The Money Mustache Community

General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: grantmeaname on July 20, 2015, 05:28:24 PM

Title: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on July 20, 2015, 05:28:24 PM
Hey everybody! The MMM forums are full of smart, well-spoken people - but of course you already knew that because you're smart and well-spoken yourself! Every once in a while, I run across a brilliant post and gain some serious insight about life. I bet you do too!

If you see something really brilliant, quote it here in appreciation to the post's author and soon this thread will be like a TrueReddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/truereddit) of the MMM forums - a collection of some of the best of the best.

(The forum software is really quite smart. If you quote the post in the thread it's in, and then bring that whole set of text over here, it'll maintain a reference to the original thread and conversation. Just hit the quote button, copy the whole post, and drop it in your response to this thread.)

Thanks for being the best and brightest forum community I've ever seen!

(If you want to see my other project for making the forums an even better place, check out the blogroll here (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/mustachianism-around-the-web/the-mmm-readers'-blogroll-(reloaded))!)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on July 20, 2015, 05:29:03 PM
I'll start. In a thread in which a parent worries about her daughter's susceptibility to advertising, MrsPete (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/profile/?u=4003) drops this gem:

What I'm hearing is "teachable moments". 

First, while it's tempting to shield your child from advertising, I think it's a mistake to do so completely.  Instead, start looking at ads together and discuss with her what they're trying to make you believe.  We're ALL influenced by ads, so it's right to help her, to "walk her through it" and help her see what they're promising vs. what the item can deliver.  This is a skill that she needs to develop, and she probably needs your help to get started viewing ads with a critical eye. 

She can probably "see" the truth in ads for products that don't appeal to her /aren't targeted at her.  Cigarette ads would be a good starting place.  Show her a picture of the Marlboro man in his cowboy duds.  Ask her what the ad is promising:  If you use this product, you'll be good looking, tough, independent, strong, sexy.  She's old enough to see that this picture appeals to men -- even if they don't want to be cowboys personally.  Then ask her what the product actually delivers.  She should see a big difference.  Then show her a product for some sort of convenience food:  It'll probably show a woman surrounded by a family sitting down at the table with appreciative looks on their faces.  Ask her what they're selling:  Buy our chicken nuggets, and your clean, well-mannered children (and their father) will rush to the table and look at you as if you're a goddess for popping some chicken nuggets in the oven.  They're selling the promise of a happy family.  Again, she should see that the reality doesn't really match the promise.  Once she can see those differences ... then it's time for her to look at ads directed at her.  Once she's started to see the truth, she'll approach ads with a more critical eye. 

Don't think that she won't continue to be tempted:  We all are.  You'll have to continue to repeat this lesson over and over; after all, the advertisers are providing plenty of follow-up with their lessons! 

Second, she's at a normal age to start comparing herself with other kids.  You have to walk a fine line here.  You don't want to dismiss her comments with a quick, "Oh, we can't afford that."  For one thing, it's probably not true.  For another, it can make her worry that you may not have enough money to survive.  Yet you also don't want to squash her dreams and make her feel that she can't express her thoughts and desires to you. 

When my kids were going through this stage (and it is a stage), I often looked at the item they said they wanted and agreed with them, "Yeah, it would be nice to have _____, wouldn't it?  I bet it'd be fun.  But that's not how Daddy and I choose to spend our money."  This acknowledges that, yes, nice things are -- well, nice.  You're not wrong or bad to want things (that's what I was told growing up, and it's not a good thing to tell a kid).  But we have limited resources, and Daddy and I have made choices.  OFTEN that launched into good discussions about quality vs. quantity, saving vs. spending, and having enough.  Teachable moments. 

Your daughter isn't "there yet", but I see kids at school and through the youth groups with which I work who -- maybe in late middle school through early high school -- pick up the idea that WOW, there's GOOD STUFF OUT THERE!  And if my parents don't have it, they made sucky choices.  Often they start to get the idea that their parents are idiots for not grasping that they could've CHOSEN BETTER!  This is kind of the start of the parents-are-stupid-because-I'm-a-teen-thing.  They start in on the big-unattainable-dreams-unconnected-to-reality:  They're going to become rock stars, models, NFL players, and then they'll have several mansions across the globe as well as a fleet of sports cars, etc., etc., etc.  Basically, they start to imagine themselves as Kardashians.  Did I spell that right?  They get this idea that ANYONE can do these things -- you just have to be smart enough to choose right!  And the kids who get big-time into these ideas tend NOT to see their own efforts and abilities as being tied into those choices.  A kid who's more grounded in reality may flirt with these ideas, but it'll be fleeting moments rather than a genuine belief.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MrMoogle on July 21, 2015, 07:56:27 AM
I ran across this one yesterday, that really opened up my eyes.  The background is Alicia Munnell is an intelligent person who works on setting financial policy, who doesn't really have her finances together.  And this seems like a contradiction, but wenchsenior explains how it really isn't.

There seems to be a real disconnect on this board (also exhibited in this thread) in terms of understanding the difference between raw intelligence, job mastery, and 'behavioral intelligence' (temperamental-type qualities).

Alicia Munnell is obviously pretty intelligent in terms of IQ...she has two advanced degrees in addition to her Bachelor's, and she's been able to master statistical concepts and do research based on those concepts, and publish said research. She also exhibits job mastery, in that she serves in a position of responsibility, and seems to meet her obligations pretty well or it's unlikely she would have been promoted so high.

BUT, what an amazing number of people on this board seem to misunderstand, in thread after thread after thread, is that those traits, in MANY (possibly most) people don't necessarily correlate with optimal financial behavior, which has a lot more to do with temperamental inclination and behavioral intelligence.

Let's just take the top half of the intelligence bell curve: that is a shit ton of relatively to very smart people in this world, many of them who excel at challenging, high-skill jobs, that STILL MAKE DUMBASS DECISIONS on a regular basis. And it ISN'T because they are too stupid to know better. People cheat on spouses and fuck up marriages; they drink too much, smoke too much, or sit on their asses too much for optimal health; they sell at the bottom of the market crash; they constantly respond emotionally to situations that require rational, mathematical thinking; they feel overwhelmed and busy and put off crucial decisions too long; they have external and internal pressures from family, upbringing, social context, etc. that skew their decisions (e.g., I'll save for kids college fund, even though I have no retirement fund), and on and on and on.

I don't know whether it is a preponderance of personality types that have congregated at this board or what, but sooooo many MMM forum participants seem to believe that people 'should' behave optimally assuming they are smart and have good information. And yet, society shows us OVER AND OVER that this is a fallacy. They do not, and they never will, because most people aren't wired that way.

Alicia Munnell is perfectly intelligent, as are most federal workers (most work in high-skill disciplines that require advanced degrees and complex skill-set mastery). Does that mean most of them are making optimal decisions in other areas of their lives? Not necessarily. Should we be shocked by this? NO.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Cheddar Stacker on July 21, 2015, 08:43:56 AM
This is the best post I've seen so far today:

If you quote the post in the thread it's in, and then bring that whole set of text over here, it'll maintain a reference to the original thread and conversation.

Pretty cool trick, I never knew this link existed. Thanks grant.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: brooklynguy on July 21, 2015, 08:57:47 AM
Pretty cool trick, I never knew this link existed. Thanks grant.

Ditto.  For anyone else who may not realize, the "Quote from: [Poster] on [Date], [Time]" reference is itself a link that will take you to the original thread from whence the quoted text came.  (Even after grant pointed out this feature, it still took me a while to realize that that reference is itself an active link (and I almost posted a response to grant that he is overstating the intelligence of the forum software).)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Basenji on July 21, 2015, 10:09:32 AM
Love this thread, now I wish I had marked every great post. Will keep an eye out.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on July 22, 2015, 03:16:28 PM
In a topic about primal eating (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/primal/), Ambergris (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/profile/?u=7258) left a great analysis of the logic underlying the Paleo diet. Not everybody agrees, of course, but his analysis of the anthropology/biology underlying the logic is spot on!
I always find it hard to resist weighing in on these debates, but it's just too irresistable this time.

As Bob W. said, the point of eating Paleo is supposed to be that you are eating "what out bodies adapted too over hundreds of thousands of years". The idea, presumably, and correct me if I am wrong, is that by eating what we adapted to, we end up healthier, living longer, etc.

The problem for us as Mustachians is that Paleo is very expensive (all that grass fed beef, etc). It seems to me that this suggests that it needs to seriously earn its keep if it is to be considered a mustachian approach (obviously, anyone may eat however they like, but this site is about optimizing finances).

So does Paleo optimize health? No one knows directly. There are very few studies and no scientific consensus on whether these diets work. In lieu of that, primal/paleo supporters offer a biological argument: 1) we have adapted to eat a particular diet; 2) natural selection can be expected to optimize our bodies to a particular diet and therefore we can expect to have better health outcomes if we eat it than with anything else.

I have several responses to this argument.

1) The first problem is establishing what ancient diets looked like. There is considerable debate in the paleoanthropology literature on this, as well as issues about which sources of evidence are most reliable. The best bet seems to be that current foragers (the best approximation for our ancestors: BTW, the Masai are NOT foragers but herders) eat a diet that varies enormously in its plant vs. meat based content and approximately by latitude (Kelly, 2007). This varies between 25% and 95% hunted food (a rough approximation for meat/fish content). Inuit, as mentioned are on the extreme high end of this. Foragers in Africa, in the location we initially evolved, tend to be on the low end. The real answer to "what did ancient people eat?" therefore seems to be whatever they could get their hands on. The main concern for ancient people was not starving to death in a very hostile "red in tooth and claw" nature, and this meant eating what was available.

Upshot: there is no such thing as a paleo diet

2) a) The natural selection part of the argument assumes that natural selection, given a chance, perfectly optimizes our bodies to respond to a particular set of local conditions. As any decent evolutionary biologist will tell you, this is a very dangerous assumption. Natural selection is a tinkerer and a "gerry-manderer" at best, and has to work with what is available in the way of genetic variation, and against difficult physiological and environment tradeoffs. When people talk about the optimality of paleo diets, I think "Giant Panda". This is creature with a bear's gut eating bamboo (constantly, in order to survive), using an awkward extended wrist bone as a thumb.

Adaptation happens constantly in nature but it is never ideal because nature, far from being sweet and nice and beautiful is ugly and harsh and constantly trying to kill you. Eating involves taking other organisms that want to survive and destroying them. Natural selection acts on them, too, to stop you from doing so. So even if there were a paleo diet, there should be no expectation whatever that it would be optimal.

Indeed, humans in almost all societies have found ways around these tradeoffs using cultural techniques (i.e. food processing).

2b) Let's suppose for a minute that humans were ideally adapted to a particular diet. What would that actually mean? Would it mean that we were adapted to eat, say, mammoths and giant sloths, or would it mean we were adapted to eat meat, or would it mean we were adapted to eat protein and fat rich food? Would it mean we were adapted to eat nuts and fiber rich tubers, or carbohydrate and fiber rich plants, or just carbohydrates with lots of fiber? It's truly not clear that from the standpoint of the body there's much difference between "fiber rich tubers" and "fiber rich grains".

2c) Again, let's pretend for the sake of argument that natural selection does optimize diet and there is an optimal diet. What is "optimal"? By "what out bodies adapted to eat over hundreds of thousands of years" the optimal seems to be, what natural selection would fix in the population. This means what it would maximize is reproductive fitness - i.e. the diet that would make you have the most healthy babies. In the "paleo times" we are considering, this would have meant, most likely, maximizing calorie intake during the child bearing years. Once child bearing/raising has ended, NS becomes "indifferent" to how well you're doing (but let's be generous given the value of older humans to child raising).

So ideal "paleo diets" can be expected to make you fat while you are young and be quite indifferent to how you do after, say, 60 or so. It would definitely NOT help you lose weight or live a longer than currently average life.

[Random aside: one bugbear of paleo folks is fructose, which is one of the foods to which humans are notably adapted because of their descent from fruit eating primates. You have a beautifully adapted fructose digestion system designed specifically to make the most of this powerful calorie-rich sugar. To paleo folks astonishment, fructose makes you fat!!!1! gasp!!1![[LOL]]].

May I suggest as an alternative to "paleo" paying attention to scientific research on the health effects of particular diets? Despite what dodgy books by a few random MDs and outside-of-the-consensus scientific authors argue (or folks with no appropriate training like MDA), the current scientific consensus is that a diet high in fruits and vegetables, complex, high fiber carbs, fish and small amounts of lean meat is probably the best one for maintaining a lower body weight and maximizing longevity.

So no, paleo is not mustachian.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: brooklynguy on July 22, 2015, 03:31:47 PM
In a thread about social security (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/your-social-security-'money's-worth'/), MoonShadow posted the following in response to a claim that a private insurer would need to be fail-proof in order to be compared on an apples-to-apples basis with the US government (in its capacity as the sponsor of the social security system).  I'm not sure whether I necessarily agree with all of it, but it definitely made me step back and reevaluate the validity of the common kneejerk assumption that no entity in existence carries less risk of failure than the US government.

Quote
Also it would have to be from a company that could never fail and would invest in assets that were guaranteed like Treasuries.

