Mr. Money Mustache

Well, it looks like we're here in another US election year already. As Advanced Mustachians, we already know that the ongoing battle of Harris vs. Trump should not be consuming much of our time. Sure, we do our research and cast our votes but after that we move right on to focus on other things [...]

I used to read Mr. Money Mustache", some people say these days, Until he got all rich and fancy so that he no longer understands the common person's plight. Stash probably doesn't even practice any of these money-saving things he preaches any more!" When I read things like this, I can't help but laugh. Because [...]

Almost nineteen years into early retirement now, I've come to realize that the complete freedom of this lifestyle can be a double-edged sword. You've already heard me raving plenty about the upside: having the freedom to raise a son from the day he was born to beyond his eighteenth birthday with no compromises. And then [...]

The other day, an MMM reader stopped by and left the following comment on one of my older posts about the principles of FIRE: As with every critique of our ideas, I thought about this comment for a while. Tried to determine if there were any Principles of Mustachianism that were genuinely going obsolete, versus [...]

The thing that drew me to early retirement is freedom, and that's still the best part of it. Back in 2005, the primary reason for this freedom-seeking was being able to devote my best hours to being a Dad - I had a feeling my career in tech would be too demanding to sustain once [...]

Whoa, have you seen what just happened to interest rates!? Suddenly, after at least fourteen years of our financial world being mostly the same, somebody flipped over the table and now things are quite different. Interest rates, which have been gliding along at close to zero since before the Dawn of Mustachianism in 2011, have [...]

As with many things in life these days, it all started with an episode of the Peter Attia podcast. In this edition, our nation's most Badass Doctor was interviewing a guest I initially dismissed as not overly applicable to my own lifestyle. A young,excessively handsome dude who happened to be a writer with a new [...]

As I type this, I'm jumping through the various hoops involved in buying a 2023 Tesla Model Y, a rather expensive, luxury crossover" that is absolutely loaded to the gills with excess: all wheel drive, faster acceleration than a Lamborghini, enough space for seven people and enough computer gadgetry to function as a small Google [...]

In my role as Mr. Money Mustache, I do my best to be your one-stop-shop for Lifestyle Guru ideas. So over the years we've covered not just the Money side of life, but also the even more important stuff like health and fitness and the psychology of better, happier living. But there's one single area [...]

Well, looks like it has happened again. Since the last time we spoke, I got sucked into building my 17th(?) kitchen, and I have finally emerged from its messy yet addictive grasp as I stand here at the new breakfast bar, typing this report to you. Why am I so hooked on this strange pastime? [...]

One of the reasons I don't write as often these days is that my life has gradually evolved into a Personal Finance Bubble. The people around me have learned to be purposeful with their money, which means they now have plenty of savings and never have to stress about the stuff. Good ideas have naturally [...]

Have you ever noticed that as a whole, our society has its daily habits almost completely backwards? We're generally so busy" that we don't have time to get much exercise. And then we spend countless sedentary hours sitting in our cars each week because we think that car driving saves us time. To fuel our [...]

Let's jump right to the real news here: There's a Netflix documentary that just came out TODAY* called Get Smart With Money Somehow old Mr. Money Mustache and several friends got lured into playing a role in making it. And I'm very happy with the results! And you can watch the results here (which will [...]

As strange as it may sound, earning financial freedom is a lot easier for certain people than claiming that freedom once they have earned it. And if the following statement rings true to you, you may be suffering from this same hardship: I think I'm close to having enough money to jump into early retirement, [...]

During our recent discussion on Inflation, a Badass reader stopped by and caught my attention by dropping the following block of wisdom into the comments section: A final note if you are worried about inflation: sledgehammer the TV and go for a walk in the woods. Trees get bigger every year unless you cut them [...]

