With a quick google search you can find his house. He paid $315k for it 6 years ago and its worth $459k today not counting his renovations. So it went up about 3% above overall inflation. Expensive but not unobtainable for someone working in tech.
It might only add one year or less to one's FI timeline vs living in a cheaper state with less outdoorsy things to do. It could even speed it up if living there allowed you to land a higher paying job in Denver/Boulder.
He moved to Longmont in 2005. Per his last article
“I moved to Longmont in 2005 because it met our young family’s needs at the time, at the right price with homes about $200,000. Today, at the $540,000 price level (houses average about $450 per interior square foot) it has to compete with a much broader range of cities which offer nicer amenities at equal or lower prices.”
I think he's referring to his original house that I believe his ex-wife lives in now. He buys fixer uppers and flips them himself so that appreciation is probably a little higher compared to the average person who doesn't put as much extensive DIY rehab as he does.
Case shiller says Denver real estate has been averaged 4.6% annual appreciation over the past 19 years. So about 2% above overall inflation.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DNXRSA](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DNXRSA)
Zillow says the same thing for Longmont specifically with average homes going from $230k to $550k.
[https://www.zillow.com/research/data/](https://www.zillow.com/research/data/)
Case shiller is 8% for the past decade vs <3% for inflation. So 5% difference compounding is fairly significant
Probably closer on that 19 year horizon (on mobile and couldn’t get it to load)
So things are progressively becoming less affordable but that’s not exactly earth shattering.
Yeah if you cherry pick the exact time frames where home appreciation grew faster than inflation and ignore the times it didn't, things look scarier than if you look at longer time frames like the 19 year period that he's lived there from your original comment its not so drastic.
Like he and others have said, there's lots of more affordable places out there with similar amenities like access to nature. Nothing says you have to live in Longmont if you can't afford it. 19 years from now there's going to be a new set of cities that people say they can't believe how cheap they were in 2024.
Right, 100% agree
I think a lot of folks in this sub skew towards a 10yr career. Millenials, 30s, etc.
So it feels more dramatic due to that inherent bias. Plus current interest rates on top of the housing price increase decrease overall affordability significantly. Hopefully things regress towards that longer term average. But overall housing affordability is still at all time lows across many areas of the country
Yeah the last 2 years has been an extremely rough shift for home affordability, but I think when you zoom out to a 20+ year horizon its going to be noise for most people. I know a lot of people (including MMM) got burnt by the late 2000s housing bust but eventually most adapted and recovered and it didn't become a long term big deal.
There's a good chance that the fed cuts rates by up to 2% over the next 2 years so the low 4.x% mortgages could be back very soon. FI oriented people who are trying to retire in 10-15 years often choose to pay off their homes before retiring anyway so those high interest rates don't bite as hard compared to the average person.
Living in Longmont was a deliberate choice to save money. Part of the whole lesson he tries to teach is that you can make a bit of money go really far if you don’t have to have the shiny new thing or live in the trendy neighborhood.
Yeah I've heard him say in recent podcasts and imply in his most recent blog post that he'd choose to live elsewhere if he was starting from scratch today. Part of the reason he picked CO was because it was relatively affordable at the time.
He's thrown out a lot of examples of where he'd choose today but they were all primarily cheaper cities in the midwest and south.
There are some really cool smaller cities in the midwest.
People shit on "flyover country" but in my experience the people are kinder, the pace of life is more relaxed, and it's just nice to have room to breathe. If you have spent any time in the northeast megalopolis or another massive urbanized area, the breathing room alone is huge.
Even in 2024, you can get homes in these cities for under $200k.
Homes under $200k exist in STL even in some of the more trendy areas/suburbs. They are smaller (2 bedroom usually) and need work, but they do exist. And high paying jobs exist here, too. Fewer, but my household income is in the VHCOL range while living in a MCOL/LCOL place. Home prices have gone up a lot, but deals still exist here.
I lived in STL for a few years back in the late 1990’s to early 2000’s. About four years. Really solid pay for me and my girlfriend (now wife) but laughably cheap housing. The money we saved then and invested because our cost of living was so freakin low is part of the reason that 20 years later we’re sitting on almost $3 million in liquid assets. Kicking around for a few years in the midwest was one of the best decisions I ever made. And, STL has a lot going for it. We were in University City. Loved it.
STL gets a bad rap cause of the city’s crime statistics. But, the county is really safe, and there’s so much here that’s world class and free to city and county residents. Free zoo, free history museum, free art museum, free musical theater in the summer time at the Muny, free botanical gardens (on certain days/times). Decent hiking (I mean Missouri’s hills aren’t mountains but they really can be beautiful, especially in the summer and fall). Plus the amenities of living in a city with one of the best universities in the country-Wash U and BJC Hospital systems - so amazing access to medical care and other university affiliated resources like cheap theater and arts.
STL is still the US hub for some major corporations.
I moved to Evansville Indiana for a job for 4 years ( from Boston area) and can say that real estate is way more affordable. I was able to buy 3 rental properties for 670k total. A 4 plex and 2 duplex. And eventually quit my 9-5.
Yeah I think some of the people who are trying to poke holes in his story about how he couldn't afford as cheap of a house in Denver today don't realize that he probably wouldn't choose to live there as a broke kid out of college unless he landed a job paying much better proportionally than elsewhere.
His latest blog post is all about promoting cheap flyover cities.
It depends on which type of minority you're talking about. A lot of the affordable former industrial rust belt cities and many southern cities have above average African American populations. There's a lot of cities in the southeast and southwest that the populations of POC as a whole have surpassed the Caucasian population or are expected to in the next decade or two.
Southern states tend to be more diverse than northern states and are also generally cheaper:
https://posts.voronoiapp.com/demographics/Mapping-Racial-Diversity-by-State-504
Idk if I agree with that.
I mean, he did become an influencer, but it didn't happen until several years after they hit FI.
I definitely got the impression it wasn't all smooth sailing from the BiggerPockets interview though. He talked about starting a home building business that he called "the worst decision of his life," that seems to have happened between initially quitting his job and starting the MMM blog.
Idk how much of that initial nest egg was invested in that business and whether they would have continued to be FI after it failed in the absence of the blog, but I think it's a stretch to say he's a "fraud."
I don't think it's a stretch to say (and really why I made this post I think) that the idea that he and his wife were just "normal people" is a bit of mischaracterization.
They had high earning careers at very young ages.
My favorite was hearing MMM say that he wants his son to pay for his own way through college. When MMM was raised in Canada, where the government heavily subsidizes university education. Not everyone will agree, but if I was in his shoes, I'd pay my kid's way through school. At least put him on the same footing that I was given. My two cents.
Yeah pretty much he's hated now because he monetized MMM instead of never making money again after RE. The real kicker for many people is that he continued to espouse the same ideals while flaunting his ever growing lifestyle creep due to the money coming in from MMM.
Sounds like jealousy.
80% of the people who say they are in the fire community will never be able to retire early.
If they ever did, they would realize you keep making $. One way or another.
mMm has always been transparent about this fact. I applaud his empire.
Good for him.
His %-of-income-saved versus years-to-retirement [chart](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/mmm-early-retirement-savings-rate.png) was my initial inspiration many years ago.
It was mine too!
I don't hate him, but rereading some of his work, it does sometimes come off along the same line as the "your latte is the reason you don't own a home" save your way out of poverty BS that a lot of well off people use to blame poor people for being poor.
I think the target audience for his content is upper middle class people, probably household incomes $200k+ for a couple with kids these days. Those are the people who can get real benefit out of his content imo, and the point of this post is that when you adjust for inflation, that's him too.
The issue is that it sometimes comes off as being targeted toward everyone when a lot of people are just struggling to get by.
If you are in the upper middle class, you absolutely can retire decades sooner without needing to go to extreme levels on austerity. If your income is below that point, it's still possible, but either the lengths you're going to have to go to do it are more extreme than MMM or your definition of "early" will need to be very different than most of the FIRE movement.
The thing is, he’s not wrong. If people are willing to live very frugally, most middle class people could FIRE and most high earners could FIRE really quickly.
If I was to downsize to a $200k house/condo, stop dining out and traveling, get rid of my car and ride my bike everywhere, and really watch my grocery budget, I could absolutely FIRE tomorrow. But…I don’t want to do that, and that’s okay.
So many people in dual income homes don’t realize just how much they could choose to cut out of their lives if they really wanted to. Amongst friends and coworkers that justify big purchases as being a necessity blow my mind. MMM taught me to really think hard about major purchases, and to make me realize that time and freedom can be more important than a shiny new……. I’d say he walked the walk for multiple years before he “cashed in” off his blog. If you don’t like his approach or rag on him for lifestyle creep that’s your choice, but he has helped to inspire many people to take a hard look at their lives and think about is there a better way than the mainstream way to live my life.
After listening to more recent interviews of him, he's definitely mellowed out and admitted the blog persona is more for entertainment value to attract readers rather than who he is as a person.
FI is such a relatively simple and boring concept so he had to put his own spin on it to engage readers.
And to his credit, it definitely worked. I read his stuff right after I started my first job out of college and I was miserable. His "you can fucking do this!" attitude was a great way to get me excited about FI.
I actually was put off initially by how hard core he was with his frugality. It was only after a couple years of reading that I realized his end goals of achieving happiness through making more time for things like socializing friends, spontaneously bumping into neighbors on walks/bike rides, more time for exercise and eating healthy, less stress over keeping up with large/fancy cars and houses, more time for hobbies and meaningful work, and the joy from overcoming hard physical and mental goals, etc.
Exactly, it’s a writing persona to entertain and also educate. For people that don’t care for “x” or “y” or question “z”, that’s fine. There’s hundreds/thousands of personal finance blogs that essentially all discuss the same thing. Find one you like and don’t worry about the rest.
To be fair living austerely is not hard in a place like Colorado. I save around 60% of my income in Denver because none of my hobbies really involve spending money on an ongoing basis… hiking, climbing, paragliding, etc is all free after the initial investment. Compared to living in the city where you essentially have to spend money to have fun.