Well, that is a fallacy for several reasons, but even if it were completely correct; which do you think has a longer average survival rate; life insurance companies, government programs or actual governments?  Take your mind away from the US for a minute, and consider the number of governments on Earth today.  We can limit ourselves to those we consider modern or "Western" governments, if you like; but you must keep in mind that just because a particular nation still has the same name and borders as in the past, doesn't conclude that the government that manages the nation's affairs.  For example, the governments of Germany & Austria aren't really older than 1945, and Spain's has only been around since 1962.  Granted, there are much older examples of continuous governments around Europe, but we are also talking about Europe; other regions of the world have much worse records, such as central and south America, and Africa; despite there being wonderful examples of modern & 'Western" democracies on both continents.  And size of country doesn't seem to really be a factor either, since Russia's government has only been around since 1991.  For me, it's hard to say which is more likely to exist past my own lifetime, any particular government or any particular life insurance company.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: NoraLenderbee on July 22, 2015, 04:10:48 PM
In a topic about primal eating (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/primal/), Ambergris (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/profile/?u=7258) left a great analysis of the logic underlying the Paleo diet. Not everybody agrees, of course, but his analysis of the anthropology/biology underlying the logic is spot on!
I always find it hard to resist weighing in on these debates, but it's just too irresistable this time.

As Bob W. said, the point of eating Paleo is supposed to be that you are eating "what out bodies adapted too over hundreds of thousands of years". The idea, presumably, and correct me if I am wrong, is that by eating what we adapted to, we end up healthier, living longer, etc.

The problem for us as Mustachians is that Paleo is very expensive (all that grass fed beef, etc). It seems to me that this suggests that it needs to seriously earn its keep if it is to be considered a mustachian approach (obviously, anyone may eat however they like, but this site is about optimizing finances).

So does Paleo optimize health? No one knows directly. There are very few studies and no scientific consensus on whether these diets work. In lieu of that, primal/paleo supporters offer a biological argument: 1) we have adapted to eat a particular diet; 2) natural selection can be expected to optimize our bodies to a particular diet and therefore we can expect to have better health outcomes if we eat it than with anything else.

I have several responses to this argument.

1) The first problem is establishing what ancient diets looked like. There is considerable debate in the paleoanthropology literature on this, as well as issues about which sources of evidence are most reliable. The best bet seems to be that current foragers (the best approximation for our ancestors: BTW, the Masai are NOT foragers but herders) eat a diet that varies enormously in its plant vs. meat based content and approximately by latitude (Kelly, 2007). This varies between 25% and 95% hunted food (a rough approximation for meat/fish content). Inuit, as mentioned are on the extreme high end of this. Foragers in Africa, in the location we initially evolved, tend to be on the low end. The real answer to "what did ancient people eat?" therefore seems to be whatever they could get their hands on. The main concern for ancient people was not starving to death in a very hostile "red in tooth and claw" nature, and this meant eating what was available.

Upshot: there is no such thing as a paleo diet

2) a) The natural selection part of the argument assumes that natural selection, given a chance, perfectly optimizes our bodies to respond to a particular set of local conditions. As any decent evolutionary biologist will tell you, this is a very dangerous assumption. Natural selection is a tinkerer and a "gerry-manderer" at best, and has to work with what is available in the way of genetic variation, and against difficult physiological and environment tradeoffs. When people talk about the optimality of paleo diets, I think "Giant Panda". This is creature with a bear's gut eating bamboo (constantly, in order to survive), using an awkward extended wrist bone as a thumb.

Adaptation happens constantly in nature but it is never ideal because nature, far from being sweet and nice and beautiful is ugly and harsh and constantly trying to kill you. Eating involves taking other organisms that want to survive and destroying them. Natural selection acts on them, too, to stop you from doing so. So even if there were a paleo diet, there should be no expectation whatever that it would be optimal.

Indeed, humans in almost all societies have found ways around these tradeoffs using cultural techniques (i.e. food processing).

2b) Let's suppose for a minute that humans were ideally adapted to a particular diet. What would that actually mean? Would it mean that we were adapted to eat, say, mammoths and giant sloths, or would it mean we were adapted to eat meat, or would it mean we were adapted to eat protein and fat rich food? Would it mean we were adapted to eat nuts and fiber rich tubers, or carbohydrate and fiber rich plants, or just carbohydrates with lots of fiber? It's truly not clear that from the standpoint of the body there's much difference between "fiber rich tubers" and "fiber rich grains".

2c) Again, let's pretend for the sake of argument that natural selection does optimize diet and there is an optimal diet. What is "optimal"? By "what out bodies adapted to eat over hundreds of thousands of years" the optimal seems to be, what natural selection would fix in the population. This means what it would maximize is reproductive fitness - i.e. the diet that would make you have the most healthy babies. In the "paleo times" we are considering, this would have meant, most likely, maximizing calorie intake during the child bearing years. Once child bearing/raising has ended, NS becomes "indifferent" to how well you're doing (but let's be generous given the value of older humans to child raising).

So ideal "paleo diets" can be expected to make you fat while you are young and be quite indifferent to how you do after, say, 60 or so. It would definitely NOT help you lose weight or live a longer than currently average life.

[Random aside: one bugbear of paleo folks is fructose, which is one of the foods to which humans are notably adapted because of their descent from fruit eating primates. You have a beautifully adapted fructose digestion system designed specifically to make the most of this powerful calorie-rich sugar. To paleo folks astonishment, fructose makes you fat!!!1! gasp!!1![[LOL]]].

May I suggest as an alternative to "paleo" paying attention to scientific research on the health effects of particular diets? Despite what dodgy books by a few random MDs and outside-of-the-consensus scientific authors argue (or folks with no appropriate training like MDA), the current scientific consensus is that a diet high in fruits and vegetables, complex, high fiber carbs, fish and small amounts of lean meat is probably the best one for maintaining a lower body weight and maximizing longevity.

So no, paleo is not mustachian.


This is an awesome post!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: okits on July 22, 2015, 09:47:03 PM
(http://www.lawlz.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/money-best-superpower-of-all-dark-knight-batman-iron-man-meme.jpg)

Not a new post but I only saw it today.  So true.  And timely, because today I decided to move up my downshift date. Basically, "even though you'll pay me, I'm not going to do that crappy stuff you want me to do because I already have money.  And that makes me allergic to crap."

Allergic to crap...  The next-best superpower...
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: smilla on July 24, 2015, 07:08:09 PM
From a thread about how to help loved ones who are causing their own problems by mad spending, but great advice for dealing with all kinds of complaining and negativity.  I am too quick to focus on finding (and prescribing) solutions and I forget to sympathize and commiserate.  So foolish!  If I switched those around, if I was quick to sympathize and forgot about solving anything, I would lower my stress and improve my relationships.  Thanks for this scrubbyfish!  Bolding is mine.

I have friends and family members that constantly throw money away, then complain about lack of funds. I used to try to help, and eventually realized they didn't want that. Now I say, "Oh man, yeah, that sucks!" Or, "Ah, cripey." Or, "I understand: You really, really wish the province would give you a bus pass without having to do paperwork first." And that's all. It ends the conversation in a peaceful way. They know I can do stuff, they know I'm willing to help when they ask directly for that (same as I teach my kid to do). I don't offer help upon a whine, rant, etc. I reflect back, or murmur compassion. They feel better in the moment, which is all they wanted. If they ever ask me for help, I will give that. But even then, my first question is, "What are you willing to do?" They screen themselves out of most options; it's best for me, though, to know that before I invest a lot of time and effort.

Never do more for a client [friend, family member] than the client [friend, family member] is doing for himself.

The next link was from a day or two ago.  The OP was about a couple that had taken advantage of their friends for years, crying poor, when in fact they had amassed a tidy fortune.  This post begins a thought-provoking conversation about how to be an honourable mustachian without necessarily being an open book about one's finances or plans.  I will certainly be more mindful of what I say and how I balance the scales of give and take in my relationships.

It's hilarious to me that a number of people on this forum, including myself, could someday be perceived the same way as the "mooching" friends.

Think about it. 

1. A number of us have decided to not talk about our FI journey to family/friends/acquaintances (for obvious reasons) and instead pursue stealth wealth.  We'll drive old cars into the ground.  We won't upgrade our wardrobe every year.  We'll talk about how much things cost and sometimes suggest cheaper alternatives.  All things that sound normal to us, but that others could perceive as acting poor.  Is behaving like you are poor really so different than "pretending" like you're poor?   

2. There's a fine line between taking a fair amount of food/drink in social situations and too much food/drink, and it's often in the eye of the beholder, who has imperfect information.

Once you reach FI and some people realize how wealthy you are, are you really so sure others won't recall every favor they ever did for you,  any small thing they did that saved you money, and say, What the Hell!?  Are you 100% sure that, after being surprised to learn about how rich you are, they'll look at the ledger book of favors you did for them and favors they did for you and conclude that it's balanced?

I'm sure as hell not :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ender on July 24, 2015, 07:52:12 PM
This is a neat thread!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lifejoy on July 26, 2015, 08:17:27 AM
My fave is from a post about the wife wanting a new Jeep and that being a face-punch-worthy move:

Quote
I'm a husband. Here's how I would approach it:

Step 1. Say, "You know, I've been thinking about it, and you were right. It really is time to replace your vehicle. It's too unreliable, you've put up with repairs for a long time, and you deserve something better." [It's important to say "You were right" -- don't leave that out]

Step 2. Say, "You've said you want a 2012 Jeep Wrangler -- any reasons you want that car in particular?"

Step 3. LISTEN. Don't say a word to refute anything about the 2012 JW. Listen to everything she says, pay close attention to the reasons she gives. Instead, nod your head, and say things like, "I see" or "That makes sense." If she seems to run out of reasons, ask her "Anything else?" Then listen some more.

Step 4. After she's done giving reasons, say "Okay." Then take some time on your own to think about it. This tells her you listened and will seriously give it consideration. If she presses you to give an answer about it, tell her you'd like a little time to digest what she's said and to look for some ways to get her what she wants.

Step 5. Look around for vehicles that meet the criteria she gave you AND that are cost-effective. Come up with several options for her to consider in addition to the JW. Example: She says "reliability" is her number one concern, you find the Consumer Reports pick for the most reliable car in your price range.

Step 6. Present her with the options, and include the JW as an option. Show her the pros/cons of each vehicle and how they might meet her criteria, and of course include cost in the equation. Now, she should be seeing you as presenting an objective set of choices, not a sales pitch in favor of the car you want her to pick. LET HER MAKE THE CHOICE.

Step. 7. If she chooses the JW despite it being inferior (and more expensive) to the other choices, tell her you want to find a way for the two of you to pay for it without going into debt, decreasing your retirement savings, hampering college for your kids, etc. Ask her what she thinks you both should do -- earn extra income at a second job? Cut expenses somewhere else? Give up some other future purchase or expense like the spring break trip? Make it clear that you want to get her the vehicle she wants, but that there's no free lunch. She'll have to consider tradeoffs if she's going to pick an expensive car "just because."
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: gatortator on August 07, 2015, 08:26:53 PM
Bicycle wrote this powerful response on the topic of reducing time/energy/money on "lady-trappings".


On feeling attractive  We put ourselves through these beauty regimens so that we can feel just a little bit more attractive.  We think that if our skin tone was only a little more even, or if our hair was just a little different, or if our asses were just a little less/more round, that we'll have achieved some attractiveness threshold.  Then what?  For that, I refer you to MMM's brilliant (and for me, life-changing) post on the concept of Hedonic Adaptation (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/22/what-is-hedonic-adaptation-and-how-can-it-turn-you-into-a-sukka/). 

Stop for a second and step back, or even step out of your own skin.  What are you using as a metric for attractiveness?  Is it something that was seen on a TV show?  Read in a magazine?  Implanted from when you were a young impressionable person by some combination of different factors?

Beauty comes from the inside.  Instead of buying that new beauty implement, practice radiating (and I mean REALLY radiating, to the point where you think you may be radioactive) genuine (very important) smiles, friendliness, intelligence, warmth and compassion.  I've found that when I practice this, I am perceived as more attractive AND I perceive myself as more attractive.


Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: oneday on August 07, 2015, 09:44:15 PM
LennStar talks about an epiphany.  Any day in which you have an epiphany is a great day!


And it wasn't until I saw a colleague (and I worked with her when I was 26/27) wearing a sweatshirt from Penneys that was the same as one I had had about ten years before that the penny dropped. I loved that sweatshirt, it was really comfy and I even loved it so much that when I ripped a hole in it, I repaired it (badly - oh how my stepmother hated how it looked after that). But I still stopped wearing it after a couple of years because that's just what you were supposed to do, I thought. Seems so silly now but it was a huge epiphany for me at the time.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: 1967mama on August 08, 2015, 02:46:36 AM
Great thread! Will post when I come across a gem!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: forummm on August 08, 2015, 02:48:15 PM
Thread about saving on holiday gifts:

We've had great luck with the "one less gift certificate"... used it for most everyone last Christmas and I think everyone appreciates being loved but also being off the hook.

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: NoraLenderbee on August 08, 2015, 04:08:15 PM

 You look more professional if people can't see the color of your undies through your scrubs.

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on September 16, 2015, 12:57:43 PM
This thread got sleepy :(. I've seen two really good ones, though. Serpentstooth (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/profile/?u=4084) had this brilliant post explaining social capital:
Social capital is being able to call someone in your neighborhood and say, "So help me, the baby has been screaming at me for six hours straight and can you please come over and sit with me before I lose my mind."

It's having people who know you have a child dropping off bags of secondhand baby clothes when you have a preemie who is too small for normal newborn clothes.

It's having a friend of a friend mentioning they are moving house and are giving away a set of dining chairs, and that friend connecting you so you get them for free.

It's having a neighbor run out and buy you a fridge thermometer in the middle of the night when you ask to borrow his because your fridge didn't seem to be keeping temperature.

It's having my parents come down every single day for two weeks because I had a sick newborn and was in no condition to do anything but help keep the baby alive.

It's getting a meal train for weeks when you're sick or have had a baby and can't cook for yourself.

