Mr. Money Mustache may be frugal, but he's high income.

[Anonymous]

Well this derailed quickly in a classic DCUM way. I think we can all agree it’s possible to live frugally and still drive to the grocery store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

LOL, yes he works. He calls himself retired, but he works. That blog needs to come out on schedule whether he wants to write or not, because he'll lose advertisers otherwise.

He writes one post a month!

[Anonymous]

Here's his 2011 take on how you can get rich riding a bike instead of driving a car:

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/18/get-rich-with-bikes/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's his 2011 take on how you can get rich riding a bike instead of driving a car:

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/18/get-rich-with-bikes/

Wow, I hope his financial knowledge is better than his knowledge of biking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it really ironic that he got rich by being really, really good at being poor. It's almost as if there is a lesson here somewhere, but I can't quite get my head around it.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"you, too, can retire at age 30 with less than $1 million in assets. Just figure out a passive income stream that pays you around half a million bucks a year!"

Lol. Seriously, the guy didn’t retire, he just changed careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"you, too, can retire at age 30 with less than $1 million in assets. Just figure out a passive income stream that pays you around half a million bucks a year!"

Lol. Seriously, the guy didn’t retire, he just changed careers.

And yet, if it were that easy, wouldn’t everyone do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"you, too, can retire at age 30 with less than $1 million in assets. Just figure out a passive income stream that pays you around half a million bucks a year!"

Lol. Seriously, the guy didn’t retire, he just changed careers.

And yet, if it were that easy, wouldn’t everyone do it?

Many (most) people do do it. People change careers or jobs all the time. Not everyone wants to blog.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"you, too, can retire at age 30 with less than $1 million in assets. Just figure out a passive income stream that pays you around half a million bucks a year!"

Lol. Seriously, the guy didn’t retire, he just changed careers.

And yet, if it were that easy, wouldn’t everyone do it?

Most people are stupid and have a bunch of debt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"you, too, can retire at age 30 with less than $1 million in assets. Just figure out a passive income stream that pays you around half a million bucks a year!"

Lol. Seriously, the guy didn’t retire, he just changed careers.

And yet, if it were that easy, wouldn’t everyone do it?

He’s clever and it’s not easy. Very few can generate that kind of cash flow off of a blog.

That doesn’t mean people should follow his advice about how to be poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

LOL, yes he works. He calls himself retired, but he works. That blog needs to come out on schedule whether he wants to write or not, because he'll lose advertisers otherwise.

He writes one post a month!

I never had what you would call a "real job". I couldn't find a job out of college and I became a blogger and internet marketer.
That's what I do for a living. I write one or two posts a month. Does that make me a retiree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

LOL, yes he works. He calls himself retired, but he works. That blog needs to come out on schedule whether he wants to write or not, because he'll lose advertisers otherwise.

He writes one post a month!

I never had what you would call a "real job". I couldn't find a job out of college and I became a blogger and internet marketer.
That's what I do for a living. I write one or two posts a month. Does that make me a retiree?

I think retired means that you are able to live on the income of your investments; you don't have to work for pay in order to meet your living expenses.

If you write two blog posts a month and earn money by doing so, enough to meet your living expenses... I'd say that you are "working" and at a really cushy job! (Or else you have unusually low living expenses or something.)

If you are paying for your lifestyle from your investment proceeds, but also write a blog post here and there, though you don't really need the money, I'd say you were retired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Just like a cheap man to manage to find a way to make grocery shopping even more of a chore

And to be the one who asks for divorce and still make your wife figure out how to make it happen on your tightwad budget.

Personal finance ain't about how much you make. Its about how much you keep

By making those around you do the work for free so you don't have to pay someone else to do it. Can't imagine why such a charmer couldn't make his marriage work.

Hmmm... I wonder why she didn't work. I'll hang up and listen

Perhaps because if she went back to work, his whole shtick would fall apart. He couldn't credibly claim they were "retired" (which he's not) living off passive income and frugality if his spouse is going to work every day and bringing home a paycheck.

She started her own soap company and it got pretty successful in Etsy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it really ironic that he got rich by being really, really good at being poor. It's almost as if there is a lesson here somewhere, but I can't quite get my head around it.

+1.

he's not really good at being poor he's really good at making a lot of money at a software engineering job and rental income and then investing it and living frugally off plus blog income.


I used to get really interested in people who who FIRE until I ralize that almost all of them had some very cushy job (mostly software engineers) and then they could afford to save 70% of their income because they were making something like 150,000 or more a year. and you'll notice that while they're very open about how much they save their incredibly close lipped about how much they make from their jobs because that takes away the illusion that any person can save at some crazy rate and be able to save the money to retire early.


and of course when you point this out the fire community gets super defensive about it and claims anyone who critcizes them is jealous of their success or lazy or whatever.

My father-in-law is a janitor and struggles to get full-time hours due to health issues. He too lives a very frugal existence. The difference is that he will never realistically save a million dollars or whatever is the magical FIRE number is because he's making a minimum wage job.

This podcast does it really interesting job of breaking down how the FiRE community is being co-opted by investment bankers to sell savings products

https://m.soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-77-frugality-fables-and-the-poor-shaming-grift-of-financial-advice-journalism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it really ironic that he got rich by being really, really good at being poor. It's almost as if there is a lesson here somewhere, but I can't quite get my head around it.

+1.

he's not really good at being poor he's really good at making a lot of money at a software engineering job and rental income and then investing it and living frugally off plus blog income.


I used to get really interested in people who who FIRE until I ralize that almost all of them had some very cushy job (mostly software engineers) and then they could afford to save 70% of their income because they were making something like 150,000 or more a year. and you'll notice that while they're very open about how much they save their incredibly close lipped about how much they make from their jobs because that takes away the illusion that any person can save at some crazy rate and be able to save the money to retire early.


and of course when you point this out the fire community gets super defensive about it and claims anyone who critcizes them is jealous of their success or lazy or whatever.

My father-in-law is a janitor and struggles to get full-time hours due to health issues. He too lives a very frugal existence. The difference is that he will never realistically save a million dollars or whatever is the magical FIRE number is because he's making a minimum wage job.

This podcast does it really interesting job of breaking down how the FiRE community is being co-opted by investment bankers to sell savings products

https://m.soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-77-frugality-fables-and-the-poor-shaming-grift-of-financial-advice-journalism

This reminds me of The Frugalwoods. They have a popular FIRE type blog. The wife wrote a book and readers kind of ripped her to shreds over being disingenuous about how much her DH makes (she's "retired" but he's not, making something like $240K/year).