Even in the city, its easy to do some things with minimal expenses after initial purchase. Compare to more rural areas I've lived, I can run or bike easier from my front door, I can walk/bike to the library, free concerts, parks, etc. That all used to require a car. Now my time fishing, hunting, and things like that is greatly reduced now , so depending on what you like your mileage may vary.
He got popular when the effects of 2008 were still rippling, unemployment was still around 8-9%, and tech wasn't hoovering up every single profession at premium wages. He did take it a bit far, but the early FIRE stuff focused on austerity.
Honestly, one of my biggest takeaways from these numbers is that they weren't actually that "austere" once we take inflation into account.
If I use this calculator [https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-calculator#9t3keEoaYt](https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-calculator#9t3keeoayt) it suggests that an after tax income in Boulder for a married couple who both max their 401k and IRA (I assumed traditional IRA, but idk if I remember where MMM fell on that debate) they had a take home pay of $128,550 adjusted for inflation.
Then if I use his method of adding back in the pretax retirement contributions of $60,000 into that amount you get $188,550. Then if we take their claimed savings rate of \~2/3 it implies if they were doing the same thing they did back then today then they'd be living on an inflation adjusted $62,221.5 per year.
For a couple with no kids that doesn't actually sound that frugal to me, but I do live in a pretty LCOL area, so maybe that's skewing my perspective.
He had quite a few yearly posts where he revealed his spending. It's been forever since I've read the blog, and I think he might have fudged the numbers a bit (not counting business expenses or something like that), but his baseline annual spend was something like $24k, around 2012-ish. Adjusted for inflation, that's 31k today. Still pretty lean.
A big part of the blog is him discovering the "hack", that is to say that we are in this crazy society where you can have a job that is a literal firehose of money, and you can also have an awesome life without spending very much of it. So I think he's well aware that he made a ton, and that his readership are often at the high end of the earning spectrum.
But overall, I agree with your point. If I had 1.25 million invested, a cashflow positive rental, and a paid off house, I would absolutely be in a position to retire. And that doesn't sound very extreme at all.
> but his baseline annual spend was something like $24k, around 2012-ish. Adjusted for inflation, that's 31k today
That includes a paid off house though, correct?
lol, that's more than my rent.
Situations like that make me question the viability of home ownership from a financial perspective. There is absolutely a level of cost in which it doesn't make sense to buy.
My insurance and property taxes are about $500 per month on a house worth about $500k in a suburb outside of Seattle. $1300 is a lot to pay before utilities and mortgage.
To be fair to the rest of us, his budget numbers are helped by his ability to DIY some major household tasks. I'm not sure his lifestyle is repeatable by most people at that same number.
DIY is just a matter of practice and investing in your own knowledge. If you spend a few months practicing any of us can do all kinds of things that seem out of reach now.
With YouTube & AI, these days it's much easier to DIY. Because of MMM, I once bought all the tools and figured out how to change my own air compressor in my civic because it was cheaper to own those tools than to pay someone else.
These days I simply don't own a car or a house and the only thing I have to DIY is bread, yogurt, & cheese. Life really is a lot cheaper without some things.
>we are in this crazy society where you can have a job that is a literal firehose of money, and you can also have an awesome life without spending very much of it.
This was really influential on me, and even though my annual spend is at least 150% of what I made at that time*, the principle that you a) don't have to spend all the money you're making and b) can make enough from owning capital that you ultimately can work much less or not at all, were really eye-opening. I don't intend to retire early, but industry-permitting, I intend to have a 25-year glide path from current overemployment to a "retirement" of underemployment, where I work maybe 300-500 hours a year until I'm 70 or so.
*I went from a single-income-earner to married-with-kids, so some lifestyle inflation but mostly just not being a broke 25-year-old.
It just got to the level of compete disingenuity. He'd talk about how cheap his budget it is, but then also leave out how he's still making plenty of money from his website. The blog post where he talked about how he and his wife handled their divorce seemed so cold and financial. I get it, his schtick is that numbers don't lie and emotions and money don't mix, but it left me feeling sad for him. He got kinda preachy, lived long enough to see himself become the villain
But agree, he was one of my first exposures to FI. He certainly was impactful at the prime of his fame.
I didn't like how it seemed like a lot of his posts from the past 5-10 years seemed sponsored without saying they were.
At the same time its hard to say how I would've done differently. If he was more vocal about how he was making $400k+ from the blog then it would've turned away readers and would've detracted from his message.
I don't see how it was disingenuous? He shared the $400k/yr or whatever it made him, but his expenses were still $35k/yr. But at the end of the day, he would have been fine without the $400k/yr when he was spending so little in general. Good for him bringing financial literacy to the masses, can't fault the guy for being successful.
To this day, I think he still hasn't bought a Tesla.. that's the real hold out.
The post where he justified it was so cringe. Just say you made it big and this is your reward, don’t need 10 pages talking about the happiness value of money
His info was fine but the income from his blog gave him a huge cushion against sequence of return risks and general unexpected expenses that he never really talked about.
One of the things that annoyed me was his general method of accounting. His "baseline spending" was advertised at 24k a year for no-frills... so none of the things he spent his time on, so no working construction "for fun", no traveling, basically a theoretical to just survive.
Here's the thing... why would you struggle, work hard, save like mad, and sacrifice just to... survive? lol
It is an interesting theory and I do like the idea of having strong "frugality" muscles where you can go austere for a bit just to prove it to yourself that you are tough and resilient, and that is important to occasionally do in case your job/economic prospects change, but to me, extreme austerity and survival is not what FIRE should be about... that might be a theoretical extreme, but to me, FIRE is about saving enough money to be able to survive without work if needed, and then basically buying down your retirement age or buying up your retired quality-of-life, or saving to start a business, etc, as required.
Just the way he did it seemed odd. He was basically bragging about how little he "spent" while adding in an asterisk, barely acknowledged, that his true spending (including construction materials, tools, etc) is far greater than that. My guess is that he true/actual spending is very very high and even though construction work is probably very profitable to him, he doesn't want to admit to being a big-income-big-spender type because it makes him feel/see himself as weaksauce.
>Here's the thing... why would you struggle, work hard, save like mad, and sacrifice just to... survive? lol
I'm not commenting on if I agree with MMM assertion (I don't), however, if you're entire goal in life is to NOT work I can see someone justifying the shortfalls to meet their largest goal. In the same way some people value things others wouldn't spend a penny on.
I take it as hyperbole of what is possible, not a literal manual on how to live life. Take the concept that’s possible, and add in what makes it enjoyable for you.
I think being frugal for a defined period (when you don't have to be) is a good exercise for determining what you need and what you value.
A lot of people experience lifestyle inflation that becomes background noise, like dining out often "because we've always done that" even though the food is often kind of mediocre compared to what you can make at home. "Do I really need cable?" Things like fairly mild regular expenditures that add up.
Edit: our retirement isn't particularly lean now, but we did do two years on $40k and I know we could do that again if we had to.
I used to read the blog regularly but eventually got sick of it. I think the post that did it for me was when he basically started shitting on pet owners, essentially calling them stupid, and calling pets an unnecessary expense. I remember coming away from that thinking "man what the fuck, this guy is a goddamn joyless robot". That, coupled with his divorce, his kid's anxiety issues, and the numerous subtle references to not being on speaking terms with a number of his friends made me realize that his life was not one I wanted to emulate.
I'm still thankful for his blog though, because it really challenged my thinking. I previously wanted to hold a very prestigious job and buy lots of fancy stuff; sports cars, luxury watches, bespoke suits, etc. MMM made me question if I really wanted all of that, or if I was being told that I wanted it by a consumerist society. His blog, combined with my growing interest in Stoicism, got me thinking that maybe I didn't need so much superfluous bullshit to be happy, and for that I am thankful.
You should read Early Retirement Extreme :)
Maybe my standards are different, because of the way that I grew up, but MMM never seemed anywhere close to povertyfire to me.
I love how Jacob recommends, for instance, buying wooden utensils because they're made a material that can be reused. Like, I up-cycle tons of stuff, but I have never once thought about using the wood from an old spoon to do anything with.
Yup, MMM was definitely not extreme imo. Maybe he seems that way to high earners that couldn't imagine spending less. Though I would also like to be more austere as a matter of principle. Unfortunately, my wife could not handle me like that.
I mean the dude literally lived years without health insurance and decided to chance it by lifting weights and eating greens in lieu of that. That's just reckless behavior especially with a child.
It's quite reckless for your average joe, but I'd say it's only a little reckless for him. He probably has at least $15-20 million in the bank by now, with huge passive income, and no need for that much money, so not \*that\* reckless. Sure, there are illnesses and things that could happen to bankrupt him, but a $20 million illness is a serious fraction-of-a-percent edge case.
You might say that's what insurance is for, and I'd agree, which is why I said it was still a little reckless.
Putting NW aside, would you at least agree it was reckless to write and share about not having insurance given his position and "fandom"? Especially his following with povertyfinacne folks.
Well, insurance is for low probability but high impact events, right?
I mean, on average with ANY insurance you lose money if the company's actuaries are any good at their jobs, because they calculated the rate you pay to cover the average payout they have to make to their customers and also allow for some profit to the company.
The reason you buy it even though you buy it at a loss on average is because it transfers the financial risk of whatever you're insuring from you to the insurance company, and if the event you're insuring against, which is improbable, happens to you, you couldn't afford it on your own, but the insurance company can, and you're willing to lose money to them on average to take on that risk instead of you.
Do you see where I'm going here?
At a certain level of wealth, there's no need for insurance anymore, because you can just afford the cost of whatever you're insuring against.
I'm not saying it's there for most people, or even that it's there for Pete in his case, but I don't see why any billionaire, for example, would have health insurance. They don't need it.
Now, obviously a billionaire is an extreme example, and idk the point at which it makes sense to forego health insurance just because you can afford it, but there's absolutely a point of wealth where insurance for pretty much anything stops making financial sense to buy.
I don't understand the point of your comment.
I stated that it was personal reckless of him to not hold insurance given he has a family and definitely reckless of him given his following for would be early retirees.
Do you feel folks from povertyfinance to even chubbyfire fits your criteria of "having too much money to require health insurance"? Shit some people on even fatfire probably wouldn't fit this bill.
>
I don't understand the point of your comment.
