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

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[quote=Anonymous]PP here, every year he posts how much he spends, atleast from when he started the blog.

Here is the latest for 2014, I am curious to hear your thoughts.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/01/16/exposed-the-mmm-familys-2014-spending/
Do you think some of this is fudged, and he is spending more? What do you see lacking?

Personally, yes I cannot see sustaining my family on this spending level, but I attribute that he is handy, lives in LCOL area and has tons of time in his hands to plan and optimize spending. Clearly he enjoys that, but you & I might not, so what works for him, will not work for you, which is fine. But I dont think we need to follow his script, maybe learn atleast a few lessons in frugality?

And to say that his family is just a step away from dying maybe a bit far fetched?  I do agree he has a huge safety net like handy skills, wife works for her parent's company and made 60K partime, Canadian healthcare etc (way before the blog revenue) but again his message is NOT that go quit your job, but be frugal and save so you have enough to quit if needed. 
And I think he is living his example, if he was in a 9-5 cubicle job, he would not have had his blog that is now raking him revenue. [/quote]

My reverse engineering of this families budget was spot on without actually having been on the site before.  My bare bones budget put it at 20K without any travel added.  Considering they spent 5K on travel and a total of 25K for the year, my estimation was spot on.
This was a perfect world budget.  No matter how handy this guy is, he is not installing a new hvac system, 7900$ on his own.  He does not look like he can rebuild a car transmission either.
"And to say that his family is just a step away from dying maybe a bit far fetched?"
I think you missed the point here as it was not to suggest they are a step away from actually dying.  Physically the human body doesnt need a lot to survive/exist but on 20-25K a year, it leaves almost nothing to experience it fully.  
Pretending his wifes 60K and the 400K from the blog does not exist and act like they dont have any other money to live on is disingenuous.   Whether or not they actually live on that posted budget is up for debate because when a news magazine outs your real income, it removes any credibility you may have had.
http://familiesusa.org/product/federal-poverty-guidelines
For a family of 3, 20K a year is considered the poverty level in the US.  For most, existing like this is not an acceptable choice especially when they have options to rise well above it.  
It would be funny if he is actually getting federal benefits claiming to be living at the poverty level not unlike the alaska bush people who dont actually live in alaska.
http://www.adn.com/article/20141022/stars-alaska-reality-tv-show-charged-pfd-fraud[/quote]

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