

A lot of "social influencers" can get paid by companies for just mentioning them or their product in a blog post, no visual Ads required. Now on YouTube, a YouTuber is required to mention at the beginning of the video that it's basically an Ad, either verbally or in writing across the bottom. Do all YouTubers do this, no, and many viewers would have never even known they got paid X amount of dollars from a company.

So I have Ad blocker installed on my Chrome browser (like everyone should) so even if MMM had Ads on his website, I wouldn't see them, so I just opened his website Mr. Money Mustache — Early Retirement through Badassity in Internet Explorer and scrolled down and found a Need a Financial Advisor? - Compare Fees Advice & Ratings Ad at the bottom.

Also, did you notice his "MMM Recommends" section on his website, one of the clearest places where companies are paying him to mention their products, the one up there now is for SoFi. SoFi can easily be paying him $5-10k/per month to have that "recommendation"/link on his website, there's $60-120k, before taxes, each year right there! Life of an influencer is BIG business, make no mistake about it.

I hope this helps.

[flyingsaucermom]

I heard somewhere that his blogs makes $400k a year.

[countrylv22]

Originally Posted by cjseliga

A lot of "social influencers" can get paid by companies for just mentioning them or their product in a blog post, no visual Ads required. Now on YouTube, a YouTuber is required to mention at the beginning of the video that it's basically an Ad, either verbally or in writing across the bottom. Do all YouTubers do this, no, and many viewers would have never even known they got paid X amount of dollars from a company.

So I have Ad blocker installed on my Chrome browser (like everyone should) so even if MMM had Ads on his website, I wouldn't see them, so I just opened his website Mr. Money Mustache — Early Retirement through Badassity in Internet Explorer and scrolled down and found a Need a Financial Advisor? - Compare Fees Advice & Ratings Ad at the bottom.

Also, did you notice his "MMM Recommends" section on his website, one of the clearest places where companies are paying him to mention their products, the one up there now is for SoFi. SoFi can easily be paying him $5-10k/per month to have that "recommendation"/link on his website, there's $60-120k, before taxes, each year right there! Life of an influencer is BIG business, make no mistake about it.

I hope this helps.

Ahhh, now this clarifies things! Thank you for the detailed post explaining how it all works.