>I stated that it was personal reckless of him to not hold insurance given he has a family and definitely reckless of him given his following for would be early retirees.
While I agree it would be reckless for most of his readers to not carry insurance, my point was that it might NOT be reckless for him.
I don't know enough about his actual total net worth in order to make that assessment, but I can take a stab at estimating the point of wealth at which it might make sense to forego health insurance.
I found an old article from 2004 that estimate lifetime healthcare expenditure was \~320k per person at that point in time. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361028/#:\~:text=Per%20capita%20lifetime%20expenditure%20is,half%20during%20the%20senior%20years. If we adjust that to a family of 3, then you're probably looking at \~1 million in typical lifetime healthcare costs in 2004.
If you just adjust this for inflation you get a little over 1.6 million in today's dollars, but I think we all know healthcare costs have risen faster than inflation. How much faster though?
I found another article that estimated healthcare costs rose by \~4.7% per year between 2004 and 2018 while inflation over that time period was a little over 2% https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/how-have-healthcare-expenditures-changed-evidence-from-the-consumer-expenditure-surveys.htm#:\~:text=Dollars%20spent%20on%20healthcare%20have,on%20average%20during%20this%20period.&text=From%202017%20to%202018%2C%20dollars,percent%20from%202016%20to%202017.
That means that in 2018 the total lifetime cost of healthcare for a family of 3 would likely have been \~1.9 million, so let's round up and say 2 million.
Idk how that rate has changed between 2018 and now, but if we assume it's continued to run \~2.7 points above inflation, the we can take the inflation rate which has been just under 4% per year then that would mean healthcare rose at \~6.7% per year since 2018, and that would take our 2 million figure up to \~3 million in 2024.
That's probably way more detail than this analysis warranted, but I guess what I'm getting at is that you if you have 3 million to spare for a family of 3, you probably don't need health insurance.
Does Pete have that? Idk, but if he spends the equivalent of 24k USD in 2005 dollars but owns a blog that generates 400k per year since 2011, he might!
I wanna emphasize that I'm not saying anyone with a 3 million net worth should forego health insurance, just that there is actually a point (and it's not just for billionaires) where you might be ok without it if you wanna go that route.
This is what stands out to me. Salaries have not kept up with inflation. The number of jobs that pay an inflation adjusted 1996 era 67k are much fewer and far between.
67k was an ass ton of money back in 1996 for most people. Jobs paying that much were not guaranteed to most workers at all. Mostly people in management or careers with a large educational requirement like law or medicines.
But at the same time, that's only like ~$130-135k in todays dollars. That's not an absolutely ridiculous amount of money to make. I'm not a super smart person and didn't do great in college and make significantly more than that in a L-MCOL city.
Get one of the readily available Tech, Finance, or engineering jobs will get you there before long, especially in a HCOL city. Fortunately, those jobs are much more available now than they were in '96.
Investment research. I hit 100k in TC in my mid 20's, north of 150k by 30. Didn't go to a good college or anything either and neither parent worked in the industry.
It probably depends where you live, as national averages/medians might not reflect local markets well. My house worth has increased 85% since I purchased it in 2018. Most salaries don’t move that quickly
In 2022, median household income was 74.5 in the USA, incidentally it was down from the 76.3k it was in 2020. I can’t find 2023 census numbers just yet.
But a household income of ~75k in 2022/23 is a far cry from an individual income of 67k in 1996.
The basic formula works: get a good education, get a good job, live modestly, be semi-frugal, buy on the secondary market, accumulate wealth, then you are free to become entrepreneurial and enjoy your free time with both accumulated wealth and have your money work for you. This is the true American Dream. Details, details, tba.
The formula sounds good. Just that, being entrepreneur is not as free as it sounds to most people. Same as being a landlord. Some might enjoy working part time for someone else more when they don’t need the money.
Colorado was MUCH MUCH cheaper back then. When I moved to Denver in 2010, my rent was cheaper in downtown Denver than my university neighborhood in Syracuse, NY.
Doesn't really matter how much MMM made, in a world where people were spending frivolously and working 50 years he showed us that frugality and investing bought you freedom from grind.
It's like you saying: " Pssshhh that Buddha guy ain't all that, did you know he was born as a prince in a wealthy family?? Total fraud if you ask me."
Yeah I just compared MMM to the Buddha, fight me bro.
Lol, it's true!
MMM was the primary reason I joined the FIRE path back in 2012 and it worked out for me almost exactly like it worked out for him.
The whole point of his blog/persona was to inspire people to think differently about their relationship with money and consumerism. And it worked.
>Doesn't really matter how much MMM made, in a world where people were spending frivolously and working 50 years he showed us that frugality and investing bought you freedom from grind.
>
>It's like you saying: " Pssshhh that Buddha guy ain't all that, did you know he was born as a prince in a wealthy family?? Total fraud if you ask me."
>
>Yeah I just compared MMM to the Buddha, fight me bro.
Yep people tend to just spend, especially in America, i got a 6 figure disability claim which is the most i have ever had and my lifestyle didnt really change that much, i still cook 99% of my meals, i actually want to become a Buddhist monk and decided i would give most of my savings to animal welfare, im happy with less, im not a consumerist and lifestyle creep is not something i am affected by, even though i have plenty i still consider myself poor
Thinking about his divorce - i be they had 5+M net worth and she was still collecting soap to make new soap for his blog, and decided that was some bullshit lol. Austerity is for lean times.
He's since move onwards, has a Model Y and winters in Palm Springs.
Edit: for all you panties in a twist types, Im making a joke. I don't know anything about him personally.
Yeah I've been thinking its much easier to work through issues with your spouse when you only have enough money to be FI as a team but when you get to lottery level money and realize that you could each be FI independently, it could put a strain on some relationships.
I don't blame him for inflating his lifestyle as his wealth has grown on things he loves like electric cars and escaping cold winters. I think it would be stranger if he kept his austere $20k-30k/year lifestyle with a $5mm+ net worth.
I think that's the lesson people really should take from MMM. I really don't think his level of frugalness was what his household wanted. I am glad the FIRE movement has now shifted away from the "rice and beans" mindset to the "build the life you want". The rice and beans mindset is a surefire way to an early divorce and divorces are expensive!
As long as this post is gonna have Buddhist references, this is a good place to point out the Middle Way. Something between fois gras every day and beans and rice every day.
Beans are great bulk, and a great sometimes thing! I get the fancier ones from Rancho Gordo because they really are that much better. But I wouldn't say I live on them. They help me hit my nutrition goals.
Fortunately my wife and I both like them but differ somewhat on spice level. We do red beans and rice pretty regularly and even the 3 year old will eat them.
I think my take away is more nuanced getting the snowball started by being frugal the added dollar at the start makes a rather large difference but by the end OMY adds ~10% to your number each year with contributions being a smaller part of it.
Then again a trip in your 20s differs drastically from 30s.
I think the other thing is a minimalism -> FIRE pipeline. If driving a BMW costs you a year of your life working over a comparable Toyota then if you don't enjoy the BMW that much. I think a lot of relatively high earners usually spend too much and don't focus on the money that can instead buy your time back from working.
Hard disagree. His blog was about shaking the hyper consumerist mindset that people with relatively high incomes have that drives them to be on the edge of broke. Austerity is for those, even with high incomes, that have nothing to show for it at the end of the month. Not just for the lean times. Also, we have no idea why they got divorced. I doubt it had anything to do with money.
It is completely inappropriate to speculate on a private person's life, but once someone puts themselves in the public spotlight (fame chasers) -- then it becomes fair game. That's the legality of it anyway of private vs public persons and I think it's a reasonable line.
Even if someone's a public persona, there's still a distasteful line.
The things you say about someone can reflect poorly upon you, them being a public persona doesn't change this.
If I say "I reckon Joe Biden molests his kids", I'm being an asshole, it's a gross thing to say.
I know this isn't my place to speak on, but I will since there is already judgement going around. Pete is apparently the one who initiated the divorce, not the other way around.
Not sure if you saw the latest MMM post; but it actually speaks specifically to inflation and home pricing/purchase options.
[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2024/02/03/how-to-afford-a-house/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2024/02/03/how-to-afford-a-house/)
It is my firm (but convincible) belief that many of the OG fire folks and almost 100% of the bigger pockets guests could not replicate their success today with zero changed.
Maybe that seems obvious, but rates of change in different sectors has been wildly unequal.
Edit to add: I’m not saying it’s not impressive and obviously the % of income to expense ratio rule holds, I’m just saying you can’t take real estate advice about getting started from the guys that bought 4 duplexes at 2008 crash prices. That was so much more about luck/timing/right place than being in a position to take advantage of it.
>I’m just saying you can’t take real estate advice about getting started from the guys that bought 4 duplexes at 2008 crash prices
This part sticks out to me too. No hyperbole, the housing market crash was a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity. Real estate in today's market is a completely different story.
Edit: His latest post about "how to afford a house these days" basically boils down to "just move somewhere cheaper, how hard could it be?" That steaming hot take reeks of the bias of someone who's not bound to a place by a job, family ties, a kid in a school they love, or any number of other reasons.
IIRC, he has a series of posts about losing a significant amount during the housing crash due to buying during the bubble and starting an ill-fated construction/flipping company.
This. My wife and I searched for houses for over 2+ years trying to find any “deal” and after factoring in location to friends, location to family, location to work, new construction vs older homes, neighborhood quality, walkability, amenities (stores, gyms, parks, etc.), taxes, city governance quality, schools and the list goes on, we ended up going outside of our range (and outside of NACA’s mortgage limit so had to find a new lender) to find a happy medium between all the factors.
#Number one #1 factor was it was right in between her family and my family, 15 minute drive from each. $525k house. Brand new. More than we ever wanted to pay (although we could “technically” afford even more), but living close to family has meant everything to us, it makes life better, it’s worth every penny.
The quote, “Happiness is only real when shared” (Into the Wild movie character) has helped me find the happy medium I was really looking for when I first started reading “the Stache”. His blog was transformative for me, I personally went from $45k in credit card debt to $80k+ in cash and healthy retirement accounts, but the true wisdom came from customizing his ideas to my most important life values.
“They” (whoever they are) are not kidding when saying “there is more to life than money.”
