Mark Cuban - mustachian before there was Mr. MM

[Slow2FIRE]

Interesting, but short article in Money magazine:
http://time.com/money/4892234/mark-cuban-sara-blakely-interview-how-to-get-rich/

Impressive that there were early retirement guides preaching minimalism 30 years ago.

You've got to have discipline in how you spend your money, first of all. When I was getting started, I used to read this book, How to Retire at 35.
NOTE: Cuban is referring to Cashing in on the American Dream: How to Retire at 35, by Paul Terhorst. The book, published in 1988, advised savers to aggressively reduce their housing costs—and to find ways to live on $50 a day.

Anyone know if the cited book is any good?  I'll have to check my local library and/or overdrive.

[BlueMR2]

I remember as a very young child my Dad telling me about some friends of his that lived in a super cheap apartment, used crates for furniture, and never ate out just so they could retire early.  That had to have been about 35 years ago...

At the time I thought "weird, why would people do that?"  :-)

[joonifloofeefloo]

Impressive that there were early retirement guides preaching minimalism 30 years ago.

We had the authors of the very excellent Your Money or Your Life too, who MMM acknowledges. That's the one that started me off. That book still rocks it, and has been updated.

[EarthSurfer]

I found both YMOLY and "Cashing In On The American Dream" about the same time in the mid-90s.

I was already learning the power of a high, focused savings rate to pay off my house in Longmont in under 5 years. (1993 30 yr mortgage was at 8%. CO ran about 0.5-0.75% above the national average at that time due to the late 90s real estate crash.)

Both books gave me a secular foundation to accumulating a "stash."

I still use the spreadsheet I developed as part of the YMOLY steps. It has always had a page calculating my "FU" money as "months of freedom" based upon expenses, income and expected yield.

I continue track my spending in detail (20+ years of Quicken), and review expenses against my values each month.  "Cashing In..." taught me to run my finances like a business. YMOYL taught me to analyze my spending against my values.

[Huffduf41]

The first thing I ever found was the retireearlyhomepage.  I graduated engineering school and had a job that was insanely easy so studied the site for hours a day.

[elaine amj]

That was a really cool interview. Thanks for sharing it OP :) I loved hearing their stories.

[Dicey]

YMOYL didn't resonate with me, probably because he lived in an old house in Berkeley with a bunch of roommates, wore Birkenstocks* and pretty much eschewed the stock market. Not the lifestyle I aspired to.

What did it for me was "The Tightwad Gazette". Completely life changing for me. Amy D started her famous newsletter in 1991 and retired in 1996.

*Nothing wrong with Birks per se, they're just horribly uncomfortable if one has long, bony feet.

[elaine amj]

YMOYL didn't resonate with me, probably because he lived in an old house in Berkeley with a bunch of roommates, wore Birkenstocks* and pretty much eschewed the stock market. Not the lifestyle I aspired to.

What did it for me was "The Tightwad Gazette". Completely life changing for me. Amy D started her famous newsletter in 1991 and retired in 1996.

*Nothing wrong with Birks per se, they're just horribly uncomfortable if one has long, bony feet.

I started with Early Retirement Extreme. That was too extreme for me and I was mentally closed to the idea. He did not make retirement look like it would fit me. Although I did cheer him on and think it was such a cool thing for him to do. Then I started reading MMM and his version of RE looked much more desirable. Which eventually led me on this path towards FIRE.

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