It's having a friend pull strings in a socialized medicine system to get you a badly needed doctor appointment even though you're a foreign tourist.

It's getting lucrative part time work because someone you did a favor for years ago knows someone who needs someone with your skills.

It's getting a line on an apartment going for below market because someone knew your parents and knew you were looking.

Social capital is one of those things you don't need until you really need it urgently, at which point, if you've failed to cultivate it, you're SOL.

And the goblinchief (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/profile/?u=7828) had this analysis of bananas:
I've given versions of this rant in person to family/friends. Finally felt the need to write it out. Hopefully it doesn't alienate anyone.

Buying Bananas is Bananas! (blog crosspost)

We used to buy pounds and pounds of bananas each week. As most of my family knows, as they've been subject to my little rants about it, we no longer do this. Why?

On the surface, bananas seem the ideal fresh fruit:

1.Rarely changes significantly in price - always cheap!
2. Ripens effortlessly.
3. All my kids liked it.
4. Decent nutritional value, particularly extra potassium for muscle cramping and workout recovery.

Here's the catch. Bananas aren't in our bio-region. Not even remotely. The incredibly low price of bananas hides the fact that these are a tropical delicacy shipped in from very far away. It's incredible - in the original disbelief sense of the word - that energy is so cheap and pollution considered so inconsequential that a tropical fruit shipped (to northern states) a minimum of 1,500 miles has become a staple of the American diet.

Okay, it's one thing for the standard American consumer to buy bananas. After all, reasons #1-4 are pretty damn compelling if you don't look deeper. But it especially irks me when smart frugal people proclaim bananas as the ultimate frugal food. Are you not capable of seeing the immense hidden/externalized costs?

What got me going originally on my anti-banana crusade was this article (http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/09/protected-habitat-not-enough-to-keep-costa-rican-crocs-safe/) in Ars Technica from a couple years ago. Until then I'd never really been aware of the environmental cost of banana production in their home countries. Pesticide loads for any monoculture will be high, but the tropics is a particularly bad place for them. Not only is disease and pest pressure higher, but rains wash and leach pesticides away faster, widening the impacted zone around plantations to an incredible degree. Tropical soils, despite the abundance of life, are naturally poor. Clearing the native cover to plant monocultures depletes soil at an alarming rate.

Many will argue that developing countries need export crops to support their economy. Yes and no. The trouble has become that the same multinationals who product the export crops import heavily subsidized US grain products that have destroyed many small, local farms. In a heavily globalized world, a tropical climate cannot sustainably compete at farming to scale. Widespread clearing of rainforests leads to poor, heavily leached soils. Unless you live in the region, tropical foods should remain (at best) an occasional treat.

Organic bananas are a thing. Anyone who's investigated the organic label for themselves knows that it tells you nothing about the total pesticide load, either in residue form on the crop (of marginal concern since you should wash produce anyways), or in overuse on the farms themselves (the real reason you should be concerned about pesticide use). Worse, many organic-approved pesticides have broader environmental impact. In the specific case of bananas where fungal disease pressure is high, organic bananas are probably even worse for their home countries since organic fungicides must be applied regularly as a preventative measure, not after disease emergence.

"Fair trade" bananas are also a thing. In this case, bananas become less bad but they're still bad. In no way could you make the case these should be a staple fruit in temperate climates. A high-volume import crop still carries the immense environmental cost of a multi-thousand mile transportation chain, even if it's more sustainably-produced in its home country. Small imports like coffee or spices still have the same issue, but in my case I justify it because 1) price per pound is much higher, promising better returns for the farmers; 2) I'm consuming far, far less of these and so the import cost is closer to marginal.

Do you buy bananas? Would you consider re-evaluating that habit? Or have you found the evidence not as compelling as I have?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Cheddar Stacker on September 19, 2015, 07:01:31 PM
Okay its not MMM. But this is seriously the most MMM rap video I have ever seen. You will love it
https://youtu.be/yvHYWD29ZNY?t=49s

ROFLMAO kind of stuff. Best of the day.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Lski'stash on September 19, 2015, 07:11:21 PM
Thread about saving on holiday gifts:

We've had great luck with the "one less gift certificate"... used it for most everyone last Christmas and I think everyone appreciates being loved but also being off the hook.

I really just need to make sure I save this for the holidays this year.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Astatine on September 19, 2015, 08:28:11 PM
I love these two paragraphs of Mother Fussbudget's post in a response to someone who'd just been fired from his/her job and was seeking advice on job seeking. I think this advice is good for many other difficult situations, and I particularly love the bolded section. It's taken me more than 40 years to start to get that.

My advice:  take the weekend, find a warm sandy beach, or other recreation that sends you to your Happy Place, and think about the sky, sand, friends & family, pets, read that book you've been wanting to dive into... "whatever gets you through your life" (as John Lennon wisely said).

It sounds like things are moving forward - things that aren't going to speed up or slow down because you (or anyone else) worried about them.  Your irons are in-the-fire - let them heat up.  If you look at your email at 10am Monday morning, and doors haven't already opened for you, then pursue some of these other ideas.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: okits on September 19, 2015, 10:54:41 PM
This one captured my imagination and made me feel comforted regarding mortality.

inevitability of becoming worm food.

Not me.  I'm going to be star fuel.  And a double sided dildo.  And a redwood tree, and a puppy's nose, and an ocean wave, and a black hole.  My matter, indestructible, will be returned to the great universe from whence it came.  Which, yes, probably means worm food somewhere along the line, too.

Science is awesome, like literally awe inspiring.  Every atom in your body bigger than helium was formed inside of a long dead star that exploded across the vastness of space in a violent light show of cosmic proportions.  Every breath you take contains molecules that were once part of Hitler, and a T-rex, and a comet.  Long after you are dead and gone, the last human to ever live and die will contain literal physical parts of your body. 

We never really die, we just reorganize.  Don't fear the worm food.

edit: sort of back on topic, Joel Osteen's message about a crucified carpenter and his friends is pretty drab, compared to the truth.  The universe is mind-bendingly amazing, even without pretty stained glass windows and incense, but for most of human history we had to search for existential context in fairy tales because we didn't know any better.  I feel pretty lucky to live in a time when we're finally starting to understand the truth about where we came from and what it all means.

I was also amused that the dildo mentioned specified "double-sided".  Little Johnny/Jenny, if you're bad, when you die you'll only become a basic dildo.  *cue tears*
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on October 12, 2015, 01:01:34 PM
Miss Madge (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/profile/?u=343) has this brilliant bit of introspection in her journal about work-related stress:
Thanks for the well wishes, too ... I'm having a decent job day so far today so I'm off the ledge for now -- everyone is leaving me alone and letting me work! Woo! But yeah, I'm still getting some other applications out this week, too. No reason not to.

I wanted to say that I appreciate the perspective you gave me Saturday. I do have a huge fear of leaving this job and ending up with a Cthulu-type boss because I have seen first hand how that can ruin a person's life ... but it's also entirely possible that won't happen, and even if it does, there are always more jobs out there.

It's funny, I think if you asked most people who know me how they see me, words like "free spirit" might be spoken. And to a certain extent it's true -- I'm not that scared about re-inventing myself or my life ... the risk of not doing something I want to do always seems to outstrip the risk of screwing it up.

But the one place I have been extremely risk-averse is my career ... I have only worked two "real" jobs over the last twenty years. I think part of me likes having a boring work life so that I can have a fun outside-of-work life. But there's really no reason to be quite so risk averse as I have been. Fundamentally I do believe in my capacity to do just about any job you could put in front of me (nothing medical but basically anything else!) and do it well. So there's no reason to clutch onto this particular job and company like it's the only possibility in the world.

There's also no reason to take the whole thing so deadly serious. Fundamentally, in the situation I'm in, work is just a game. It's a game where I trade fucks for money so that I can do the other things I want to do. It's not life and death, and I don't honestly care a whole lot about the outcome, so why let it upset me?

Feels like I've been giving a lot of unnecessary fucks to work, honestly. Maybe there's a way to do less of that, even as I look around for something else.

This bit is golden. I'd put it up at my desk if I could:
Quote
work is just a game. It's a game where I trade fucks for money so that I can do the other things I want to do

God damn that's some inspirational, curse-filled wisdom in the greatest tradition of MMM.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: brooklynguy on October 12, 2015, 01:41:54 PM
This bit is golden. I'd put it up at my desk if I could:
Quote
work is just a game. It's a game where I trade fucks for money so that I can do the other things I want to do

God damn that's some inspirational, curse-filled wisdom in the greatest tradition of MMM.

I'll second that, though a literal-minded reader could be forgiven for concluding that that bit was simply a job description of the world's oldest profession.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: boy_bye on October 12, 2015, 01:48:25 PM
This bit is golden. I'd put it up at my desk if I could:
Quote
work is just a game. It's a game where I trade fucks for money so that I can do the other things I want to do

God damn that's some inspirational, curse-filled wisdom in the greatest tradition of MMM.

I'll second that, though a literal-minded reader could be forgiven for concluding that that bit was simply a job description of the world's oldest profession.

hahaha! i think most jobs have some element of the world's oldest profession in them, though, right? :)

thanks for the shout out grant!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on October 12, 2015, 01:56:15 PM
Sho. Thanks for the inspiration.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: albijaji on October 12, 2015, 08:12:15 PM
Okay its not MMM. But this is seriously the most MMM rap video I have ever seen. You will love it
https://youtu.be/yvHYWD29ZNY?t=49s

ROFLMAO kind of stuff. Best of the day.

I think this is the best rap video I have ever seen...!!!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Lizzy B. on October 27, 2015, 03:04:01 PM
I love this idea for a thread topic, so I present this wonderful comment from a discussion of the SNAP challenge and if it's really representative if SNAP recipients.


Maybe a sample grocery list would help? I genuinely wish I could help people like this, take them shopping, show them how to prepare food, how to budget. But part of me believes they don't want the help. It can be hard to help yourself.

I don't know if it's exactly that "they don't want the help."   It's just more complicated than I think it can seem from the outside.   Besides the issues of knowledge and time to cook, there's also a scarcity mindset changing how things are viewed. 

It's much easier to stomach (see what I did there) eating beans and rice when one is doing so to watch their investments grow, knowing that they'll be taking nice vacations, living in a nice home, that they *could* go out for a nice dinner if they chose etc, than eating beans and rice knowing that you really will probably never be able to afford anything else, that you don't have anything else fun or entertaining ahead really other than maybe tv, that you'r super tired from work, and that eating beans and rice doesn't seem like it would even help improve things.   Frozen pizza and soda tastes good, and it takes a large amount of will power to overcome eating this until it becomes a habit.   And it's much easier to muster this will power coming from a position of strength than from a position where your general life is harder in so many ways and you don't even have enough positive experiences that resulted from sacrifice to have emotionally reinforced that it'd be worth it.   Basically, if it feels like your life is hard and you have no evidence that it will ever be anything other than hard no matter what you do, why would you do anything in the moment other than what's the easiest/most pleasurable?   

Anyway, that's even an over-simplification, but I recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Science-Having-Defines-Lives/dp/125005611X

It's easy for those of us with more to judge how those with less are doing it wrong, but science shows that most of us would probably do no better if actually in their shoes.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Astatine on October 27, 2015, 08:14:44 PM
^^^ Thanks for sharing, Lizzy B. I do sometimes think "check your privilege" when people complain about how easy it is to stay under budget on SNAP. John Cheese has written a few articles on Cracked about growing up poor and it really changed my POV about living in poverty with minimal/no safety nets.

I found this in someone's journal recently on working with your personality traits rather than continually fighting them. Such a good reminder.

Some years ago I had a Myers Briggs expert come speak to one of my classes.  I had asked her to focus on workplace issues.  She talked about the issue of procrastination.  As a successful professional but serious procrastinator, I found her suggestions immensely helpful.  She said if you can reasonably assess the amount if time needed to successfully complete a project, and you are permitted to do it independently, don't fight your procrastination personality, just plan for it.  So if you have a report due Nov 1 and you know it will take two full days of work, block out two days right before it's due to write it. But you have to truly block out those days, not allow incursions.   Forcing yourself to spend multiple days before that trying to write it when you can't get yourself to focus makes no more sense than a person who likes to work steadily a bit at a time in advance being forced to wait until the last minute to begin.  She said if the end product is just as good, we should not have this collective bias against procrastinators any more than we should have a bias against introverts.  A bell went off in my head as I listened.  I don't miss deadlines, but I do procrastinate.  I now follow her suggestion and have pretty much eliminated the "hanging over your head" period of self criticism.  I am not suggesting teaching this to a teen (though I am not sure why, perhaps because I believe many jobs won't tolerate it....indeed our guest speaker talked about how a junior employee has to work according to the personality if her boss) but I throw the idea out because it has made my my own life much happier.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Schaefer Light on October 28, 2015, 07:38:29 AM
"Forcing yourself to spend multiple days before that trying to write it when you can't get yourself to focus makes no more sense than a person who likes to work steadily a bit at a time in advance being forced to wait until the last minute to begin."

Interesting post.  I would go absolutely nuts if someone gave me a project and was forced to wait until the day before it was due to begin.  I can't relax when I've got shit like that hanging over my head.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Miss Prim on October 28, 2015, 04:24:52 PM
I just happened to run across this post which answered a question my husband and I had been searching all over the internet to find the answer to.  This seems to happen to me quite a bit on this site.  Someone posts an explanation of  a question I have that thoroughly answers the question so I can understand it perfectly!