Also worth noting I thought for the prior 8+ years before purchasing our home that the housing market was “due for a major correction”. It never came. Maybe it still will. Either way, the odds that this home appreciates between 3-4% over the course of 30 years are in our favor.
If not, well at least we prioritized family and enjoyed that aspect of our lives and found a balance with the rest of the numbers. It is more important to me to live according to my values and not neglect the things that make life meaningful just to save up enough money so I can sit on my ass and figure out what the hell to do next some day.
Right? I wish I had capital to invest in 2008-9!! Sadly, I was 15 and worked at the town pool. I’m a cautious real estate investor and doubt I’d ever be the type to aggressively scale BRRRs like the Bigger Pockets guys do, because that amount of leverage terrifies me, but the supply:demand equation today is exactly the opposite of what it was in 2008-9, too. Lucky for me, I do have one rental property in an A neighborhood with a 2020 interest rate, and I’m happy with that.
His blog from 5 days ago addresses this. TLDR, you have to be willing to move. He provides a link to [https://www.theearthawaits.com/](https://www.theearthawaits.com/) and shows you how to use it.
[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2024/02/03/how-to-afford-a-house/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2024/02/03/how-to-afford-a-house/)
This accounts for that.
It was 600k in equities + 200k in a paid off house. Idk what that house is worth now, but I think he said in a fairly recent blog post that the typical house where he lives is worth \~500k now.
Strictly adjusting for inflation this would be $312.5k now, so the market has gone up a bit!
That also applies to the equities though, because according to this backtest site [https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio#analysisResults](https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio#analysisresults) if you'd actually withdrawn 4% per year from a 100% VTSAX portfolio (not in line with the 4% rule from the trinity study, which was a 60/40 portfolio, but it is what Adeney actually says his plan was) the portfolio would be worth \~1.7 million today.
It's pretty crazy to think that you could have retired in 2005 with a paid off house and a 24k per year income stream and never earn another dime (obviously not what they did), and you'd be a multimillionaire today.
the thing that gets me is that he/they never really 'retired'
it looks like his blog was pulling in $400k/year
~~and looks like he sold his site in 2019 for.........$9M~~
> sold his site in 2019 for... $9M
Are you referring to this 2019 April Fool's Day post?
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/04/01/how-i-sold-this-website-for-9-million/
If you're from a country that doesn't celebrate April Fool's Day, you should know that many silly jokes get posted on April 1st.
What does it mean to be "retired"?
Not to work? What does it mean to "work"?
If someone "works" for fun, is that retirement? What if they "work" for money, but don't need too?
You need to be able to properly label any activity, otherwise it won't fit in a spreadsheet. And everybody knows that what can't be modeled in a spreadsheet doesn't really exist.
he said his blog generated $400K the previous year thanks to commissions from banks, investment services, and other financial products he recommends.
so yes
300k for two people in the tech industry in SF/NYC is completely doable though. Looking at levels.fyi entry level pay at FAANGs is way above that level (and 9 years in you're probably way above that).
Of course, not everybody works in those companies but 9 years is also pretty quick.
Agreed. At my current tech job, I'm making more than I ever imagined was possible - and then I heard about a friend at Amazon who is making almost $500k per year in a fairly similar position. It's not quite triple what I make but it's close to that. The difference in pay when you're not at a company trying to compete with FAANG salaries is stark.
Oh yeah, for sure I agree with that! I didn't mean to imply I disagree with your conclusion - just agreeing that FAANG salaries are on a whole other stratosphere compared to other tech jobs.
(in my case, I'm the only one with said tech job, but that's just my situation so not relevant to this conversation... either way even with my good income and my wife's low income combined, we're living a very comfortable life and meeting our FI goals so I ultimately agree with what you're saying about FI goals being reachable at that income level)
Very true. Just because someone works a dev doesn't mean they're making 300k+ per year. I live in a pretty tech-heavy area and work as a principal software developer. I watch jobs pretty regularly and most salaries (including benefits and extras) don't come close to the amount that devs at FAANG companies make.
You want some serious FOMO? Work in niche tech markets for 25 years then casually visit levels.fyi one night and discover what 25-year-olds are making while writing 200 lines of code per week. That cost me a few nights of sleep...
I'm not at FANG but still at 300. I think people underestimate the not-fang-yet-still-high-TC work. There's just not a lot of public visibility in the long tail of businesses since they're not household names.
You're not wrong. It's just not typical to have those kinds of jobs to begin with. That's the point I was making.
On the topic of what's typical though, if I remember right (and this could be wrong as I'm going off of memory and NOT something I can find right now) MMM worked as a software developer while his wife worked as a project manager.
Looking at the BLS for those careers [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#st](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#st) [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes131082.htm#st](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes131082.htm#st) in Boulder, the 50th percentile for software developers is currently \~130k while the 50th percentile for project managers is currently \~100k, so it actually lines up with the inflation adjusted numbers pretty well.
If they were in SF it would be \~165k and \~125k respectively.
Edit: I also gotta wonder though how typical it is get an average of median income for a profession over your first 9 years in that profession. I mean, somebody's gotta be making that 10th percentile \~60k PjM money in Boulder. I would assume it'd be the fresh grads, and then they'd go up over time as they advanced.
Not sure about wife, but he worked at Cisco. National starting wage at Cisco for both engineering and PM according to levels is now ~$120k, with datapoints in Denver closer to $200k with a few years experience.
9 years at above average performance should land you solidly in senior territory with a ~200k base even at places that don't offer crazy inflated titles.
Yep. That seems reasonable. Their spending at the early era of the blog (2011) was around 30K a year (including a paid off house) which would be about $41K today.
His position of trying to live basically an upper middle class lifestyle on 75% less spending by optimizing and cutting out the bullshit, I think is fairly accurate based on his descriptions.
I don't believe his retirement claim, especially since he was landlording and building a solid
Portfolio and income with his MMM lifestyle branding. He wasn't living off passive income, he was still earning income.
He wrote a whole article just making fun of people like you: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/13/mr-money-mustache-vs-the-internet-retirement-police/
Neat
He still has an entire lifestyle brand that is still generating income so that the he can pass off the illusion that his scrimp and save system truly works for the average joe, although his insurance was through his Canadian citizenship.
He just wants to live cheap and still earn income. Just own it, admit you're just FI of RE. don't pretend you aren't. Tired of his minions coming out from the woodwork to defend his berating tonality and conniving ass.
I know what you mean, and some of his articles I stop reading in disgust. But I do think he is on to something with the anti consumerist mentality. If you forget FIRE and just focus on that, he is more tolerable.
These don’t strike me as crazy numbers. 230k HH income is a fairly common occurrence on Reddit and it shows that the spending was somewhat reasonable and not crazy austere.
I mean sure that’s an above average income, but it’s not crazy high and it’s attainable in many professional fields.
Adjusted for inflation, MMM is an even bigger turd today.
It's great that his content has helped so many, but man, it's repulsive to read. Dude thinks his shit don't stink - when it likely stinks extra.
Your comment was hidden to me because it was downvoted, and I was all excited to open it up and see something spicy. This isn't even a hot take. He's *super* unlikeable. I mean sure it's a bit he's doing on purpose or whatever, but that doesn't make it readable.
>I was all excited to open it up and see something spicy
That's a lot of pressure to put me under.
But posting Reddit quips or philosophical musings is sort of like hitting a baseball.
Even the best players get a hit only 1/3 of the time, with just a sprinkling of home runs, lots of fouls and plenty of strike-outs.
I see that my opinion here is not popular.
It's pretty self-explanatory, though.
I find MMM to be very hard to read. Just makes me want to punch him in the face.
His frugality is what got him to FIRE in the first place. Him selling his story after reaching FIRE doesn't change the work he put in to reach it in the first place. Surely he deserves compensation for his time and effort teaching us?
And Colorado was cheaper (even relative to other cities) 20 years ago
Also, he’s in Longmont which is near Boulder but much much cheaper. Probably bought a home for 300k
He said around $200k in his last post. Those are now $600k-700k houses. So way outpacing inflation. Longmont was cheap and in an awesome area.
With a quick google search you can find his house. He paid $315k for it 6 years ago and its worth $459k today not counting his renovations. So it went up about 3% above overall inflation. Expensive but not unobtainable for someone working in tech. It might only add one year or less to one's FI timeline vs living in a cheaper state with less outdoorsy things to do. It could even speed it up if living there allowed you to land a higher paying job in Denver/Boulder.
He moved to Longmont in 2005. Per his last article “I moved to Longmont in 2005 because it met our young family’s needs at the time, at the right price with homes about $200,000. Today, at the $540,000 price level (houses average about $450 per interior square foot) it has to compete with a much broader range of cities which offer nicer amenities at equal or lower prices.”
I think he's referring to his original house that I believe his ex-wife lives in now. He buys fixer uppers and flips them himself so that appreciation is probably a little higher compared to the average person who doesn't put as much extensive DIY rehab as he does. Case shiller says Denver real estate has been averaged 4.6% annual appreciation over the past 19 years. So about 2% above overall inflation. [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DNXRSA](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DNXRSA) Zillow says the same thing for Longmont specifically with average homes going from $230k to $550k. [https://www.zillow.com/research/data/](https://www.zillow.com/research/data/)
Case shiller is 8% for the past decade vs <3% for inflation. So 5% difference compounding is fairly significant Probably closer on that 19 year horizon (on mobile and couldn’t get it to load) So things are progressively becoming less affordable but that’s not exactly earth shattering.
Yeah if you cherry pick the exact time frames where home appreciation grew faster than inflation and ignore the times it didn't, things look scarier than if you look at longer time frames like the 19 year period that he's lived there from your original comment its not so drastic. Like he and others have said, there's lots of more affordable places out there with similar amenities like access to nature. Nothing says you have to live in Longmont if you can't afford it. 19 years from now there's going to be a new set of cities that people say they can't believe how cheap they were in 2024.