Well, that was kinda sudden! In the three months or so since we last spoke, the world has become an entirely different place – at least for those of us who keep up with any sort of international, financial or stock market news. The headlines are new, and the problems are of course very real. […]

It has been a good while since we’ve done a reader case study here on MMM, but that hasn’t stopped them from arriving in my inbox. And since 2022 is becoming a year of interesting financial changes, it’s time to spark things up again, go back to our roots, and start covering some of the […]

I’ve been writing about money for almost eleven years now, and in that time the world has become an immensely richer place. Here in the US, our economy has grown by about 25% even after inflation, world economic output has grown even faster, and the number of people living in extreme poverty has been cut […]

To most of the Internet, Mr. Money Mustache is known as the quirky early retirement financial guy, and this is a blog about Money. But really, I’m not a finance guy – someone who devotes most of his time to optimizing money. I’m more of a general Life Engineer – someone who tries to optimize […]

“MMM, are you still alive?”– somebody on Twitter Holy Shit! I just realized that the last time I wrote a blog post for you was on April 18th, and now it’s late July. That’s an entire quarter of a year that I have let this wonderful, golden field of interesting opportunities and people sit untended. […]

So it looks like my 15-year-old is officially a high-school dropout. Halfway through ninth grade, emboldened perhaps by the taste of freedom that Covid-era remote learning had provided, he realized that the whole system was just too slow and inefficient for him, and was “Getting in the way of his work.” So as it looks […]

“A Nation Which Forgets Its Past Has No Future” Those were the words on a 20-foot-long banner that “Mr. Slick”, my high school history teacher, kept carefully pinned across the width of his classroom for the entire four years I had classes with him. “That makes no sense at all”, I thought to myself when […]

So, I kind of just bought the house next door to me. This is already somewhat amazing, for a small-town boy who refuses to even buy himself a new car. But even stranger are the details that surround this deal: I’m not moving into it. I don’t really need or want a second house. I […]

A close friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer this year. It was the serious kind, where you need to treat it quickly and aggressively or it will spread through your body, stick to all of your organs, and kill you. The diagnosis was a shock to my friend and her loved ones – she’s […]

Two years ago, I was unsatisfied with my options for health insurance. The premiums were rising even as the quality dropped in the form of an ever-increasing deductible. I am guessing that you might feel the same way these days – most of us Americans are in the same boat. I felt like I was […]

Way back in the olden days, people used to be amazed at my life story. I was “The Man Who Retired at 30”, and it was so unusual that it would show up in news headlines all over the place. Thankfully, this is no longer such a surprising story. The idea of financial independence has […]

Since the Dawn of Mustachianism in 2011, the same question has come up over and over again: And in these nine years since then, the movement towards socially responsible investing has only grown. Public pension funds have started to “divest” from oil company stocks, and various social issues like human rights, child labor, climate change […]

“Success can get you to the top of a beautiful cliff, but then propel you right over the edge of it.” As a Mustachian, there’s a good chance that you are a bit of an overachiever. Maybe you fought hard to get exceptional grades in school, or perhaps you have always dominated in your career […]

Foreword from Mr. Money Mustache : Marla is a long-time friend who I met on one the very first of the Ecuador Chautauqua trips. Since then, she has served as the Chancellor of Fun in the MMM organization, which is an informal and haphazard group of entirely volunteer planners who sometimes create interesting events. Marla […]

So here we are just a month later, in a full-blown economic panic, and at the start of the most sudden recession ever. The pandemic has spread much further and faster than most uninformed people (including me) would have ever guessed, and the whole world is on some form of lockdown. Nothing quite like this […]

As I write this, the biggest story in the entire world is a virus that is making its way around the planet, leaving a trail of sickness and death in its wake, while sending a much bigger shockwave of fear and uncertainty out front. Last week, the US stock market dropped 15% in just a […]

These days, I do a fair amount of informal financial coaching for both old friends and newer acquaintances. It’s a pretty amazing experience, almost as if I were a real doctor – people let down their guard and talk about the details of their financial lives, without the usual hangups and secrecy that tend to […]

— — As I type this, there are only a few days left in the 2010s, and holy shit what a decade it has been. Ten years ago, a 35 year old MMM and the former Mrs. MM were four years into retirement, but not feeling very retired yet. We stumbled out of 2009 with […]