Don't worry about the disclaimer from SSA saying "based on the assumption that you will earn $117,000 a year from now until retirement." Even if you quit working now and earn/contribute $0 from here on, your benefits will be very close to those estimates. You have already contributed, by far, the lion's share to Social Security for accruing benefits. In fact, you are now only accruing very small increases to your projected payments based on Social Security's progressive nature (it's complicated, but you are now getting back only pennies for all the dollars you contribute).

For comparison, your numbers and mine are fairly close. I'm a bit younger than you (48) , so your impact to stopping working now will be even less. I went through the detailed calculation of my actual benefit to figure out just how much impact that disclaimer would have, and here's the difference:

Estimated payment at full retirement age (67) and continuing to earn: $2235
Actual payment at full retirement age (67) with zero earnings from now on (i.e., ignoring the disclaimer): $2173

As you can see, the difference is negligible ($62/month out of $2235, so about 3% or less??). Definitely not worth continuing to work another 19 years for that! I could go through the other figures for early retirement and full retirement ages, but the result is the same: The difference between continuing to earn and stopping all earnings is negligible to the future SS payout.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: AllieVaulter on October 28, 2015, 05:11:31 PM
I just happened to run across this post which answered a question my husband and I had been searching all over the internet to find the answer to.  This seems to happen to me quite a bit on this site.  Someone posts an explanation of  a question I have that thoroughly answers the question so I can understand it perfectly!

Don't worry about the disclaimer from SSA saying "based on the assumption that you will earn $117,000 a year from now until retirement." Even if you quit working now and earn/contribute $0 from here on, your benefits will be very close to those estimates. You have already contributed, by far, the lion's share to Social Security for accruing benefits. In fact, you are now only accruing very small increases to your projected payments based on Social Security's progressive nature (it's complicated, but you are now getting back only pennies for all the dollars you contribute).

For comparison, your numbers and mine are fairly close. I'm a bit younger than you (48) , so your impact to stopping working now will be even less. I went through the detailed calculation of my actual benefit to figure out just how much impact that disclaimer would have, and here's the difference:

Estimated payment at full retirement age (67) and continuing to earn: $2235
Actual payment at full retirement age (67) with zero earnings from now on (i.e., ignoring the disclaimer): $2173

As you can see, the difference is negligible ($62/month out of $2235, so about 3% or less??). Definitely not worth continuing to work another 19 years for that! I could go through the other figures for early retirement and full retirement ages, but the result is the same: The difference between continuing to earn and stopping all earnings is negligible to the future SS payout.

Whoa!  That is good information to know! 

This is a great thread.  I'm glad I found it!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: smilla on November 12, 2015, 06:25:42 PM
The following method for calculating your stash requirements, posted by goldielocks, didn't seem to get the attention that (I thought) it deserved. It suggests that by being more specific about how much income you need/want and for how long, during the different stages of your retirement, your FIRE number may be reduced.

Doing the calculation, my FIRE number is down almost 20%! and I was being extra conservative. Thank you goldielocks for the step-by-step and the excel function :)

I definitely consider decreased spending as I age, risks strategy, and government income when I think of the 4% rule.  I also consider 4% as the rule if you want your money to only last 30 years, 40 years with income fluctuation..

I break down my FIRE like this; 

Phase 1 -- kids living at home  (maybe until the youngest is 20) -- 4% rule does not apply,  need to save up cash to fully fund this phase, on-going temporary contract / work part time is likely needed to ensure ramping up employment on 6 month notice is possible..  Expect cost surprises x 4 persons risk factors.

Phase 2 -- Age 50ish to 60 ish...  No gov't pension.   -- Again, savings strategy does not comply to 4% rule, rather a combo of anticipating DH's modest income and living off savings.    Ability to sell nearly paid for home and downsize in a tremendous down market if choose not to re-income ourselves.  OR - rent out rooms, etc.

Phase 3 -- Age 60 ish to 75is-- gov't income, home paid off, less costs.  SWR of 4% rule applies.  More travel in good years, less spend in bad years.    Need to asset allocate to have at least 3 years in fixed income or cash like accounts to smooth out downfall, especially at start.

Phase 4 - Age 75ish up -- 4% SWR applies.  less spending overall.  Gov't pension sufficient to carry us through if market totally tanks....extra money, if any, spent lavishly on family vacations with grandkids.

Each phase has a different spend / savings number...  I have accomplished my savings needed for phase 2. 3. 4. and working on 1 right now.

The one more year challenge, for me, is DH who sees us finally entering our "Golden Years of Spending"...  (don't get me started.....)

I am not near FI yet and my DH does not really want to FIRE; he wants to work until at least 55 (and maybe more). I like your phased approach Goldielocks. I think I need a plan like this because our situation is similarly complex (and we had kids late so by the time our youngest is 20, we will be 57 and 60, and hopefully long retired). Can you provide some examples of how you do the math for this? Even if it's with fake numbers, it would be super helpful for me.

This is how I approach it:

I work from Phase 4 backward, because I will have few options in Phase 4, other than living on less.  So, I want to secure the farthest out retirement portions first.  The magic of compound interest also means that Phase 4 and then Phase 3, are pretty easy to fund, if you get started when you are in your early 20's.

Phase 4 --

If my government benefits of CPP and OAS will provide my husband and I up to $22k per year, we will want to spend another $30k per year fun money / other expenses.   This is pretty generous for 75 yr to 95 yr, but could afford some nice private nursing supplement or respite caregiving.

At a 4% SWR, need to have $30k/0.04 =$750,000 at the start of Phase 4, or Age 75.  That is 32 years from now. 
What amount of money do I need saved today in 2015 to have $750k at the age of 75?

Using my favorite, Excel.    Present Value Function.  I use 5% interest rate, which is IN ADDITION to inflation / year assumption of 3%.  e.g., I assume 8% total return rate, but I want to use current dollars to estimate income needed...

= PV(rate, nper, pmt, fv, beg/end)
= PV(0.05, 32, 0, -$750000,0)
PHASE 4 $ Required Today= $157,400.

Phase 3 -- Age 60 to 75  Travelling years not on a budget?
For various reasons, I have not broken this at 65, which is CPP benefits standard age, or 67, which is age for OAS. 
I want to have income of $60,000 per year, in addition to Government benefits adding up to $15,000 per year.   Very little taxes at these income rates, BTW.

Money needed to fund 15 years at $60,000, with the total invested at 4% moderate conservative asset mix, net of inflation.
How much money do I need at age 60 to fund $60,000/yr withdrawls at 4% net interest invested rate, leaving $0 at age 75 (when phase 4 kicks in?)

= PV(rate, nper, pmt, FV, beg/end)
=PV(0.04,15,-60000,0,0)
= $667,100 at age 60.

But wait -- how much do I need TODAY, to get $667,100 at age 60?   
Repeat the phase 4 calculation, with only 17 years to age 60, but the rate should be 5% average, again.

= PV(rate, nper, pmt, fv, beg/end)
= PV(0.05, 17, 0, -$667100,0)
PHASE 3 $ Required Today= $291,055

Phase 2 -- Age 50 to 60, DH working.

Desired income after tax is $75,000 per year, DH earning between $60,000 and $75,000 --> Average $55,000 after tax.  High income needed is because of mortgage.  grr.
He will probably make more, as he is just recently back in the workforce after 12 years out.  AND he therefore wants to work for a long time, as he likes his new career very much. (Robotics / Mechatronix)

Money needed to pull from savings:  $20,000 per year.
I will drop this back down to 2% interest, net, during the years of withdrawl I will asset allocate more conservatively.  You could split this into $60k as CASH buffer  and the remainder invested

Money needed at age 50, to last 10 years at 2% interest net of inflation...
=PV(0.02, 10, -$20000,0)
= $154,000

Money in today's dollars : (has 7 years to compound until age 50)... note, I am ok with more risk at 5% until I pull the trigger to use the money.
=PV(0.05, 7,-$154000,0)
PHASE 2 -- Money needed in today's dollars: =$109,754

Phase 1 -- for simplicity, a straight calculation, given short term.
We spend on expenses and cashflow (including accelerated mortgage which is principal), say $75000 per year. 

7 years x $75000 = 525000.
How much will come from employment (which is taxed?) -- Assume $50,000/yr of after tax dollars.
Required is therefore $175,000

-- Where does the  money come from :  Tax deferred or tax paid accounts?
-- Let's assume it is tax paid accounts, like a ROTH or investment account.  (I could pull from my RRSP, because I don't need to wait until 59.5...  but others can't, and I am saving the RRSP for later anyway...)
Phase 1 $ Required today-- Need $175,000 in Cash.  Prefer lower taxed investments, such as dividends, but look at asset allocation best for you.  May be GIC's or other.

Totals -- needed today, in investments,   Phase 2, and 1 need to be in taxable accounts or I need more to pay for taxes.  Phase 3/4 the income is split and lower, so taxes are minor.

Phase 4 $157,400
Phase 3 $291,055
Phase 2 $109,754
Phase 1 $175,000

Total $733, 209

Now of course, this will vary widely depending on what spend rate my DH and I agree to, and how much part time work is captured in Phase 1 and Phase 2. How much tax rates vary from now to then, etc..

Also, using a 4% SWR starting at age 75 is a bit nuts (conservative) as I don't think we will live past 105 years. DOH!   But I would rather hedge to the conservative on far out numbers that I will have very little income alternatives for.  Changing it to 6% only drops TODAY's dollars by $88k.

To that end, I did not include estate legacy of my $, nor any inheritance that we will likely get, and have left the HCOL paid off house by age 60 as a separate  pool of money to be conservative.  With the workshop we have, likely DH will not want to move until he is done with it -- age 75 perhaps?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: iwasjustwondering on November 12, 2015, 06:43:37 PM
I'll start. In a thread in which a parent worries about her daughter's susceptibility to advertising, MrsPete (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/profile/?u=4003) drops this gem:

What I'm hearing is "teachable moments". 

First, while it's tempting to shield your child from advertising, I think it's a mistake to do so completely.  Instead, start looking at ads together and discuss with her what they're trying to make you believe.  We're ALL influenced by ads, so it's right to help her, to "walk her through it" and help her see what they're promising vs. what the item can deliver.  This is a skill that she needs to develop, and she probably needs your help to get started viewing ads with a critical eye. 

She can probably "see" the truth in ads for products that don't appeal to her /aren't targeted at her.  Cigarette ads would be a good starting place.  Show her a picture of the Marlboro man in his cowboy duds.  Ask her what the ad is promising:  If you use this product, you'll be good looking, tough, independent, strong, sexy.  She's old enough to see that this picture appeals to men -- even if they don't want to be cowboys personally.  Then ask her what the product actually delivers.  She should see a big difference.  Then show her a product for some sort of convenience food:  It'll probably show a woman surrounded by a family sitting down at the table with appreciative looks on their faces.  Ask her what they're selling:  Buy our chicken nuggets, and your clean, well-mannered children (and their father) will rush to the table and look at you as if you're a goddess for popping some chicken nuggets in the oven.  They're selling the promise of a happy family.  Again, she should see that the reality doesn't really match the promise.  Once she can see those differences ... then it's time for her to look at ads directed at her.  Once she's started to see the truth, she'll approach ads with a more critical eye. 

Don't think that she won't continue to be tempted:  We all are.  You'll have to continue to repeat this lesson over and over; after all, the advertisers are providing plenty of follow-up with their lessons! 

Second, she's at a normal age to start comparing herself with other kids.  You have to walk a fine line here.  You don't want to dismiss her comments with a quick, "Oh, we can't afford that."  For one thing, it's probably not true.  For another, it can make her worry that you may not have enough money to survive.  Yet you also don't want to squash her dreams and make her feel that she can't express her thoughts and desires to you. 

When my kids were going through this stage (and it is a stage), I often looked at the item they said they wanted and agreed with them, "Yeah, it would be nice to have _____, wouldn't it?  I bet it'd be fun.  But that's not how Daddy and I choose to spend our money."  This acknowledges that, yes, nice things are -- well, nice.  You're not wrong or bad to want things (that's what I was told growing up, and it's not a good thing to tell a kid).  But we have limited resources, and Daddy and I have made choices.  OFTEN that launched into good discussions about quality vs. quantity, saving vs. spending, and having enough.  Teachable moments. 

Your daughter isn't "there yet", but I see kids at school and through the youth groups with which I work who -- maybe in late middle school through early high school -- pick up the idea that WOW, there's GOOD STUFF OUT THERE!  And if my parents don't have it, they made sucky choices.  Often they start to get the idea that their parents are idiots for not grasping that they could've CHOSEN BETTER!  This is kind of the start of the parents-are-stupid-because-I'm-a-teen-thing.  They start in on the big-unattainable-dreams-unconnected-to-reality:  They're going to become rock stars, models, NFL players, and then they'll have several mansions across the globe as well as a fleet of sports cars, etc., etc., etc.  Basically, they start to imagine themselves as Kardashians.  Did I spell that right?  They get this idea that ANYONE can do these things -- you just have to be smart enough to choose right!  And the kids who get big-time into these ideas tend NOT to see their own efforts and abilities as being tied into those choices.  A kid who's more grounded in reality may flirt with these ideas, but it'll be fleeting moments rather than a genuine belief.

Beautiful post, but I overdid it on the advertising-as-teachable-moment thing.  When my older son was around three, we saw a commercial with the Pillsbury Dough Boy.  So I explained that the Dough Boy was designed to make us like him, so we spend money on the treats he's selling.  So a while later, we were in the grocery store.  My son pointed at a package that had the Dough Boy on it, and yelled out, "There he is!  The man who wants to take our money!"
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bracken_Joy on November 12, 2015, 08:03:26 PM
Following. Don't have one to contribute right now, but I'll be keeping my eye out.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Lizzy B. on November 13, 2015, 07:49:30 AM
I liked these two comments from a discussion of an NYT article about how harried families are these days:


...