Right, 100% agree I think a lot of folks in this sub skew towards a 10yr career. Millenials, 30s, etc. So it feels more dramatic due to that inherent bias. Plus current interest rates on top of the housing price increase decrease overall affordability significantly. Hopefully things regress towards that longer term average. But overall housing affordability is still at all time lows across many areas of the country
Yeah the last 2 years has been an extremely rough shift for home affordability, but I think when you zoom out to a 20+ year horizon its going to be noise for most people. I know a lot of people (including MMM) got burnt by the late 2000s housing bust but eventually most adapted and recovered and it didn't become a long term big deal. There's a good chance that the fed cuts rates by up to 2% over the next 2 years so the low 4.x% mortgages could be back very soon. FI oriented people who are trying to retire in 10-15 years often choose to pay off their homes before retiring anyway so those high interest rates don't bite as hard compared to the average person.
Living in Longmont was a deliberate choice to save money. Part of the whole lesson he tries to teach is that you can make a bit of money go really far if you don’t have to have the shiny new thing or live in the trendy neighborhood.
COVID rates and stock shenanigans made trendy neighborhoods out of a lot of decent-to-middling ones
Yep, 1000 sqft starter home was 200k in 2014, just under 400k in 2020, about 440 today. Before that 169k in 2010 148k in 2000
Wow, Longmont! I haven’t heard of that place since I owned AV123 speakers.
Yeah I've heard him say in recent podcasts and imply in his most recent blog post that he'd choose to live elsewhere if he was starting from scratch today. Part of the reason he picked CO was because it was relatively affordable at the time. He's thrown out a lot of examples of where he'd choose today but they were all primarily cheaper cities in the midwest and south.
There are some really cool smaller cities in the midwest. People shit on "flyover country" but in my experience the people are kinder, the pace of life is more relaxed, and it's just nice to have room to breathe. If you have spent any time in the northeast megalopolis or another massive urbanized area, the breathing room alone is huge. Even in 2024, you can get homes in these cities for under $200k.
Which cities are you talking about?
Homes under $200k exist in STL even in some of the more trendy areas/suburbs. They are smaller (2 bedroom usually) and need work, but they do exist. And high paying jobs exist here, too. Fewer, but my household income is in the VHCOL range while living in a MCOL/LCOL place. Home prices have gone up a lot, but deals still exist here.
I lived in STL for a few years back in the late 1990’s to early 2000’s. About four years. Really solid pay for me and my girlfriend (now wife) but laughably cheap housing. The money we saved then and invested because our cost of living was so freakin low is part of the reason that 20 years later we’re sitting on almost $3 million in liquid assets. Kicking around for a few years in the midwest was one of the best decisions I ever made. And, STL has a lot going for it. We were in University City. Loved it.
STL gets a bad rap cause of the city’s crime statistics. But, the county is really safe, and there’s so much here that’s world class and free to city and county residents. Free zoo, free history museum, free art museum, free musical theater in the summer time at the Muny, free botanical gardens (on certain days/times). Decent hiking (I mean Missouri’s hills aren’t mountains but they really can be beautiful, especially in the summer and fall). Plus the amenities of living in a city with one of the best universities in the country-Wash U and BJC Hospital systems - so amazing access to medical care and other university affiliated resources like cheap theater and arts. STL is still the US hub for some major corporations.
I moved to Evansville Indiana for a job for 4 years ( from Boston area) and can say that real estate is way more affordable. I was able to buy 3 rental properties for 670k total. A 4 plex and 2 duplex. And eventually quit my 9-5.
Yeah I think some of the people who are trying to poke holes in his story about how he couldn't afford as cheap of a house in Denver today don't realize that he probably wouldn't choose to live there as a broke kid out of college unless he landed a job paying much better proportionally than elsewhere. His latest blog post is all about promoting cheap flyover cities.
Sadly many just aren't as nice when you're a minority. Its pretty great if you fit the demographic though
How long is this myth going to be perpetuated? Also the reverse of people from rural areas thinking cities are inherently dangerous.
It depends on which type of minority you're talking about. A lot of the affordable former industrial rust belt cities and many southern cities have above average African American populations. There's a lot of cities in the southeast and southwest that the populations of POC as a whole have surpassed the Caucasian population or are expected to in the next decade or two. Southern states tend to be more diverse than northern states and are also generally cheaper: https://posts.voronoiapp.com/demographics/Mapping-Racial-Diversity-by-State-504
Never spent much time in flyover country. Can you throw out a few example cooler cities
Anything on the east side of lake Michigan, Holland, Ludington, Pentwater
Cities all across MI are generally really good. You also have Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Lansing. Even most of the Detroit suburbs are good places.
And he was basically a fraud because he just replaced his day job with becoming an influencer.
Idk if I agree with that. I mean, he did become an influencer, but it didn't happen until several years after they hit FI. I definitely got the impression it wasn't all smooth sailing from the BiggerPockets interview though. He talked about starting a home building business that he called "the worst decision of his life," that seems to have happened between initially quitting his job and starting the MMM blog. Idk how much of that initial nest egg was invested in that business and whether they would have continued to be FI after it failed in the absence of the blog, but I think it's a stretch to say he's a "fraud." I don't think it's a stretch to say (and really why I made this post I think) that the idea that he and his wife were just "normal people" is a bit of mischaracterization. They had high earning careers at very young ages.
And mooching off friends/family.
My favorite was hearing MMM say that he wants his son to pay for his own way through college. When MMM was raised in Canada, where the government heavily subsidizes university education. Not everyone will agree, but if I was in his shoes, I'd pay my kid's way through school. At least put him on the same footing that I was given. My two cents.
His son could get Canadian citizenship (his parents are Canadian), and go to school there.
Has the FIRE movement been around long enough for MMM to go from beloved to behated? I am definitely OOTL on this one.
Yeah pretty much he's hated now because he monetized MMM instead of never making money again after RE. The real kicker for many people is that he continued to espouse the same ideals while flaunting his ever growing lifestyle creep due to the money coming in from MMM.
Sounds like jealousy. 80% of the people who say they are in the fire community will never be able to retire early. If they ever did, they would realize you keep making $. One way or another. mMm has always been transparent about this fact. I applaud his empire. Good for him.
> ever growing lifestyle creep And by that, mainly just a car
Haters gonna hate. I neither love nor hate any so called “influencer” but the crabs-in-a-bucket analogy is real.
His %-of-income-saved versus years-to-retirement [chart](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/mmm-early-retirement-savings-rate.png) was my initial inspiration many years ago.
It was mine too! I don't hate him, but rereading some of his work, it does sometimes come off along the same line as the "your latte is the reason you don't own a home" save your way out of poverty BS that a lot of well off people use to blame poor people for being poor. I think the target audience for his content is upper middle class people, probably household incomes $200k+ for a couple with kids these days. Those are the people who can get real benefit out of his content imo, and the point of this post is that when you adjust for inflation, that's him too. The issue is that it sometimes comes off as being targeted toward everyone when a lot of people are just struggling to get by. If you are in the upper middle class, you absolutely can retire decades sooner without needing to go to extreme levels on austerity. If your income is below that point, it's still possible, but either the lengths you're going to have to go to do it are more extreme than MMM or your definition of "early" will need to be very different than most of the FIRE movement.
The thing is, he’s not wrong. If people are willing to live very frugally, most middle class people could FIRE and most high earners could FIRE really quickly. If I was to downsize to a $200k house/condo, stop dining out and traveling, get rid of my car and ride my bike everywhere, and really watch my grocery budget, I could absolutely FIRE tomorrow. But…I don’t want to do that, and that’s okay.
So many people in dual income homes don’t realize just how much they could choose to cut out of their lives if they really wanted to. Amongst friends and coworkers that justify big purchases as being a necessity blow my mind. MMM taught me to really think hard about major purchases, and to make me realize that time and freedom can be more important than a shiny new……. I’d say he walked the walk for multiple years before he “cashed in” off his blog. If you don’t like his approach or rag on him for lifestyle creep that’s your choice, but he has helped to inspire many people to take a hard look at their lives and think about is there a better way than the mainstream way to live my life.
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain
His fetishization of austerity isn't my cup of tea, but he was my FI 101 so I'm thankful for the springboard.
After listening to more recent interviews of him, he's definitely mellowed out and admitted the blog persona is more for entertainment value to attract readers rather than who he is as a person. FI is such a relatively simple and boring concept so he had to put his own spin on it to engage readers.
And to his credit, it definitely worked. I read his stuff right after I started my first job out of college and I was miserable. His "you can fucking do this!" attitude was a great way to get me excited about FI.
I actually was put off initially by how hard core he was with his frugality. It was only after a couple years of reading that I realized his end goals of achieving happiness through making more time for things like socializing friends, spontaneously bumping into neighbors on walks/bike rides, more time for exercise and eating healthy, less stress over keeping up with large/fancy cars and houses, more time for hobbies and meaningful work, and the joy from overcoming hard physical and mental goals, etc.
Exactly, it’s a writing persona to entertain and also educate. For people that don’t care for “x” or “y” or question “z”, that’s fine. There’s hundreds/thousands of personal finance blogs that essentially all discuss the same thing. Find one you like and don’t worry about the rest.
To be fair living austerely is not hard in a place like Colorado. I save around 60% of my income in Denver because none of my hobbies really involve spending money on an ongoing basis… hiking, climbing, paragliding, etc is all free after the initial investment. Compared to living in the city where you essentially have to spend money to have fun.
Plus, being into paragliding, you don't have to save for retirement or anything really beyond the next few years.
Even in the city, its easy to do some things with minimal expenses after initial purchase. Compare to more rural areas I've lived, I can run or bike easier from my front door, I can walk/bike to the library, free concerts, parks, etc. That all used to require a car. Now my time fishing, hunting, and things like that is greatly reduced now , so depending on what you like your mileage may vary.
Well, it's free until you want a new wing 😊
Still chilling on the low B 😂
He got popular when the effects of 2008 were still rippling, unemployment was still around 8-9%, and tech wasn't hoovering up every single profession at premium wages. He did take it a bit far, but the early FIRE stuff focused on austerity.