My son and I are having a beautiful Saturday night here at home. The sun is setting over the mountains outside my bedroom window and I’ve just finished baking a pizza which I am about to serve up for his dinner. Although our day has been very simple, there has been an underlying magic within […]

As a general rule, Mr. Money Mustache avoids reading the daily news and ignores the fluctuations of the stock market. And he advises you to do the same thing. The negative factors of wasting your time, diluting your precious brainpower, and creating undue stress by worrying about things outside of your circle of control far […]

It’s Back to School time here in Colorado, which means both my son and I will be hanging up the swim shorts and kayak paddles and getting back to more serious business for a while. It has been a slow and endlessly sunny and leisurely summer, and a nice break for both of us, which […]

Way back in 2015, I had a nine year old boy. Even back then, I could see him showing some early flashes of adulthood and maturity, and it got me wondering about his future as it relates to money and freedom. So I wrote a post called What I’m Teaching My Son About Money, which shared some […]

Like you, I am pretty much resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to buy a Tesla at some point. I can tell because I have read every last scrap of Tesla news and inadvertently memorized every last technical detail about the company and their cars and energy storage systems that has ever […]

There have been a lot of big bills coming across my kitchen table recently. Property taxes, car registrations, income taxes, things for the school orchestra in which little MM plays the standup bass. Plus the usual credit card bills for all my spending on groceries and not-all-that-rare luxury indulgences. There’s nothing bad or unexpected in […]

Dearest Readers, I’ve been waiting to tell you this with considerable excitement for a whole year, but the sales contract prevented me from doing so until this moment. And as of April 1st, 2019, I’m officially free to reveal that: Mr. Money Mustache has been sold! Yep. I’m not sure if it’s the age-old truism […]

So a funny thing happened on Twitter this week, which almost changed the world a little bit. Someone sent me a beautiful 3-D mockup of a fictional, car-free city of 50,000 people, set in the scenic nook of land* between Boulder, Colorado and Longmont, where I live. It came complete with street plans, detailed descriptions […]

Hi there. Don’t get too excited, this isn’t a real blog post. But there were enough things worth sharing that I thought it would be worth sending a little mid-month Hello. Life has been busy around here, drunkenly walking that fine line between the zones of “Exciting and stimulating and action packed!” and “Way too […]

“They sure grow up fast, don’t they?” “The older you get, the faster time flies.” “You can’t slow down time, so treasure your days because they’ll be gone before you know it.” We’ve all heard these thoughts, often from the parents of grown children. If you’re part of the older and wiser population, you may […]

Even in the most carefully run and financially independent of lives, there will be some wrenching twists and turns. Friendships and businesses will fail. You or your loved ones will get sick and some of them will die. Kids will have plenty of trouble on their long road to adulthood – if they even make […]

These last two articles have focused on how common it is for early retirees to continue making money after they say goodbye to the cubicle. I share stories like that because I’ve seen it happen in so many lives, including my own. Plus, if you do it right, work is fun. But the downside of all […]

“Dear Mr. Money Mustache… I’d like to retire soon. I’ve had a good career and the numbers say I’m just over the threshold, but I’m still afraid. It would help if I had a solid plan for what to do after retirement – perhaps even make some money eventually. Because I think it would help […]

In case you hadn’t already noticed it in the news, it seems we are hitting a turning point in how the rest of the world perceives this lifestyle that you and I have been enjoying. First, we were ignored. Then, there were a few stories that just focused on the strange lives of Mr. Money […]

I’d love to retire early, but then what? … Although I retired about thirteen years ago, and continue to be retired, about one year ago I opened up a little business on Main Street here in Longmont, Colorado. It is a multi-purpose gathering space, under the guise of a coworking space, with the typical-for-me grandiose […]

It was mid July, and I had just finished a sweaty run on the trails which criscross my older sister’s farm in Canada. I was overheated and heading straight for their swimming pool when she saw me walking across the lawn. “Oh yeah, please do use the pool! You’ll help get my cost per use down […]