I think the bottom line is that parenting in the modern age is stressful. Parenting has probably always been stressful. Maybe in the modern age, because of all the conveniences of which we are able to avail ourselves, we developed this mistaken expectation that life should and could be easy. Think back just 100 years ago when people didn't have vacuums, washing machines-- hell, even indoor plumbing in most cases. I'm sure that child rearing wasn't magically easier back then just because a parent might have been home all day. Life was just understood to be a long list of doing things that you didn't really want to do. They probably had leisure time, but I doubt it was that much.

...


I think a lot of this stems from "what causes stress?" in our modern society.  My wife and I like doing things manually, and purposefully make our lives more "busy.". We grow food when we can, cook everything from scratch, have a clothes washer but dry our clothes on a line, chop fire wood by hand, etc.  We do this because we make the conscious distinction of, " how do I want to spend my time?"  If you view those tasks as getting in the way of what you really want to do (watch TV, go on Facebook) they will be stressful.  If you convince yourself that, in the long run, living a life of leisure is more stressful on your body because you're sedentary, the choice is clear.

That viewpoint is nuanced and I doubt most people would agree with it, but it's frankly the difference between riding a bike to a location vs a car.  If you can enjoy the breeze and the leasurely pace of a bike, most people would agree that that beats the stress of a car ride during rush hour.  However, if your mindset is cemented that physical exertion sucks and car rides are better, a forced bike ride will be stressful to you.

The point is, modern conveniences can make some of the more grueling aspects of life easier.  But there is still some labor to be had.  If you goal is to completely eliminate that labor, you'll never be happy until you've reached that goal.  So I say, embrace the suck and be happy!  It could always be worse.

I liked the view that both these posts made about how you can choose to view our daily activities as "chores", things to be finished so we can get to the fun parts of life, or as parts of the flow of life that can and should be enjoyed. Until recently, everything took so long that there wasn't an expectation of ever being "done" with those tasks.

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bracken_Joy on November 13, 2015, 08:35:22 AM
I need to put this on my mirror or something:

Specific Question(s): So once I pick up the proceeds from the sale of the house today we will have $20k plus a crap-ton of extra money every paycheck. What order would you tackle these goals?
See below for one defensible prioritization order.  The current 10-year Treasury note yield is ~2.2%.  Differences of a few tenths of a percent will be insignificant over a few years, so using a coin toss (or gut feel) when options are that close is fine.

WHAT
0. Establish an emergency fund to your satisfaction
1. Contribute to 401k up to any company match
2. Pay off any debts with interest rates ~5% or more above the 10-year Treasury note yield.
3. Max HSA
4. Max Roth or Traditional IRA based on income level
5. Max 401k (if 401k fees are lower than available in an IRA, swap #4 and #5)
6. Fund mega backdoor Roth if applicable
7. Pay off any debts with interest rates ~3% or more above the 10-year Treasury note yield.
8. Invest in a taxable account with any extra.

WHY
0. Give yourself at least enough buffer to avoid worries about bouncing checks
1. Company match rates are likely the highest percent return you can get on your money
2. When the guaranteed return is this high, take it.
3. HSA funds are totally tax free when used for medical expenses, making the HSA better than either traditional or Roth IRAs.
4. Rule of thumb: trad if current marginal rate is 25% or higher; Roth if 10% or lower; flip a coin in between
5. See #4 for choice of traditional or Roth for 401k
6. Applicability depends on the rules for the specific 401k
7. Again, take the risk-free return if high enough
8. Because earnings, even if taxed, are beneficial
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: johnny847 on November 13, 2015, 02:33:55 PM
Posting to follow
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: shelivesthedream on November 14, 2015, 01:19:26 AM
I liked these two comments from a discussion of an NYT article about how harried families are these days:


...

I think the bottom line is that parenting in the modern age is stressful. Parenting has probably always been stressful. Maybe in the modern age, because of all the conveniences of which we are able to avail ourselves, we developed this mistaken expectation that life should and could be easy. Think back just 100 years ago when people didn't have vacuums, washing machines-- hell, even indoor plumbing in most cases. I'm sure that child rearing wasn't magically easier back then just because a parent might have been home all day. Life was just understood to be a long list of doing things that you didn't really want to do. They probably had leisure time, but I doubt it was that much.

...


I think a lot of this stems from "what causes stress?" in our modern society.  My wife and I like doing things manually, and purposefully make our lives more "busy.". We grow food when we can, cook everything from scratch, have a clothes washer but dry our clothes on a line, chop fire wood by hand, etc.  We do this because we make the conscious distinction of, " how do I want to spend my time?"  If you view those tasks as getting in the way of what you really want to do (watch TV, go on Facebook) they will be stressful.  If you convince yourself that, in the long run, living a life of leisure is more stressful on your body because you're sedentary, the choice is clear.

That viewpoint is nuanced and I doubt most people would agree with it, but it's frankly the difference between riding a bike to a location vs a car.  If you can enjoy the breeze and the leasurely pace of a bike, most people would agree that that beats the stress of a car ride during rush hour.  However, if your mindset is cemented that physical exertion sucks and car rides are better, a forced bike ride will be stressful to you.

The point is, modern conveniences can make some of the more grueling aspects of life easier.  But there is still some labor to be had.  If you goal is to completely eliminate that labor, you'll never be happy until you've reached that goal.  So I say, embrace the suck and be happy!  It could always be worse.

I liked the view that both these posts made about how you can choose to view our daily activities as "chores", things to be finished so we can get to the fun parts of life, or as parts of the flow of life that can and should be enjoyed. Until recently, everything took so long that there wasn't an expectation of ever being "done" with those tasks.

I love both of these. I'm really trying with the mentality in the second but it's hard, especially when it has to do with outside  things. It's good to have it to strive towards, though.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: beltim on November 20, 2015, 04:06:39 PM
On the US hosting Syrian refugees:

And if the concern is that it will allow some fundamentalists in, I'll also note that it wouldn't be the first time a group of folks in very conservative dress with very specific religious beliefs who were not welcome in their home country made their way here.

Happy Thanksgiving
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Landlord2015 on November 20, 2015, 05:34:07 PM
On the US hosting Syrian refugees:

And if the concern is that it will allow some fundamentalists in, I'll also note that it wouldn't be the first time a group of folks in very conservative dress with very specific religious beliefs who were not welcome in their home country made their way here.

I did my country's mandatory(must do!) military service since we are neighbours to Russia but ironically Russia is our allies in this and Russia is today a very important trade partner and all Russian tourists are welcome in my country. I also like Russia in sports.... sports unite nations.

Happy Thanksgiving
You sir don't share same political views as I. I am from Europe and most of Europe is upset about what happened in France and it has affected even my country. I will not comment this further because it woul lead to a political debate. However there will come some law changes in my country in 2016 and I do support those law changes it will give the military and police more freedom to what needs to be done!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BarkyardBQ on November 20, 2015, 05:39:34 PM
On the US hosting Syrian refugees:

And if the concern is that it will allow some fundamentalists in, I'll also note that it wouldn't be the first time a group of folks in very conservative dress with very specific religious beliefs who were not welcome in their home country made their way here.

Happy Thanksgiving
You sir don't share same political views as I. I am from Europe and most of Europe is upset about what happened in France and it has affected even my country. I will not comment this further because it woul lead to a political debate. However there will come some law changes in my country in 2016 and I do support those law changes it will give the military and police more freedom to what needs to be done!

I think you're missing the irony that America is full of refugees and immigrants who needed a better place to live, came here, destroyed the local population, and generations later want to ignore that reality. :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Landlord2015 on November 20, 2015, 05:43:06 PM
On the US hosting Syrian refugees:

And if the concern is that it will allow some fundamentalists in, I'll also note that it wouldn't be the first time a group of folks in very conservative dress with very specific religious beliefs who were not welcome in their home country made their way here.

Happy Thanksgiving
You sir don't share same political views as I. I am from Europe and most of Europe is upset about what happened in France and it has affected even my country. I will not comment this further because it woul lead to a political debate. However there will come some law changes in my country in 2016 and I do support those law changes it will give the military and police more freedom to what needs to be done!

I think you're missing the irony that America is full of refugees and immigrants who needed a better place to live, came here, destroyed the local population, and generations later want to ignore that reality. :)
Yeah sure we Europeans came:)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Spork on November 20, 2015, 05:44:24 PM
On the US hosting Syrian refugees:

And if the concern is that it will allow some fundamentalists in, I'll also note that it wouldn't be the first time a group of folks in very conservative dress with very specific religious beliefs who were not welcome in their home country made their way here.

Happy Thanksgiving
You sir don't share same political views as I. I am from Europe and most of Europe is upset about what happened in France and it has affected even my country. I will not comment this further because it woul lead to a political debate. However there will come some law changes in my country in 2016 and I do support those law changes it will give the military and police more freedom to what needs to be done!

I think you're missing the irony that America is full of refugees and immigrants who needed a better place to live, came here, destroyed the local population, and generations later want to ignore that reality. :)

...and Thanksgiving was supposedly where the newcomers and the local population sat down and essentially "celebrated their wealth with each other."
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: elaine amj on November 20, 2015, 08:42:00 PM
I loved Goldielocks's bucket method and used it to get my own FIRE number. It made a lot of sense and put it out in layman's terms. The 4%SWR is a little hard to visualize in practice and made me want to add more precautions and safety margins. Glad it was added to this list!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bracken_Joy on November 20, 2015, 09:09:38 PM
I loved Goldielocks's bucket method and used it to get my own FIRE number. It made a lot of sense and put it out in layman's terms. The 4%SWR is a little hard to visualize in practice and made me want to add more precautions and safety margins. Glad it was added to this list!

Goldielocks buckets? Link please?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Cheddar Stacker on November 20, 2015, 09:25:38 PM
I loved Goldielocks's bucket method and used it to get my own FIRE number. It made a lot of sense and put it out in layman's terms. The 4%SWR is a little hard to visualize in practice and made me want to add more precautions and safety margins. Glad it was added to this list!

Goldielocks buckets? Link please?

Just look up. Reply #33. Sort of a specific identification plan. Seems fun.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bracken_Joy on November 20, 2015, 09:36:35 PM
I loved Goldielocks's bucket method and used it to get my own FIRE number. It made a lot of sense and put it out in layman's terms. The 4%SWR is a little hard to visualize in practice and made me want to add more precautions and safety margins. Glad it was added to this list!

Goldielocks buckets? Link please?

Just look up. Reply #33. Sort of a specific identification plan. Seems fun.

Oooh, thank you! Not sure how I missed that the first read through. I probably skimmed =P
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Landlord2015 on November 21, 2015, 09:00:26 AM
I must give credit to Goldielocks. She is the only one that has managed to give some feedback on my new topic:

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/advice-to-pay-of-which-investment-apartment-mortgage-or-using-money%28europe-ecb%29/ (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/advice-to-pay-of-which-investment-apartment-mortgage-or-using-money%28europe-ecb%29/)

My initial reaction was perhaps to point out eagerily that I am not so poor as she might think or well the apartments are more worth etc. Anyway she did manage to give a great many questions and feedback. My credits and respect to Goldielocks and I hope I did not scare her away permanently that was not my intention:)

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: shelivesthedream on November 28, 2015, 02:26:02 AM
Quote from: SwordGuy link=topic=2540.msg883734#msg883734
One of the major investment houses did a study to find out the demographics of their most successful investors:

1st place:  Dead people.
2nd place: People who invested and forgot they had done so.

Why?  Because neither group panics and sells low when the market drops.  And they don't pull out their investments to buy stupid stuff.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: andy85 on December 02, 2015, 07:11:37 AM
...........Maybe you can start by browsing various passive portfolio options (http://portfoliocharts.com/portfolios/) ..........

One of the coolest asset allocations sites i've seen. super interesting. The post contained advice for somebody, but the link is super badass.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bracken_Joy on December 02, 2015, 10:54:32 AM
...........Maybe you can start by browsing various passive portfolio options (http://portfoliocharts.com/portfolios/) ..........

One of the coolest asset allocations sites i've seen. super interesting. The post contained advice for somebody, but the link is super badass.

Oh that is super cool!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on December 03, 2015, 08:39:03 AM
Saw this on Pooperman's journal.

Dude...i know how you feel. I mentioned it in another thread about stache envy, but i said i dont have that, I have age envy. Seeing people 10 years younger thinking what-if, and seeing people 15 yrs older and wanting to fast forward time.

i feel like the process is:
1) discover mmm
2) obsess over mmm
3) murder spreadsheets for months and months and months
4) repeat steps 2-3 for many months
5) take a break from mmm
6) Your 10-20 year plan is set in place...
7) ...so now what? freakin sit and wait? it sucks!
8) come back to mmm to piddle around while you watch the calendar

I've come to the conclusion that next year my goal should be to do all the things i always talk about doing. Develop some REAL hobbies. Camping, fishing, woodworking, reading, gardening, etc. I need to develop these things to 1) pass this awful 15 waiting period til retirement, 2) actually live life, and 3) find something to retire to rather than from

But its tough. Everyday i think to myself, "self, you have a plan in place, now what?"....sounds like you are kind of there as well. Good luck!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: andy85 on December 03, 2015, 08:51:25 AM
Thanks man!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Thegoblinchief on December 03, 2015, 09:10:00 AM
Yeah, the waiting place SUCKS. Definitely gotta develop a well-rounded life within the time and budget constraints of employment long before FIRE.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: smalllife on December 03, 2015, 09:23:08 AM
Posting to follow
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on December 03, 2015, 02:11:18 PM

Bookworm's encouragement/advice on someone's journal.