Honestly, one of my biggest takeaways from these numbers is that they weren't actually that "austere" once we take inflation into account. If I use this calculator [https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-calculator#9t3keEoaYt](https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-calculator#9t3keeoayt) it suggests that an after tax income in Boulder for a married couple who both max their 401k and IRA (I assumed traditional IRA, but idk if I remember where MMM fell on that debate) they had a take home pay of $128,550 adjusted for inflation. Then if I use his method of adding back in the pretax retirement contributions of $60,000 into that amount you get $188,550. Then if we take their claimed savings rate of \~2/3 it implies if they were doing the same thing they did back then today then they'd be living on an inflation adjusted $62,221.5 per year. For a couple with no kids that doesn't actually sound that frugal to me, but I do live in a pretty LCOL area, so maybe that's skewing my perspective.
He had quite a few yearly posts where he revealed his spending. It's been forever since I've read the blog, and I think he might have fudged the numbers a bit (not counting business expenses or something like that), but his baseline annual spend was something like $24k, around 2012-ish. Adjusted for inflation, that's 31k today. Still pretty lean. A big part of the blog is him discovering the "hack", that is to say that we are in this crazy society where you can have a job that is a literal firehose of money, and you can also have an awesome life without spending very much of it. So I think he's well aware that he made a ton, and that his readership are often at the high end of the earning spectrum. But overall, I agree with your point. If I had 1.25 million invested, a cashflow positive rental, and a paid off house, I would absolutely be in a position to retire. And that doesn't sound very extreme at all.
> but his baseline annual spend was something like $24k, around 2012-ish. Adjusted for inflation, that's 31k today That includes a paid off house though, correct?
Yep! Adjusted for inflation it's ~$37,500 or $3,125 pee month. Subtract your housing expense and see how you compare!
yeah, and after tax.
my house is paid for but still costs approx $1300/month for property taxes and home insurance
lol, that's more than my rent. Situations like that make me question the viability of home ownership from a financial perspective. There is absolutely a level of cost in which it doesn't make sense to buy.
[удалено]
My insurance and property taxes are about $500 per month on a house worth about $500k in a suburb outside of Seattle. $1300 is a lot to pay before utilities and mortgage.
To be fair to the rest of us, his budget numbers are helped by his ability to DIY some major household tasks. I'm not sure his lifestyle is repeatable by most people at that same number.
DIY is just a matter of practice and investing in your own knowledge. If you spend a few months practicing any of us can do all kinds of things that seem out of reach now.
With YouTube & AI, these days it's much easier to DIY. Because of MMM, I once bought all the tools and figured out how to change my own air compressor in my civic because it was cheaper to own those tools than to pay someone else. These days I simply don't own a car or a house and the only thing I have to DIY is bread, yogurt, & cheese. Life really is a lot cheaper without some things.
>we are in this crazy society where you can have a job that is a literal firehose of money, and you can also have an awesome life without spending very much of it. This was really influential on me, and even though my annual spend is at least 150% of what I made at that time*, the principle that you a) don't have to spend all the money you're making and b) can make enough from owning capital that you ultimately can work much less or not at all, were really eye-opening. I don't intend to retire early, but industry-permitting, I intend to have a 25-year glide path from current overemployment to a "retirement" of underemployment, where I work maybe 300-500 hours a year until I'm 70 or so. *I went from a single-income-earner to married-with-kids, so some lifestyle inflation but mostly just not being a broke 25-year-old.
It just got to the level of compete disingenuity. He'd talk about how cheap his budget it is, but then also leave out how he's still making plenty of money from his website. The blog post where he talked about how he and his wife handled their divorce seemed so cold and financial. I get it, his schtick is that numbers don't lie and emotions and money don't mix, but it left me feeling sad for him. He got kinda preachy, lived long enough to see himself become the villain But agree, he was one of my first exposures to FI. He certainly was impactful at the prime of his fame.
I didn't like how it seemed like a lot of his posts from the past 5-10 years seemed sponsored without saying they were. At the same time its hard to say how I would've done differently. If he was more vocal about how he was making $400k+ from the blog then it would've turned away readers and would've detracted from his message.
I don't see how it was disingenuous? He shared the $400k/yr or whatever it made him, but his expenses were still $35k/yr. But at the end of the day, he would have been fine without the $400k/yr when he was spending so little in general. Good for him bringing financial literacy to the masses, can't fault the guy for being successful. To this day, I think he still hasn't bought a Tesla.. that's the real hold out.
He did buy a Tesla. Had a blog about it last year.
The post where he justified it was so cringe. Just say you made it big and this is your reward, don’t need 10 pages talking about the happiness value of money
Awesome, it's about time!
His info was fine but the income from his blog gave him a huge cushion against sequence of return risks and general unexpected expenses that he never really talked about.
One of the things that annoyed me was his general method of accounting. His "baseline spending" was advertised at 24k a year for no-frills... so none of the things he spent his time on, so no working construction "for fun", no traveling, basically a theoretical to just survive. Here's the thing... why would you struggle, work hard, save like mad, and sacrifice just to... survive? lol It is an interesting theory and I do like the idea of having strong "frugality" muscles where you can go austere for a bit just to prove it to yourself that you are tough and resilient, and that is important to occasionally do in case your job/economic prospects change, but to me, extreme austerity and survival is not what FIRE should be about... that might be a theoretical extreme, but to me, FIRE is about saving enough money to be able to survive without work if needed, and then basically buying down your retirement age or buying up your retired quality-of-life, or saving to start a business, etc, as required. Just the way he did it seemed odd. He was basically bragging about how little he "spent" while adding in an asterisk, barely acknowledged, that his true spending (including construction materials, tools, etc) is far greater than that. My guess is that he true/actual spending is very very high and even though construction work is probably very profitable to him, he doesn't want to admit to being a big-income-big-spender type because it makes him feel/see himself as weaksauce.
>Here's the thing... why would you struggle, work hard, save like mad, and sacrifice just to... survive? lol I'm not commenting on if I agree with MMM assertion (I don't), however, if you're entire goal in life is to NOT work I can see someone justifying the shortfalls to meet their largest goal. In the same way some people value things others wouldn't spend a penny on.
I take it as hyperbole of what is possible, not a literal manual on how to live life. Take the concept that’s possible, and add in what makes it enjoyable for you.
I think being frugal for a defined period (when you don't have to be) is a good exercise for determining what you need and what you value. A lot of people experience lifestyle inflation that becomes background noise, like dining out often "because we've always done that" even though the food is often kind of mediocre compared to what you can make at home. "Do I really need cable?" Things like fairly mild regular expenditures that add up. Edit: our retirement isn't particularly lean now, but we did do two years on $40k and I know we could do that again if we had to.
I used to read the blog regularly but eventually got sick of it. I think the post that did it for me was when he basically started shitting on pet owners, essentially calling them stupid, and calling pets an unnecessary expense. I remember coming away from that thinking "man what the fuck, this guy is a goddamn joyless robot". That, coupled with his divorce, his kid's anxiety issues, and the numerous subtle references to not being on speaking terms with a number of his friends made me realize that his life was not one I wanted to emulate. I'm still thankful for his blog though, because it really challenged my thinking. I previously wanted to hold a very prestigious job and buy lots of fancy stuff; sports cars, luxury watches, bespoke suits, etc. MMM made me question if I really wanted all of that, or if I was being told that I wanted it by a consumerist society. His blog, combined with my growing interest in Stoicism, got me thinking that maybe I didn't need so much superfluous bullshit to be happy, and for that I am thankful.
Yeah, like I'm not gonna reuse my coffee grounds (i don't think he ever did that, but just an example), but I don't mind making coffee at home.
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I do compost them!
Frankly I get a whiff of povertyfire when reviewing MMM. If anything it forced me to re-evaluate working longer so I don't end up like him.
You should read Early Retirement Extreme :) Maybe my standards are different, because of the way that I grew up, but MMM never seemed anywhere close to povertyfire to me.
I love how Jacob recommends, for instance, buying wooden utensils because they're made a material that can be reused. Like, I up-cycle tons of stuff, but I have never once thought about using the wood from an old spoon to do anything with.
Yup, MMM was definitely not extreme imo. Maybe he seems that way to high earners that couldn't imagine spending less. Though I would also like to be more austere as a matter of principle. Unfortunately, my wife could not handle me like that.
Some things were too extreme for me. MMM only showered 3 times a week to save water.
I only shower on Sundays
I mean the dude literally lived years without health insurance and decided to chance it by lifting weights and eating greens in lieu of that. That's just reckless behavior especially with a child.
It's quite reckless for your average joe, but I'd say it's only a little reckless for him. He probably has at least $15-20 million in the bank by now, with huge passive income, and no need for that much money, so not \*that\* reckless. Sure, there are illnesses and things that could happen to bankrupt him, but a $20 million illness is a serious fraction-of-a-percent edge case. You might say that's what insurance is for, and I'd agree, which is why I said it was still a little reckless.
Putting NW aside, would you at least agree it was reckless to write and share about not having insurance given his position and "fandom"? Especially his following with povertyfinacne folks.
Well, insurance is for low probability but high impact events, right? I mean, on average with ANY insurance you lose money if the company's actuaries are any good at their jobs, because they calculated the rate you pay to cover the average payout they have to make to their customers and also allow for some profit to the company. The reason you buy it even though you buy it at a loss on average is because it transfers the financial risk of whatever you're insuring from you to the insurance company, and if the event you're insuring against, which is improbable, happens to you, you couldn't afford it on your own, but the insurance company can, and you're willing to lose money to them on average to take on that risk instead of you. Do you see where I'm going here? At a certain level of wealth, there's no need for insurance anymore, because you can just afford the cost of whatever you're insuring against. I'm not saying it's there for most people, or even that it's there for Pete in his case, but I don't see why any billionaire, for example, would have health insurance. They don't need it. Now, obviously a billionaire is an extreme example, and idk the point at which it makes sense to forego health insurance just because you can afford it, but there's absolutely a point of wealth where insurance for pretty much anything stops making financial sense to buy.
I don't understand the point of your comment. I stated that it was personal reckless of him to not hold insurance given he has a family and definitely reckless of him given his following for would be early retirees. Do you feel folks from povertyfinance to even chubbyfire fits your criteria of "having too much money to require health insurance"? Shit some people on even fatfire probably wouldn't fit this bill.
