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 ..read more

– “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 on the one hand, when you put a bunch of personal life details online like this, being misunderstood is just part of the package. But on the other hand, if the critics could peek in and see our real lives – not just mine but those of all the Mustachians – they woul ..read more

– 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 to put thousands of hours into everything else I value as well: family, health, friends, adventures, building stuff, and even writing the occasional blog post. No complaints about any of this. But if I can indulge you to play me a brief Tiny Violin of First World Probl ..read more

– The other day, an MMM reader stopped by and left the following comment on one of my older posts about the principles of FIRE: “While I still find some of MMM’s advice relevant, it seems like every FI blogger out there worked in tech 20 years ago, pulled down a 6 figure salary and bought a house for a bag of potatoes before 2019. I wasn’t smart enough to find FI when I was young so I sometimes feel like a lot of their advice is not going to help me or others who don’t already own a home and don’t have six- figure salaries in this post-pandemic world.  A lot of the ideas given to young f ..read more

– 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 the full-time job of raising children kicked in. Eighteen years later, wow has that guess ever turned out to be right. Early retirement has proved to be the most amazing, worthwhile adventure and it’s still just getting started. It was an astonishing thirteen years ago that I wrote to you about Little MM start ..read more

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 suddenly shot back up to 20-year highs.  – Which brings up a few questions about whether we need to worry, or do anything about this new development. Is the stock market (index funds, of course) still the right place for my money? What if I want to buy a ho ..read more

As with many things in life these days, it all started with an episode of the Peter Attia podcast. In this episode, 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 book out. But the headline of the episode was just intriguing enough to get me to click. “The Comfort Crisis” Wow, what an amazing turn of phrase, and what a concise summary of the core of this whole Mustachianism thing I’ve been trying to express for the past dozen years.  Whi ..read more

This is Midjourney AI’s imagined version of my new car. I’ll update this picture once I take delivery and head out on my first real camping trip! As I type this, I’m jumping through the various hoops involved in buying a 2023 Tesla Model Y, a spectacularly expensive, large 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 data center. The total net cost of this thing to me after all the taxes and tax credits* will be about $52,0 ..read more

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 of life where all of these factors come together with an almost Nuclear Fusion level of synergy and effectiveness. And because of that, if I could have one single wish in the world, this is what I would wish for. It’s a change so massive that it would make every person on the planet better o ..read more

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? And more importantly, why am I so excited to tell you about it, when most MMM readers probably don’t have house building at the top of their list of life priorities?  It’s probably because the concept of home is such a core part of life for me: a place that allows us to take care of our familie ..read more