I will only add this bit of perspective, from my own experiences with huge life troubles (serious financial problems, marriage problems): You are going to feel so much better when you have put this burden down.

These things are completely life-consuming while you are still staring them down. I know very well that feeling of trying to navigate the one narrow little path through the problem that doesn't feel like an unthinkable sacrifice, or a shitty option, or an irresponsible one, or one that would just be too painful or too hard to come back from or destroy too much of life as you know it (comfort, traditions, relationships, etc.). Even though you know that narrow little path is really hard to stay on, and deep down you know even that path is probably asking for too much luck from the Universe to even work out, it's terrifying, and sad, to look at the extreme options in front of you, because you know they will suck. And they absolutely will suck, when you finally just do it, either because you run out of choices or you happen to have one of those moments where you just say fuck it, I'm sick of living this way, feeling this way. But then one day, it will be behind you, and you will be better and stronger because you went through it, and you will realize that you are in a much, much better place, you will realize that those things you thought were unthinkable sacrifices didn't actually bring on all the dramatic catastrophes you thought they would, and you will wish you hadn't taken so damn long to get to the other side of the shit storm!

I promise this is true.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: andy85 on December 03, 2015, 02:12:51 PM

Bookworm's encouragement/advice on someone's journal.


dude...i was seriously about to post this same damn thing. that was freaking good! pulled on the heartstrings.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bertram on December 05, 2015, 04:59:44 PM
This is very well put and on point.

For me the point of frugality and MMM isn't to stop spending money at all, it's to prioritize and consciously make decisions to spend money only on the things I value and that bring meaning to my life.  In my spendier days I would eat out, or order takeout, or buy clothes or whatever without regard to the value it brought to my life. Now I align spending with my priorities.  For me that's travel and activities/experiences with my son.  For you, sounds like it's exercise and martial arts.  As long as its conscious, intentional, and doesn't jeopardize your overall financial goals, I say enjoy every bit of it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on December 08, 2015, 10:01:29 AM

Spend two more minutes or so and read this post:
http://portfoliocharts.com/2015/11/17/how-safe-withdrawal-rates-work/

It shows why 100% stocks is not the optimal allocation.

The link  is a great resource. I would recommend spending much more than 2 minutes on it!!
We must thank our own Tyler for this article.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Eric on April 07, 2016, 07:03:13 PM
Responding to some Taxation = Theft nonsense


Probing an argument is not the same as not appreciating the argument.  I think Kelsey is also right that framing an argument, especially one as attenuated as yours, is important.  Lastly, asking question to be answered, questioning the underlying basis, and providing similarly held but opposing beliefs is not being dismissive (although it can be), it is a debate.  Disagreeing and being irrational are not the same.  The civility of this debate already is exponentially higher than anywhere else on the interwebs, but it is still on the interwebs.  Rare indeed is the message board that serves as an all encompassing echo chamber of approval.

Because I can't help myself.

I think you are making quite a few presuppositions. 
1) You are empowered with rights simply by being a human being.
2) You have a moral right to use your life as you see fit.
3) Because you can provide labor, and that labor is taxed, that that tax is taking a part of your life against your will.   
4) Taxation of Income is Necessary.
5) Taxation is a Necessary Evil.
6) Income taxes are enforced using force and intimidation.

To go through these in reverse order.
Income taxes are enforced using force and intimidation.
Yes, not paying taxes can result in civil penalties and even jail time.  This is by agreement of the people in the land where you live.  Sure, it was decided a simple majority of votes cast from representatives, who were elected by a simply majority of votes cast from a gerrymandered electing population, that population making up an extreme minority of the population as a whole, but, hey, voter apathy amirite?  The point is that it has been put to a vote that the force and intimidation is agreed upon as appropriate.  Saying that "using force to enforce is wrong" is itself wrong on many levels, starting with the etymology of the words.  But You (the figurative you, I'm not attacking you personally) didn't vote for it!  You shouldn't be bound by it!  Perhaps, but I'll save that for the final point.

Taxation is a Necessary Evil.
This is an unsupported conclusion.  To pile on another example of why 100% of something can be wrong, but less than 100% of something can be great, I propose Oxygen.  I love the stuff.  Can't get enough of it--except that I can.  Because 100% pure oxygen is lethal.  But the oxygen I'm breathing now, that's the good stuff.  I'm willing to give up the pure goods for a solid hit of the dirty, because that's what I want.  What I need.  And because I want the benefits of some oxygen, it is not evil.  It is Good.  I want the benefits of some society (teaser trailer again for the end!) and I get a heck of deal by paying taxes as we have collectively agreed to.  Do I wish it was less?  Of course, I always want a deal, but I'm not finding anyone offering the product I desire--Apple Pie and Toby Keith--for a better cost.  So I'll take the good and not call it bad, because the mere existence of something that can be bad in excess does not make any amount of it bad. 

Taxation of Income is Necessary.   
*disclaimer, you (You you this time, not the figurative you) may not be making this argument, but were using it to present an example or further an argument. 
But in an abundance of caution...  No, Taxation of Income is not necessary.  It is an election, from an election (well, many elections, over time, by ourselves and those that have come before us, but you get what I'm saying).  To the opposite, we have not chosen to get rid of the taxation of Income tax, an option every election.  So we have made this choice.  Whether it is right, wrong, informed, or not, it is not necessary but instead a choice that we as a society have agreed upon.  Does that choice impede upon your rights as a human being (the suspense is killing me!).

Because you can provide labor, and that labor is taxed, that that tax is taking a part of your life against your will.
To use the verbatim language:  "I can provide labor," "Lets say I want to build up my 'stache," and "I am trading"
These are all choices.  You have the free will to not engage in any of these choices.  You knowingly enter into these choices, trading your time and toil for the known net prize at the end.  Not liking the taxation part of the deal doesn't mean that you are entering into the deal against your free will.  I don't like working out, and it takes up my time and makes me temporarily sore, but I do it for the end result. 
--To go down this rabbit hole even further, the first $10,300 of your income (just income taxes here, not payroll taxes, keep it on topic) are 100% tax free.  100%!!  That's $858.33 a month, slavery free.  Pretty nice, huh?  Also, of importance, I don't really work out.  I was just trying to impress whoever had read this far along.

You have a moral right to use your life as you see fit.
On this I suppose, on second reading, I agree.  You do have a moral right to use your life as you see fit.  It is a singular moral right, that you hold personally, that you can use your life as you see fit.  Your moral right is not the same as mine, hers, his, or ours.  If it is against your morals to do X, then you do not have to do X.  If it is against society's morals for you to do, or not do, X, and you break those morals, then society has a moral obligation to do as society sees fit.  I cannot disagree with you on a moral right, as that is an important part of what makes us who we are.  Because it is your morals, it is your right to hold those morals, and acting under your own morals is, truly, your inherent right.  But as you concede, you only get to assert that moral right consequence free only so long as you do not infringe upon the moral rights of others. 

You are empowered with rights simply by being a human being.
No.  No you are not.  You have one right, and that is the right to try and survive.  Our social constructs and communal living using our species' unique advantage of intelligence (no different than the superiority of the cheetah's speed or the tardigrades near invincibility) does not make that intelligence  come saddled with some inherent obligation of decency, respect, and deference to others.  We are still undoubtedly animals. It is only through society that we have these "inherent" rights.  And those rights do not come without strings.
 A good example of a source of inherent rights given by society is, conveniently enough, the Declaration of Independence. 
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"
Pretty Cool, huh?  It even lends credence to your assertion that we are endowed by our Creator with these unalienable Rights-specifically Liberty, i.e. the right to work without that work propping up society.  And I would agree with you that that is a pretty good argument.  It makes it tough for me to swallow that pill, however, when this sentence created a nation that, nearly a century later, would have to take Life and Happiness from its own Countrymen in order to enforce that All Men Are Created Equal and deserving of Liberty.   

Going further, this Declaration was born from the American Colony's frustration of Britain's policy of Taxation Without Representation.  WHAT?  We asserted our inalienable rights, implemented the philosophies of such revolutionaries as Rosseau, Locke, and Voltaire, threw off the colonial patronage of the strongest nation in the western world to rise up to become the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, Birthplace of Baseball, Rock and Roll, Back to Back World War Champs, Where were you when the world stopped turning, Fried Macaroni and Cheese, Still the only Country to put a man on the Moon, God Bless 'MERICA RED WHITE AND BLUE.... because of taxation without representation? 

The Declaration bore the Constitution.  The Constitution governs our society, but "We the People" govern the Constitution.  The Constitution included Article V, allowing for Amendments.  Article V's allowance for Amendments led to the 16th Amendment.  The 16th Amendment allows for Federal Income Taxes.

You live in a place that was born from the very thing that you are protesting against.  Let that sink in for a moment. 

Maybe it sheds some light.  Maybe I just made you angry, which wasn't the intention (this was more engaging than working).  But at the very least, I hope that it shows you that your perspective of what is rational might not jive with others perspectives of what is rational.  And that is ok.  Different positions and different perspectives are what make things great. 

It just so happens that my perspective is the right one because I'm awesome.  ;)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Check2400 on April 08, 2016, 01:40:24 PM
Thanks Eric!

Per your Avatar-good luck this year.  I don't think my Braves have a chance of competing, so I'll be rooting for the Cubs to take the Astros to game 7 in the World Series... and will be happy for whichever team wins at that point.   
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dandypandys on April 10, 2016, 06:53:13 AM
Great thread!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: forummm on April 11, 2016, 10:12:04 AM
Topic: How do you deal with "The Grind"?

When I had more free time during the day, I would take long walks at lunch. Now I generally take my walks straight from work and spend lunch with friends.
I always take lunch.
I refuse to stay late or work on the weekends.
I disengage emotionally. I'm here to do a job, and the outcome of any particular project or meeting doesn't affect me.
I don't get involved in office politics.
I take advantage of meetings to make work friends.
I focus on my core job functions and do those. I don't volunteer for extra work.
I don't stress out (anymore) about getting excellent performance reviews. It's not nearly worth the hours and stress required to possibly be in contention for a slightly higher bonus.
When I leave the office, I'm done with it. I don't talk about work, I don't think about work, I don't complain about work. If I do talk or write about it, I can forget all about it immediately after. I was only able to make this change once I left a super-stressful job. It was almost besides the point that the new job also had a higher salary.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: solon on April 12, 2016, 10:36:50 AM
So here is my challenge to you. Go to your special place that you keep cash and get a $10 bill to keep in your wallet. Love and cherish that $10 bill. Draw a little mustache on Mr Hamilton if you want (I know it's illegal, but you are a fucking rebel.). Put that $10 in your wallet and name it. Take it out on a picnic or to the park or something and get to know it better. Meet it's parents, and go to the courthouse and have a little wedding for it. BUT DO NOT SPEND IT. Go to the store and stand in front of the thing you want a whole bunch, and pull out your new found love...and ask yourself, is this worth getting rid of Mr Hamilton? Hold on to and cherish Mr Hamilton as long as you possibly can, but next time you spend money, it has to be Mr Hamilton.

I've been holding on to a Mr. Jackson for a couple of weeks now. Every time I go into Gamestop, or I'm feeling a hankering for a late-night milkshake....I look at Mr Jackson, and I think of all the good times we have had together. Then I don't buy shit I don't need.

This rant is brought to you buy: In Cheap We Trust by Lauren Weber, which brought me to the reality that few Frugal people practice what they preach.

I've never been in love with a dude on a note before, but I think there's some real potential here.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MissNancyPryor on April 12, 2016, 04:04:38 PM
Following!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: 2buttons on April 12, 2016, 06:19:17 PM
Saw this on Pooperman's journal.

Dude...i know how you feel. I mentioned it in another thread about stache envy, but i said i dont have that, I have age envy. Seeing people 10 years younger thinking what-if, and seeing people 15 yrs older and wanting to fast forward time.

i feel like the process is:
1) discover mmm
2) obsess over mmm
3) murder spreadsheets for months and months and months
4) repeat steps 2-3 for many months
5) take a break from mmm
6) Your 10-20 year plan is set in place...
7) ...so now what? freakin sit and wait? it sucks!
8) come back to mmm to piddle around while you watch the calendar

I've come to the conclusion that next year my goal should be to do all the things i always talk about doing. Develop some REAL hobbies. Camping, fishing, woodworking, reading, gardening, etc. I need to develop these things to 1) pass this awful 15 waiting period til retirement, 2) actually live life, and 3) find something to retire to rather than from

But its tough. Everyday i think to myself, "self, you have a plan in place, now what?"....sounds like you are kind of there as well. Good luck!

Wow. So on point. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lifejoy on April 15, 2016, 09:18:32 PM
So here is my challenge to you. Go to your special place that you keep cash and get a $10 bill to keep in your wallet. Love and cherish that $10 bill. Draw a little mustache on Mr Hamilton if you want (I know it's illegal, but you are a fucking rebel.). Put that $10 in your wallet and name it. Take it out on a picnic or to the park or something and get to know it better. Meet it's parents, and go to the courthouse and have a little wedding for it. BUT DO NOT SPEND IT. Go to the store and stand in front of the thing you want a whole bunch, and pull out your new found love...and ask yourself, is this worth getting rid of Mr Hamilton? Hold on to and cherish Mr Hamilton as long as you possibly can, but next time you spend money, it has to be Mr Hamilton.

