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I used to read MMM. I found it when I searched for information on reaching financial independence on a small stash. I was at the time paying off debt as fast as I could, and had already figured out what I needed for my basic living expenses. I didn’t know how much I needed to save/invest to generate that basic income. I found lots of useful info in his blog and on the forum, and the frugal, efficient lifestyle he promoted was (and is) appealing to me.
I am still working, mostly because of concerns about health care/insurance costs and because I need a bigger buffer, but I feel secure with my level of financial freedom. I think probably financial independence is a more accurate term than retirement for MMMs lifestyle. The goal is to achieve financial freedom to pursue the life you want, whether it involves working or not.
I stopped visiting the site, because it really was meant for young people with high incomes, and I was neither. I got sick of contemptuous attitudes – those who failed to be high earners when young made bad choices and deserved face punches, as did those who had different goals than saving a lot of money and retiring young. I guess I didn’t have much in common with a 20-30 something making a six- figure income.
I'm 40 something and not a high earner and I still love the site. IMO a lot of people really do need face punches.
Of course, the biggest way people mess up their lives is having kids outside marriage and/or not knowing how to pick a good partner. I've done that myself. Fortunately, no kids, though.
My rear looking perspective tells me... Replace your income with inflation protected income streams ASAP. Age 30 -50 retirement (from the treadmill), is very possible for many. So... I would use age 16 - age 30 as strongly as possible to growth sustaining investments, Stay home with kids till age 45, then go BACK to work (only if you must). MMM accomplished that.
Yep, he did. He's also homeschooling his son. Didn't like the public schools. Can't blame him on that one, either.
It's not like it is rocket science or brain surgery!
1. Graduate from college with little to no debt at the age of 22.
2. Immediately after graduating, get a high paying job ($125k-150k+) with a very generous 401k plan, that you love doing, or at the very least enjoy.
3. Live way below your means, taking the money you save to invest accordingly.
4. (Bonus) Marry someone with a like mindset that makes the same as you.
5. Retire when you're 30!
Except very few people who earn that type of income actually do it. And he didn't start out earning 125K, either.
That didn't happen until 4 years after he started it. People talk as if he knew his web site was going to be a sure thing. Most people make very little or no money off their blogs.
I admit, I had no idea that blogging could pay that well. Are those numbers substantiated?
Very few bloggers make that kind of money. Mr. Money Mustache didn't start his blog until he'd been retired (or whatever you want to call not working a regular job) for 6 years. I think the New Yorker interviewed him and reported that the blog earned $400,000 in 2015...4 years after he started it.
But I chose what was possible, just to a lesser extent. The blog is a Godsend for me, really got me into goals.
I think this is what people are missing. So many people have such an all/nothing, black/white mindset. They see one thing on the blog that can't work for them and then they write off the whole thing.
I mean, is MMM really wrong when he says there are a lot of people out there who could live more frugally without really missing everything they thought they would? I don't think so. And psychologists & economists who study the relationship between money and happiness, while perhaps not as zealous as MMM, pretty much agree with his overall premise.
So maybe you can't become FI at 30 like MMM. But a lot of people can implement his thinking and have a lot more options in their lives. Maybe they're retiring at 40. Maybe they stay working because they love their work but know they have a safety net big enough that they can walk out any time they want and do something different.
As MMM said in a talk he gave "Work gets better when you don't have to do it for money". That is what many people are missing.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 10-07-2017 at 09:13 PM..
If investing in low cost index funds that follow the overall market and having a proper asset allocation of stocks and bonds is bozo then is stuffing your mattress with a cash a safer, better performing option? In regards to debt, yea he's ok just popularizing what others have known and done before but for those that didn't realize it. IMO after debt and saving an emergency fund, you're better off reading/following bogleheads or MMM. Case in point below from Mr. Ramsey's own website:
Cost
Dave recommends front-end load funds in which you pay fees and commissions when you make your investment. It allows your money to grow without being bogged down by expensive management fees. Also pay attention to the fund’s expense ratio. A ratio higher than 1% is considered expensive.
Why would you want a front-end load fund? You're already behind from the get-go! Compared to index fund costs of .05% plus any transaction fee if in a brokerage account.
Yeah, seriously. Dave Ramsey is horrible for the investing piece.
Growing up with a single mom didn't seem to hurt Barack Obama.
That's a matter of opinion. But even if one thinks Obama is a god, the data on kids who grow up in single parent families is in. There is now abundant evidence, even from liberal leaning think tanks, that single parent households are not good for kids. There will always be exceptions...but the exceptions are just that. Exceptions.
Children raised by single mothers are more likely to fare worse on a number of dimensions, including their school achievement, their social and emotional development, their health and their success in the labor market. They are at greater risk of parental abuse and neglect (especially from live-in boyfriends who are not their biological fathers), more likely to become teen parents and less likely to graduate from high school or college.
I read a bit on the site a while ago. Aside from concerns about being under and uninsured (health insurance as well as property and casualty), I found that one of the ways they "saved" money was by being cheap. They went out to restaurants, but only when someone else paid for them, and they never reciprocated. When the wife was pregnant, they "saved" money by getting handmedown maternity clothing and baby stuff but they were always the recipient, never the people buying and then handing down things.
They didn't live a life of poverty, they lived a very nice middle class lifestyle because they got other people to help pay for it - probably some of the very same people they deride for not saving as much as they did.
I guess that makes them financially successful, but IMO, it makes them far less successful as members of the human race.
I have read a lot of that blog and I have never seen any of these things mentioned. Would love to have the links to back up these claims.
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