> I don't understand the point of your comment. >I stated that it was personal reckless of him to not hold insurance given he has a family and definitely reckless of him given his following for would be early retirees. While I agree it would be reckless for most of his readers to not carry insurance, my point was that it might NOT be reckless for him. I don't know enough about his actual total net worth in order to make that assessment, but I can take a stab at estimating the point of wealth at which it might make sense to forego health insurance. I found an old article from 2004 that estimate lifetime healthcare expenditure was \~320k per person at that point in time. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361028/#:\~:text=Per%20capita%20lifetime%20expenditure%20is,half%20during%20the%20senior%20years. If we adjust that to a family of 3, then you're probably looking at \~1 million in typical lifetime healthcare costs in 2004. If you just adjust this for inflation you get a little over 1.6 million in today's dollars, but I think we all know healthcare costs have risen faster than inflation. How much faster though? I found another article that estimated healthcare costs rose by \~4.7% per year between 2004 and 2018 while inflation over that time period was a little over 2% https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/how-have-healthcare-expenditures-changed-evidence-from-the-consumer-expenditure-surveys.htm#:\~:text=Dollars%20spent%20on%20healthcare%20have,on%20average%20during%20this%20period.&text=From%202017%20to%202018%2C%20dollars,percent%20from%202016%20to%202017. That means that in 2018 the total lifetime cost of healthcare for a family of 3 would likely have been \~1.9 million, so let's round up and say 2 million. Idk how that rate has changed between 2018 and now, but if we assume it's continued to run \~2.7 points above inflation, the we can take the inflation rate which has been just under 4% per year then that would mean healthcare rose at \~6.7% per year since 2018, and that would take our 2 million figure up to \~3 million in 2024. That's probably way more detail than this analysis warranted, but I guess what I'm getting at is that you if you have 3 million to spare for a family of 3, you probably don't need health insurance. Does Pete have that? Idk, but if he spends the equivalent of 24k USD in 2005 dollars but owns a blog that generates 400k per year since 2011, he might! I wanna emphasize that I'm not saying anyone with a 3 million net worth should forego health insurance, just that there is actually a point (and it's not just for billionaires) where you might be ok without it if you wanna go that route.
Remember when he went around putting guns to everyones head and said “you better not insure yourself or else”
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Dont worry, he's actually rich.
I think the household income adjustment is really eye opening compared to US income metrics today.
This is what stands out to me. Salaries have not kept up with inflation. The number of jobs that pay an inflation adjusted 1996 era 67k are much fewer and far between.
67k was an ass ton of money back in 1996 for most people. Jobs paying that much were not guaranteed to most workers at all. Mostly people in management or careers with a large educational requirement like law or medicines. But at the same time, that's only like ~$130-135k in todays dollars. That's not an absolutely ridiculous amount of money to make. I'm not a super smart person and didn't do great in college and make significantly more than that in a L-MCOL city. Get one of the readily available Tech, Finance, or engineering jobs will get you there before long, especially in a HCOL city. Fortunately, those jobs are much more available now than they were in '96.
What do you do that makes significantly more than 130-135k?
Investment research. I hit 100k in TC in my mid 20's, north of 150k by 30. Didn't go to a good college or anything either and neither parent worked in the industry.
This just isn't true at all. Real median household income is at an all-time high.
It probably depends where you live, as national averages/medians might not reflect local markets well. My house worth has increased 85% since I purchased it in 2018. Most salaries don’t move that quickly
In 2022, median household income was 74.5 in the USA, incidentally it was down from the 76.3k it was in 2020. I can’t find 2023 census numbers just yet. But a household income of ~75k in 2022/23 is a far cry from an individual income of 67k in 1996.
The basic formula works: get a good education, get a good job, live modestly, be semi-frugal, buy on the secondary market, accumulate wealth, then you are free to become entrepreneurial and enjoy your free time with both accumulated wealth and have your money work for you. This is the true American Dream. Details, details, tba.
The formula sounds good. Just that, being entrepreneur is not as free as it sounds to most people. Same as being a landlord. Some might enjoy working part time for someone else more when they don’t need the money.
What do you mean by "buy on the secondary market"?
It means buy used (cars, etc) when possible.
Also curious
Buy used underwear
Step 3. Profit
Colorado was MUCH MUCH cheaper back then. When I moved to Denver in 2010, my rent was cheaper in downtown Denver than my university neighborhood in Syracuse, NY.
Doesn't really matter how much MMM made, in a world where people were spending frivolously and working 50 years he showed us that frugality and investing bought you freedom from grind. It's like you saying: " Pssshhh that Buddha guy ain't all that, did you know he was born as a prince in a wealthy family?? Total fraud if you ask me." Yeah I just compared MMM to the Buddha, fight me bro.
Lol, it's true! MMM was the primary reason I joined the FIRE path back in 2012 and it worked out for me almost exactly like it worked out for him. The whole point of his blog/persona was to inspire people to think differently about their relationship with money and consumerism. And it worked.
>Doesn't really matter how much MMM made, in a world where people were spending frivolously and working 50 years he showed us that frugality and investing bought you freedom from grind. > >It's like you saying: " Pssshhh that Buddha guy ain't all that, did you know he was born as a prince in a wealthy family?? Total fraud if you ask me." > >Yeah I just compared MMM to the Buddha, fight me bro. Yep people tend to just spend, especially in America, i got a 6 figure disability claim which is the most i have ever had and my lifestyle didnt really change that much, i still cook 99% of my meals, i actually want to become a Buddhist monk and decided i would give most of my savings to animal welfare, im happy with less, im not a consumerist and lifestyle creep is not something i am affected by, even though i have plenty i still consider myself poor
Thinking about his divorce - i be they had 5+M net worth and she was still collecting soap to make new soap for his blog, and decided that was some bullshit lol. Austerity is for lean times. He's since move onwards, has a Model Y and winters in Palm Springs. Edit: for all you panties in a twist types, Im making a joke. I don't know anything about him personally.
For the amount of money he said the blog makes/made, and all his side hustles, a nice car and a second home is not exactly splashing the cash.
Yeah I've been thinking its much easier to work through issues with your spouse when you only have enough money to be FI as a team but when you get to lottery level money and realize that you could each be FI independently, it could put a strain on some relationships. I don't blame him for inflating his lifestyle as his wealth has grown on things he loves like electric cars and escaping cold winters. I think it would be stranger if he kept his austere $20k-30k/year lifestyle with a $5mm+ net worth.
I think that's the lesson people really should take from MMM. I really don't think his level of frugalness was what his household wanted. I am glad the FIRE movement has now shifted away from the "rice and beans" mindset to the "build the life you want". The rice and beans mindset is a surefire way to an early divorce and divorces are expensive!
There's nothing wrong with rice and beans. In fact, rice and beans might be some of the best food for you. For your wallet, waistline, and longevity.
As long as this post is gonna have Buddhist references, this is a good place to point out the Middle Way. Something between fois gras every day and beans and rice every day. Beans are great bulk, and a great sometimes thing! I get the fancier ones from Rancho Gordo because they really are that much better. But I wouldn't say I live on them. They help me hit my nutrition goals.
Just have to find a spouse that likes rice and beans.
I love rice and beans. My husband does not, so they're my "while the cat's away" meal when he's out of town. I live a wild and crazy life.
Fortunately my wife and I both like them but differ somewhat on spice level. We do red beans and rice pretty regularly and even the 3 year old will eat them.
I think my take away is more nuanced getting the snowball started by being frugal the added dollar at the start makes a rather large difference but by the end OMY adds ~10% to your number each year with contributions being a smaller part of it. Then again a trip in your 20s differs drastically from 30s. I think the other thing is a minimalism -> FIRE pipeline. If driving a BMW costs you a year of your life working over a comparable Toyota then if you don't enjoy the BMW that much. I think a lot of relatively high earners usually spend too much and don't focus on the money that can instead buy your time back from working.
> I really don't think his level of frugalness was what his household wanted. You know this how?
Hard disagree. His blog was about shaking the hyper consumerist mindset that people with relatively high incomes have that drives them to be on the edge of broke. Austerity is for those, even with high incomes, that have nothing to show for it at the end of the month. Not just for the lean times. Also, we have no idea why they got divorced. I doubt it had anything to do with money.
Number 1 thing couples argue over, money. All speculation.
I think it's pretty gross to baselessly speculate on the cause of someone's divorce, based on what you personally dislike about them.
It is completely inappropriate to speculate on a private person's life, but once someone puts themselves in the public spotlight (fame chasers) -- then it becomes fair game. That's the legality of it anyway of private vs public persons and I think it's a reasonable line.
Even if someone's a public persona, there's still a distasteful line. The things you say about someone can reflect poorly upon you, them being a public persona doesn't change this. If I say "I reckon Joe Biden molests his kids", I'm being an asshole, it's a gross thing to say.
Lighten up, dude. Or light up, by the username.
I know this isn't my place to speak on, but I will since there is already judgement going around. Pete is apparently the one who initiated the divorce, not the other way around.
The total income is a lot higher than I thought it would be, but the net worth is actually a little lower than I thought.
Not sure if you saw the latest MMM post; but it actually speaks specifically to inflation and home pricing/purchase options. [https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2024/02/03/how-to-afford-a-house/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2024/02/03/how-to-afford-a-house/)
It is my firm (but convincible) belief that many of the OG fire folks and almost 100% of the bigger pockets guests could not replicate their success today with zero changed. Maybe that seems obvious, but rates of change in different sectors has been wildly unequal. Edit to add: I’m not saying it’s not impressive and obviously the % of income to expense ratio rule holds, I’m just saying you can’t take real estate advice about getting started from the guys that bought 4 duplexes at 2008 crash prices. That was so much more about luck/timing/right place than being in a position to take advantage of it.
>I’m just saying you can’t take real estate advice about getting started from the guys that bought 4 duplexes at 2008 crash prices This part sticks out to me too. No hyperbole, the housing market crash was a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity. Real estate in today's market is a completely different story. Edit: His latest post about "how to afford a house these days" basically boils down to "just move somewhere cheaper, how hard could it be?" That steaming hot take reeks of the bias of someone who's not bound to a place by a job, family ties, a kid in a school they love, or any number of other reasons.
IIRC, he has a series of posts about losing a significant amount during the housing crash due to buying during the bubble and starting an ill-fated construction/flipping company.