I've been holding on to a Mr. Jackson for a couple of weeks now. Every time I go into Gamestop, or I'm feeling a hankering for a late-night milkshake....I look at Mr Jackson, and I think of all the good times we have had together. Then I don't buy shit I don't need.

This rant is brought to you buy: In Cheap We Trust by Lauren Weber, which brought me to the reality that few Frugal people practice what they preach.

I've never been in love with a dude on a note before, but I think there's some real potential here.

Yeah this is a very cute and fun idea! Might even work!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: APowers on May 12, 2016, 08:40:06 AM
Advice for a 17 year old from Cyaphas

Here we GO:

Don't have children until you're at least 25.

Don't mix family/friends and money. Don't rent a house to family or friends. Don't start a small business with family/friends.

Find a career where you can comfortably save over $40k per year. Always take into account geographic cost of living, including taxes, relative to income in the areas you're looking.

Don't take on debt unless you can clearly present a net profit to you from said debt.

Try to save at least 1/2 of your paycheck. At your age you should probably just drop it into VTSAX. IRA, 401k preferably. Then FORGET about it. Don't listen to market news.

Do not buy a house until you're sure you're going to be in an area for more than 10 years. This will most likely be after you're 25. NEVER buy a house without putting a lot of thought into it. Even though you may be, try to have someone who is financially practical and competent with you through the whole process. Make sure that person has your best interests in mind.

Don't be afraid to look at craftsmen jobs, electricians, machine operators, trade unions. A lot of them are paid very well and they're not stuck in an office all day. They also don't require near as much money in schooling/qualification.

Make sure you live within short biking distance to work and the grocery store. Automobiles are expensive and the less you use/own/maintain one the quicker you can reach FI.

Think of payments in decade format not monthly. $10 per month doesn't seem like much. $1200 seems like a lot. Is Pandora worth $600 over 10 years? Is Netflix worth $1200 over 10 years? $100/month phone bill is $12,000 dollars over 10 years.

Avoid consumerism at all costs. Before you buy something, consider, do I really NEED this. There's nothing wrong with buying luxuries for yourself, but you need to know they're luxuries. Never buy anything over $40 that you haven't been considering purchasing for at least a couple of days. Did you need it yesterday? Than why must you have it today?

Eating out, try to limit yourself to once a week. Find a happy hour places that serve cheap appetizers. Split them with friends.

Create little challenges for yourself. 1 month of not eating out. $30 weekly meal plan challenge. Walk to work/school every Monday for a month. Things of that nature. Create the challenge and track it. Hold yourself accountable.

Have fun. Don't burn yourself out. Go on trips. See the world. It's not as expensive as a lot of people make it out to be. NEVER travel on debt. Save up and THEN go on the trip.

I think of debt as a form of modern slavery. Other than education and a home purchase, there aren't a lot of other good reasons to take on debt.

Rent to own, avoid it at all costs. I've never come across a financial transaction where rent to own wasn't a complete rip off.

Be thrifty, thrift stores can be a great place to find casual clothing or even business dress for a very low cost.

Try to have a few hobbies and stick to them. Collecting hobbies gets expensive.
 
If a family member asks you for financial assistance give it to them as a gift, not a loan. If it's too much to give as a gift, than you sure don't want to give it to them as a loan. Make sure you're not giving drugs to a drug addict.

Don't get discouraged when everyone else tells you you're crazy. You can do this. This can be your reality. Study your finances. Make a plan. Stick to the plan. You'll be just fine.

Insurance companies usually are a rip off. They play on your fears. Only take on insurance when you absolutely have to. They aren't in the business of losing money.

Don't be afraid to try new things. Engines aren't really that complicated. Home construction is a lot more simple than most people think. Things don't work through magic, odds are if it's broke YOU can fix it. Is it worth your time? That's for you to determine. Don't start with the premise of it being impossible for you to do. Youtube is a beautiful thing.

If something in your life is collecting dust and it isn't sentimental to you. Get rid of it. Staying stuff free is extremely liberating.

If you want to see where you're going in life, take a look at the people you spend time with. This is very important. Some people are emotionally toxic, stay the hell away from them. Learn what a manipulator is and how they work. Don't just avoid them, stay the hell away with prejudice.

Make sure you spend time in some kind of social setting on a regular basis. Ball room dancing, swing dancing, toastmasters club... Aim for a more wealthy class of individuals, they can become invaluable to you with the knowledge they have and sway they hold in the community.

If you ever wind up in a situation with the law that isn't a traffic violation or you're clearly the victim, REMAIN SILENT. If you ever wind up in a police station being questioned, ASK FOR A LAWYER and then REMAIN SILENT. The law isn't known for being kind to the young. I've seen many a persons dreams dashed early against the rocks of our legal system over something stupid and trivial.

Fall in love. Date often. Don't think that the first one is the only one or the right one. Date someone for at least a year before you even consider marrying them. Then, wait at least 8 months before the wedding. Don't ever rush into anything when it comes to relationships. Make sure your significant other is frugal and on board with staying that way.

If I missed something, I'm sure MMM has an article to cover it.

You're already way ahead of the pack. Good luck. Don't take life for granted it goes by fast.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: afuera on May 12, 2016, 01:41:49 PM
So glad I found this!  Its great to have a place to capture all the gems on this forum.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lifejoy on May 20, 2016, 08:26:06 AM
Great contributions!!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Carless on May 20, 2016, 08:30:23 PM
By TheGrimSqueaker on the topic of a mooching roommate.  It's just ...so beautiful...



It's not the emotion part that's killing you, though. It's the fornication donation. Forget the money and incidentals, the major thing you should not be giving is ONE SINGLE FUCK about whether the moocher in your life experiences the consequences of his own bad decision making, or what his opinion of you might be. (ETA: I'm using the word "he" as a generic here; many moochers are female. I'm also discussing just one moocher, but if you have a swarm of them, my advice applies equally to all of them.)

Seriously. Cut it with the fuck-giving. You've allowed yourself to care more about his situation than he does, and that's messed up because it's sucking you into an sharknado of codependent bullshit. You're also allowing him to rewrite your boundaries and take shameless advantage of you. That's also crap. Worst of all, you've bought into the notion that this idiot's opinion matters somehow in the great scheme of things. Parasites are not people whose opinions matter. I mean, they do deserve the basic respect we give all human beings (as in, we don't load them into catapults and use them for skeet, and I don't use them to test the sharpness of my scythe), but you don't actually need to give them anything except a cordial "no".

If you were an utter asshole, you could abuse this guy without meaningful consequences. I get that you're not an asshole, and it's OK that you aren't, but that doesn't mean you have to be the blood supply to a 200-pound mosquito. It's not a binary problem. You can choose to be something else.

This guy has made it clear that he sees people like you as sources of nourishment, and now that he's gotten a few sucks in he's not going to want to let go of the titty. So expect a bit of a tantrum when you cut him off from using your resources. He might cry, or stomp off, or become pathetic, or act obnoxious. That's a survival instinct, to him: his source of sustenance is leaving, and his first reaction should be something that prevents it from escaping. Just recognize the tantrum for what it is: a test to see whether you're stupid enough to let him latch on again. This is not a test you want to pass.

Being called on the mooching, and cut off, is not actually new to the moocher. Nor will it hurt his feelings. He already doesn't give a fuck about you or your well-being, except to the extent that you're able to provide for him. He knows he's a human tapeworm, and he knows people don't like it because at his age he's been shat out a few times before by people who have just plain had enough. But he's committed to parasitism as a life strategy and he believes that it's right and appropriate for him specifically. This means he's never going to stop until that belief changes. You don't have the power to change that belief for him. He'll just do what every deer tick does, and go dormant until another host passes by. He's done it before. He'll do it again, and not lose a wink of sleep over how you feel.

You are going to want to pry the mooch loose, because the longer he stays the more thoroughly he becomes attached, the harder it will be to cut him loose, and the more he will extract from you in the meantime. Also, the universe assumes that people go after and keep the things that they like. If you let it go on long enough, other people will assume you're socially or financially fused somehow, or that you enjoy supporting an entourage. The longer you let this guy treat you like a giant mammary gland, the more the universe is going to notice: "hey! This person's big goal in life is to be a nipple. Let's send him more opportunities to exercise that aspect of his character."
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lifejoy on May 20, 2016, 09:41:44 PM
Wow. That's brilliant.

Sometimes I meet people in life and I'm like "agh I hate people" and then I come online here and am faced with the best that humanity has to offer! I love the MMM forums :) Y'all are great.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: johnny847 on August 08, 2016, 04:08:15 PM
Yet another couple posts from TheGrimSqueaker:

The homeless family of 7 that has been living with me since the first of July, and that will be here through the end of August, never seems to have a problem feeding itself or driving around. There's one working adult and 6 kids (well, we're down to 5 so I suppose it's now a family of 6).

Here's how they do food.

1) Get fast food for the whole fam' damly at least once a day. Make sure to go driving around in the car for at least half an hour with no clear direction, because it is Something To Do. (Taking out the trash or cleaning up after the kids would also be Something To Do, but then there wouldn't be the highly artistic pile of dirty diapers from the kid who's about to turn 4 but who isn't potty trained). It's very important to have a hundred-dollar-a-week fast food habit because that's all you've trained your kids to eat.

2) Even though healthy, real food is being provided for you, make sure to get a bunch of prepackaged, highly processed stuff every time you go for groceries. Leave the half-eaten stuff and the seeping drink containers randomly around the house, especially on top of wooden tables right next to a coaster. Make sure to avoid stepping into the kitchen or dining room when eating, because if you eat in the places that are designed to have food in them you won't be able to get that characteristic stale-food stench in the bedroom.

3) Thou Shalt Not walk to the grocery store half a mile away. That's fine for your host or hostess, but you've got More Important Things To Do because working 20 hours a week is just so strenuous.

4) When you get packaged food, open it immediately even if you've already got a jar or package of something else open. Make sure to have at least six or seven bags of "chips" open at the same time. Leave these lying around wherever it's convenient because insects are gross but you're incapable of understanding the relationship between food and insects. Besides, if the entire bag or package is spoiled, it's an excuse to throw it out and wail to your host that you need to buy more. [Edited to add: this is why it's best to pay more per unit to buy small packages.]

5) Make sure to carry food through the house no matter how many times your host or hostess asks you not to, so that it spills. Don't clean up spills because grinding your chips or your McCrap into the carpet is a vital part of your unique cultural heritage. It contributes to that homey sty-like aroma your host's house lacks, and it also guarantees that you won't have leftovers.

6) Make sure each of your kids has at least two or three foods they refuse to eat, and cater to them constantly so that they never have to compromise by trying something new or having a vegetable or fruit that isn't exactly what they want, when they want it. This will ensure that you (or, more accurately, your host or hostess because you're Too Busy) must prepare two or three meals at every sitting because somebody goes into a snit and refuses to eat the same food they demanded a week before.

7) Have a giant laundry list of different foods you "need" immediately, but don't express an interest in any of them until after they've spoiled

8) Make mouth noises about wanting fresh fruit and vegetables, but make sure that only one or two servings get used and the rest is thrown away. When you eat an apple, take just one or two bites, throw the rest out, and in a few minutes when you're hungry again, take another one.

9) Leave food in the most inappropriate possible place so that it spoils. Dairy, meat, and perishables must be left out on the kitchen counter. "Grease", or what the rest of the world knows as cooking oil, must be left in multiple pans on the stove so that it spills and stinks. Leave bottles and bags of bread open so that the air can get in. Cram empty or nearly-empty containers into the fridge instead of using smaller containers or throwing out things that spoil. [Again, here is the benefit of small packages. You're going to do your best to let the food spoil instantly anyway, so since you're only going to use things that are freshly opened and throw the rest away, why get a large container?]

10) All older children and adults must cook for themselves. Never, ever prepare a meal for the whole household because it's a mortal sin for more than one or two people to eat at a time: you can clutter up the kitchen far better if there's constantly someone in it, because that provides an excuse to never sweep or wipe up. This also ensures that there's plenty of food to be thrown away because eating leftovers might be fine for your host or hostess, but it's beneath you because you're superior.

11) If by chance you use something and put it away because your host or hostess is on your case again, make sure the lid isn't on. Lids aren't good for anything anyway: every jar of mayonnaise or bag of rice ought to be single-serve, so when you put the rice in the cabinet or the condiments in the fridge, balance them precariously so that they tip over and spill the second the door is open. You need spills in the cabinet and the fridge to booby trap your host or hostess for lulz, because they just don't appreciate you or your unique culture enough. You're also trying to train them to not be so unreasonable as to ask you to put away what you use. It's far more culturally appropriate to pile your food up on the counter.

12) Never, ever, ever finish a bag, bottle, or box of anything. Use just a couple slices of bread and leave the rest to dry out in an open bag. Take a bottle or can of processed drink, open it, take a couple of sips, and then either spill it or leave it sitting around. A few minutes later, repeat with a fresh can or bottle. If you've got two cases of, say, crackaroni, make sure to open and use at least one box out of each, so that you've got two open cases cluttering the place up. It's important to pile the clutter high so that there are several layers of everything. That will maximize spills and wastage.

In closing, this is how homeless families with large numbers of children like to cook and eat. I'd suggest that it's unique to this family, except having been in several other apartments or homes of people in this social class I've got to say that the way these folks try to live while in my home is pretty much par for the course for them. Food is free (when I'm not providing, there are food stamps) and so there's no incentive to do anything but waste. They're moving out at the end of the month, which is when I expect to hear a bunch of bitching and wailing about how the mother hasn't been able to save anything at all. She's lucky I don't give her a bill for all the stuff her kids have broken or damaged.