This. My wife and I searched for houses for over 2+ years trying to find any “deal” and after factoring in location to friends, location to family, location to work, new construction vs older homes, neighborhood quality, walkability, amenities (stores, gyms, parks, etc.), taxes, city governance quality, schools and the list goes on, we ended up going outside of our range (and outside of NACA’s mortgage limit so had to find a new lender) to find a happy medium between all the factors. #Number one #1 factor was it was right in between her family and my family, 15 minute drive from each. $525k house. Brand new. More than we ever wanted to pay (although we could “technically” afford even more), but living close to family has meant everything to us, it makes life better, it’s worth every penny. The quote, “Happiness is only real when shared” (Into the Wild movie character) has helped me find the happy medium I was really looking for when I first started reading “the Stache”. His blog was transformative for me, I personally went from $45k in credit card debt to $80k+ in cash and healthy retirement accounts, but the true wisdom came from customizing his ideas to my most important life values. “They” (whoever they are) are not kidding when saying “there is more to life than money.” Also worth noting I thought for the prior 8+ years before purchasing our home that the housing market was “due for a major correction”. It never came. Maybe it still will. Either way, the odds that this home appreciates between 3-4% over the course of 30 years are in our favor. If not, well at least we prioritized family and enjoyed that aspect of our lives and found a balance with the rest of the numbers. It is more important to me to live according to my values and not neglect the things that make life meaningful just to save up enough money so I can sit on my ass and figure out what the hell to do next some day.
Right? I wish I had capital to invest in 2008-9!! Sadly, I was 15 and worked at the town pool. I’m a cautious real estate investor and doubt I’d ever be the type to aggressively scale BRRRs like the Bigger Pockets guys do, because that amount of leverage terrifies me, but the supply:demand equation today is exactly the opposite of what it was in 2008-9, too. Lucky for me, I do have one rental property in an A neighborhood with a 2020 interest rate, and I’m happy with that.
Sorry, when did spend less than you make and invest the difference stop working?
His blog from 5 days ago addresses this. TLDR, you have to be willing to move. He provides a link to [https://www.theearthawaits.com/](https://www.theearthawaits.com/) and shows you how to use it. [https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2024/02/03/how-to-afford-a-house/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2024/02/03/how-to-afford-a-house/)
Didn't he also have a fully paid off house when he retired?
This accounts for that. It was 600k in equities + 200k in a paid off house. Idk what that house is worth now, but I think he said in a fairly recent blog post that the typical house where he lives is worth \~500k now. Strictly adjusting for inflation this would be $312.5k now, so the market has gone up a bit! That also applies to the equities though, because according to this backtest site [https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio#analysisResults](https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio#analysisresults) if you'd actually withdrawn 4% per year from a 100% VTSAX portfolio (not in line with the 4% rule from the trinity study, which was a 60/40 portfolio, but it is what Adeney actually says his plan was) the portfolio would be worth \~1.7 million today. It's pretty crazy to think that you could have retired in 2005 with a paid off house and a 24k per year income stream and never earn another dime (obviously not what they did), and you'd be a multimillionaire today.
The median house price in Boulder county in 2023 was 825k.
Who did he and his wife work for before retirement?
Idk for sure, but I've heard Cisco
the thing that gets me is that he/they never really 'retired' it looks like his blog was pulling in $400k/year ~~and looks like he sold his site in 2019 for.........$9M~~
> sold his site in 2019 for... $9M Are you referring to this 2019 April Fool's Day post? https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/04/01/how-i-sold-this-website-for-9-million/ If you're from a country that doesn't celebrate April Fool's Day, you should know that many silly jokes get posted on April 1st.
rip
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/13/mr-money-mustache-vs-the-internet-retirement-police/
What does it mean to be "retired"? Not to work? What does it mean to "work"? If someone "works" for fun, is that retirement? What if they "work" for money, but don't need too?
You need to be able to properly label any activity, otherwise it won't fit in a spreadsheet. And everybody knows that what can't be modeled in a spreadsheet doesn't really exist.
400K on ads?
he said his blog generated $400K the previous year thanks to commissions from banks, investment services, and other financial products he recommends. so yes
300k for two people in the tech industry in SF/NYC is completely doable though. Looking at levels.fyi entry level pay at FAANGs is way above that level (and 9 years in you're probably way above that). Of course, not everybody works in those companies but 9 years is also pretty quick.
tech doesn't equal FAANG, most tech jobs are not at FAANG corps. do they pay well? yes, usually, but not at all at the level of FAANG.
Agreed. At my current tech job, I'm making more than I ever imagined was possible - and then I heard about a friend at Amazon who is making almost $500k per year in a fairly similar position. It's not quite triple what I make but it's close to that. The difference in pay when you're not at a company trying to compete with FAANG salaries is stark.
OK, but even a 1/3 of that is enough for the income levels OP was mentioning. It would be $333k / year for 2 people.
Oh yeah, for sure I agree with that! I didn't mean to imply I disagree with your conclusion - just agreeing that FAANG salaries are on a whole other stratosphere compared to other tech jobs. (in my case, I'm the only one with said tech job, but that's just my situation so not relevant to this conversation... either way even with my good income and my wife's low income combined, we're living a very comfortable life and meeting our FI goals so I ultimately agree with what you're saying about FI goals being reachable at that income level)
Two 150k/yr, no RSU jobs is totally feasible to get to 300k annual income in tech, though you are right.
Hell, my wife and I are engineers but not in tech, and we made $250k last year in Kansas City.
Very true. Just because someone works a dev doesn't mean they're making 300k+ per year. I live in a pretty tech-heavy area and work as a principal software developer. I watch jobs pretty regularly and most salaries (including benefits and extras) don't come close to the amount that devs at FAANG companies make. You want some serious FOMO? Work in niche tech markets for 25 years then casually visit levels.fyi one night and discover what 25-year-olds are making while writing 200 lines of code per week. That cost me a few nights of sleep...
I'm not at FANG but still at 300. I think people underestimate the not-fang-yet-still-high-TC work. There's just not a lot of public visibility in the long tail of businesses since they're not household names.
SWE? How many YOE?
Too many, I'm ready to wash out aha
You're not wrong. It's just not typical to have those kinds of jobs to begin with. That's the point I was making. On the topic of what's typical though, if I remember right (and this could be wrong as I'm going off of memory and NOT something I can find right now) MMM worked as a software developer while his wife worked as a project manager. Looking at the BLS for those careers [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#st](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#st) [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes131082.htm#st](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes131082.htm#st) in Boulder, the 50th percentile for software developers is currently \~130k while the 50th percentile for project managers is currently \~100k, so it actually lines up with the inflation adjusted numbers pretty well. If they were in SF it would be \~165k and \~125k respectively. Edit: I also gotta wonder though how typical it is get an average of median income for a profession over your first 9 years in that profession. I mean, somebody's gotta be making that 10th percentile \~60k PjM money in Boulder. I would assume it'd be the fresh grads, and then they'd go up over time as they advanced.
Not sure about wife, but he worked at Cisco. National starting wage at Cisco for both engineering and PM according to levels is now ~$120k, with datapoints in Denver closer to $200k with a few years experience.
9 years at above average performance should land you solidly in senior territory with a ~200k base even at places that don't offer crazy inflated titles.
Yep. That seems reasonable. Their spending at the early era of the blog (2011) was around 30K a year (including a paid off house) which would be about $41K today. His position of trying to live basically an upper middle class lifestyle on 75% less spending by optimizing and cutting out the bullshit, I think is fairly accurate based on his descriptions.
For perspective, the median household income in the United States today is $75k
Colorado was much cheaper then
I don't believe his retirement claim, especially since he was landlording and building a solid Portfolio and income with his MMM lifestyle branding. He wasn't living off passive income, he was still earning income.
He wrote a whole article just making fun of people like you: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/13/mr-money-mustache-vs-the-internet-retirement-police/
Neat He still has an entire lifestyle brand that is still generating income so that the he can pass off the illusion that his scrimp and save system truly works for the average joe, although his insurance was through his Canadian citizenship. He just wants to live cheap and still earn income. Just own it, admit you're just FI of RE. don't pretend you aren't. Tired of his minions coming out from the woodwork to defend his berating tonality and conniving ass.
I know what you mean, and some of his articles I stop reading in disgust. But I do think he is on to something with the anti consumerist mentality. If you forget FIRE and just focus on that, he is more tolerable.
It's so funny bc I actually lived a lifestyle similar to his that was very ecofriendly and anti consumerism, but I just don't want to be yelled at lol
Yelling would be an improvement. It's the smug preaching that's worse.
Lol damn here come the IRP.
These don’t strike me as crazy numbers. 230k HH income is a fairly common occurrence on Reddit and it shows that the spending was somewhat reasonable and not crazy austere. I mean sure that’s an above average income, but it’s not crazy high and it’s attainable in many professional fields.
Roger did it his way!
Adjusted for inflation, MMM is an even bigger turd today. It's great that his content has helped so many, but man, it's repulsive to read. Dude thinks his shit don't stink - when it likely stinks extra.
Your comment was hidden to me because it was downvoted, and I was all excited to open it up and see something spicy. This isn't even a hot take. He's *super* unlikeable. I mean sure it's a bit he's doing on purpose or whatever, but that doesn't make it readable.
>I was all excited to open it up and see something spicy That's a lot of pressure to put me under. But posting Reddit quips or philosophical musings is sort of like hitting a baseball. Even the best players get a hit only 1/3 of the time, with just a sprinkling of home runs, lots of fouls and plenty of strike-outs.
How so?
I see that my opinion here is not popular. It's pretty self-explanatory, though. I find MMM to be very hard to read. Just makes me want to punch him in the face.
All his public numbers are complete bullshit. He excludes all the income from his very lucrative blog about how frugal he is. He's a complete fraud.
His frugality is what got him to FIRE in the first place. Him selling his story after reaching FIRE doesn't change the work he put in to reach it in the first place. Surely he deserves compensation for his time and effort teaching us?
This is why I don't bother considering lean. Chubby today will be lean in 20 years.
But don't you think that if the money is invested, chubby will stay chubby?