Why have I tolerated this? My goal was to get my daughter to value life in an organized household and to appreciate how much work goes into taking care of kids or teens. She didn't, before. Despite having been raised as an enabler, she was too willing to sacrifice her own interests even when she was pulled out of an enabling environment. That sort of thing can't be allowed in a child, but when the child learns only through experience, it's best to let them have a small taste of the experience under controlled circumstances. It took a brief voyage into Pig-istan, a couple months of her working like Cinderella, and massive destruction of her clothing and belongings before her disgust and sense of being used hit critical mass. She's within inches of developing a sense of self-worth, because her house guests are starting to treat her the same way they treat me: good enough to use, but not good enough to invite to the party. So that's why I'm allowing my daughter's couch-surfing friend and associated munchkins to do this to my home: to permanently turn my daughter off of enabling behavior along with disorderliness, chaos, waste, and bad smells. It's working.

My savings and cash reserves haven't, and neither has some of the furniture or the tub and bathroom fixtures that didn't survive the shower parkour incident. For a class of people who can't be bothered to waddle down to the grocery store, they have some unusual exercise habits. At least I hope that's what it was.

Anyway, if this experience helps prevent a lifetime of enabling behavior for my daughter because we get to the full gross-out now, I'll count us ahead. I'd rather have her completely lose her shit right now, and then compose herself and figure out what she thinks and feels really. Up to two weeks ago she "didn't mind" a whole bunch of stuff she should have minded, because of the codependent attitude she picked up early in life due to having been around too many people who would probably benefit from an icepick to the forehead. Now she minds and feels appropriate hurt and resentment. I'm mildly bummed about her experiencing hurt and resentment, but this is how you show a person what having good boundaries feels like. The alternative is to accept a reality in which she continues enabler patterns into adulthood and ends up in a codependent sharknado of a marriage with some random abusive druggie or worse.

By learning how to step away from inappropriate responsibility, she's freed herself to step up in terms of taking responsibility for things that ARE appropriate and that DO create a payoff for her. It's really brought her forward, maturity-wise.

The boundaries she's learning?
  • Her clothes are for her, not to be taken and trashed or given away without her knowledge by other people who help themselves
  • Other people are not to bring guests into her room while she is not present
  • Nobody gets to use her as a free babysitter by dumping their kids on her at the last minute
  • When she cleans up the bathroom, it's reasonable to expect it to stay clean
  • Her allowance money is for her, and not to be cadged out of her by someone who "needs" money for gas or a fast food run
  • Why we do not lend out the family vehicle
  • Her bed is for her to sleep in, not to be given over to someone else while she sleeps on the floor because that person prefers to not use the fold-out couch or room they were given
  • When she spends all her time taking over someone else's responsibilities, there are still consequences for not fulfilling her own, and the universe will not cut her any slack just because she exhausted herself chasing the monkeys in someone else's circus
  • Her electronics, furniture, and belongings are not toys for toddlers
  • Why it's a bad idea for her to try to take from me to give to somebody else
  • Why it's an even worse to let people take from her in order to give to somebody else
  • The fine art of identifying unreasonable requests and saying "no" to them
  • How to identify and survive the tantrum stage when an over-entitled adult tries to get back on the nipple
  • Why it's a bad thing to do for others what they should be doing for themselves
  • Not wanting to wake up to the smell of human feces is actually OK
  • Why a person who is not functioning as an adult has "needs" that will expand to consume and then exceed all available resources
  • Why, when she runs out of energy or resources to give, she's not going to be helped in return by the non-functional adult
  • Correct duck alignment requires that she not try to line up other people's ducks while letting hers waddle all over the place
  • Correct fuck alignment requires an awareness of what she does or doesn't actually control
  • How to not be the second velociraptor
  • How to not spend her whole life on a one-way street
  • Why taking control of what's not hers to manage will not end well or produce the results she wants, but it will sure exhaust her

... and more... much more.

One month wasn't actually enough to pull this off.

After the first month, she was still eyeballs-deep in codependent behavior and trying to dump her responsibilities onto me (preferably along with her fecund friend's responsibilities) in order to be the hero and take on even more. She truly believed that doing this would benefit the kids.

By "codependent behavior" I'm talking about a willingness to destroy her relationship with me in order to give more to her houseguests. I'm talking about siding with her houseguests, trying to get me to give them money, confronting me for asking for broken or missing belongings to be returned, yelling at me for not using a "nice" enough tone of voice when expressing a desire for food to not be tracked through the house. I'm talking about insisting that it was right and appropriate to "let" them live in a filthy and disorganized way, not having a bedtime, a wakeup time, or organized meals because "it's how they like to live", and throwing a tantrum herself when I refused to watch her houseguest's children. She also confronted me when somebody's precious feelings were hurt when I used the word "pigs" to describe their behavior after a food booby trap exploded in the pantry.

Instead of doing the boundary thing and recognizing the extent to which she was being used herself and also the extent to which she was helping the guests to abuse me, she went into full martyr mode and vowed to take all the work on herself because she "didn't mind", and that her guests "just needed until". This is not healthy behavior. This is the behavior of someone mired in codependency to the point where they truly believe that pulling someone else in is the thing to do. Helping can be just as addictive as heroin, and it was in danger of becoming my daughter's "drug" of choice.

If I'd sent the guests on their way at that point, I'd have been taking the fix away and creating the need for more, setting into motion a pattern of behavior that could have continued into my daughter's adulthood, which is coming on fast. Bad patterns repeat themselves unless they're broken.

So I stood back and let my daughter start experiencing negative consequences for her behavior.

Around the house, I bowed out of guest activities. I did only the work that suited me, and let my daughter take over all the work and enabling for caring for a handful of very badly socialized kids. It caught up to her pretty quickly especially when she realized her best effort still wasn't producing the results she wanted. She snapped, and did some things she probably wouldn't have done otherwise. Her frustration and feelings of being overwhelmed led to some denial, self destructive decisions, and other things that made her feel less good about herself and more criticized and set-upon by everybody. Eventually, it reached a breaking point where she verbally attacked me for not supporting her enough or appropriately. So I pointed out where the bear shit in the woods, and explained what was and was not appropriate parent behavior.

I suppose it took two full weeks of martyrdom for her to crack and realize that she did indeed mind. Now she's experiencing some of the stress and resentment, and also recognizing the extent to which she's being used. She's now asking for change, enforcing change, and complaining about her situation because she can't do the fun things she really want to do. She's also recognizing the limitations to her own power and having a strong need to stay in her own swim lane.

As a consequence of cracking, she had to take some attention away from the unrewarding, codependent bullshit and consequently had a breakthrough in an area of life where hard work and concentration IS rewarded.

A couple more weeks should sear this incident into her memory for life.

O' the houseguests: they're not being allowed to run rampant. She stepped up and took responsibility for them. Yes, I let her step in that because she didn't believe me when I told her about quicksand.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Cannot Wait! on November 14, 2016, 06:11:37 PM
Awesomesauce.


Whelp, I didn't think I could panic anymore than Tuesday, but here we are. Hi Sailor Sam - any advice for the young and terrified queer population from a military perspective? Is it time to make a bug out bag and flee for Canada?

Hello young dwarf, welcome to the fight! Please pick up your badge, shield, and official Ankh-Morpork truncheon from Sgt Detritus.

Here's the first lesson, it's hugely important, so please remember it. You never give up the ship, and you damn sure never give up on your fucking country. Bug out bags are good common sense, but not so you can flee to Canada.

Stonewall rioted, for you. Harvey Milk died, for you. Leslie Feinberg wrote Stone Butch Blues for you. Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard, and 49 people in a night club were martyred for you. Thousands of service members were court martieled for you. Tens of thousands fought an endless grassroots battle for your rights starting before either of us were born, refusing to give up though all the setbacks and prejudice, with no presciences to tell them victory waited for them in 2011 and 2013.

My advice is to never forget the ocean of grit and determination that backs your current freedoms. Never forget the ocean of blood. Never decide it's too hard, or too scary, or just too much to keep fighting to preserve those freedoms. But certainly, you must be smart. Let's add your name to the living resistance, and not the honourable dead.

1. Please take a self-defense class, to keep your corpus safe
2. Make friends you can talk to, to keep your mind safe
3. Make friends with people who don't have any gay friends. Show them your ordinariness, and gently change one mind at a time
4. Volunteer in your gay community, to keep our youngest safe and stable
6. Volunteer for other worthy causes, to build strong communities that don't sink into hate
7. Remember that some people are orcs, and simply cannot be saved. Don't let them pull you down into hatred. God will sort them out.
7. Build situational awareness, so you know when to be visible, and when to be incognito
8. Read How Long Has This Been Going On, and The Band Played On, so you deeply understand your own history. For that matter, read Stone Butch Blues
9. Never. Give. Up.
[/quote]
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: frugalnacho on November 15, 2016, 02:25:25 PM
following
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: KCalla on November 15, 2016, 03:09:20 PM
following.  Great Thread
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: englishteacheralex on November 15, 2016, 03:52:29 PM
following
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Malum Prohibitum on November 16, 2016, 11:20:46 AM
Yet another couple posts from TheGrimSqueaker:
  I know it's November, and you posted that in August, but that is the best thing I have ever read on this web site.  Thank you for posting it.

For others reading, there is more, and the context (some of the posts are answering questions from other posters) makes it worth clicking on the link and reading it in the thread.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on November 19, 2016, 04:57:46 AM
Two things:
1) This "Reasons Not to Invest (http://www.ci.com/orderform/pdf/general_marketing/idontwant_poster_e.pdf)" poster, posted here (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/cnn-can't-make-up-its-mind-or-why-you-shouldn't-read-financial-news/msg1307354/#msg1307354) by Mighty-Dollar.

2) This clear explanation of why going for total return is better than chasing dividend stocks, posted here (http://) by Interest Compound:
The Dividend vs Total Return argument has been beaten to death on these forums. Total Return won.

Dividends are mathematically equivalent to selling stock, before you factor in taxes. After you factor in taxes, dividends are much less efficient:

(http://i.imgur.com/XolyHHT.png)

If you are limiting your portfolio to only dividend payers, you're adding risk, for no expected reward, resulting in a less efficient risk-adjusted portfolio.

If you want a monthly paycheck from your investments, login to Vanguard, and tell them to send a monthly paycheck from your investments:

(https://i.sli.mg/YfnDdE.png)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: NUF on November 19, 2016, 10:19:28 AM
Posting to follow
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DaMa on November 19, 2016, 07:01:37 PM
following
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: meerkat on November 22, 2016, 07:52:49 AM
It's still early in the day for me to call this the best post I've seen today, but Kitsune made an excellent post on the mindset of artsy types when it comes to money and saving for retirement (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/antimustachian-wall-of-shame-and-comedy/relatives-who-just-don't-get-it/msg1313760/#msg1313760).
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Greenback Reproduction Specialist on November 22, 2016, 10:25:57 AM
This is a great thread, keep them coming.

The best post I saw today was in this thread ;)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: chardog on November 22, 2016, 07:01:56 PM
Okay its not MMM. But this is seriously the most MMM rap video I have ever seen. You will love it
https://youtu.be/yvHYWD29ZNY?t=49s

ROFLMAO kind of stuff. Best of the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYJXPUZ98Bw
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: frugalnacho on November 23, 2016, 05:29:33 AM
Okay its not MMM. But this is seriously the most MMM rap video I have ever seen. You will love it
https://youtu.be/yvHYWD29ZNY?t=49s

ROFLMAO kind of stuff. Best of the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYJXPUZ98Bw

haha these are fucking great.

EDIT:

I especially love the comments on the second video:

"film this on a potato?"

"he bought a few more shares of VTSAX instead of that fancy camera bro"
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on November 23, 2016, 05:58:10 AM
Nice thread. Posting to get it in my list. I'll follow up if I read something great.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: LateToTheParty on November 23, 2016, 06:15:48 AM
This cracked me up in the "kitchen disasters" thread.

I had some success using zucchini in cookies (kind of like zucchini bread). Inspired by that, I thought surely I could do the same with okra from the garden. Cookies went into the oven. Cookies came out of the oven, warm. Cookies cooled down, and tasted - ummm, a bit okra-y. Then, inexplicably, the cookies began warming up again. By the next morning, the okrosity had intensified and the tupperware they were in was hot to the touch. My husband still refers to them as the thermonuclear cookies. My mother suggested okra cookies were such a bad idea that they decided on their own to just begin the composting process immediately.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Mother Fussbudget on November 23, 2016, 12:06:04 PM
This...
"John Rogers, lead portfolio manager for the $2 billion Ariel Fund, believes that there is a growing bubble in the market indices ..."
"Active portfolio managers may be wise at this point to start accumulating cash that they can use to buy back into the markets if Roger’s prediction is correct and the bubble does indeed burst ..."

And yet John Rogers has the Ariel fund 99% invested in mid- and small-cap value stocks.  Not cash.
http://portfolios.morningstar.com/fund/summary?t=ARGFX&region=usa&culture=en-US
In other words:
"Be so afraid of the market and sell me your small and mid cap value stocks, because I'm buying them."
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Le Barbu on November 23, 2016, 06:16:35 PM
Following
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on November 23, 2016, 09:04:37 PM
Okay its not MMM. But this is seriously the most MMM rap video I have ever seen. You will love it
https://youtu.be/yvHYWD29ZNY?t=49s

ROFLMAO kind of stuff. Best of the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYJXPUZ98Bw

haha these are fucking great.

EDIT:

I especially love the comments on the second video:

"film this on a potato?"

"he bought a few more shares of VTSAX instead of that fancy camera bro"
This is currently on another thread (the second one). The total views are only 12,609. It deserves better. Please pass it on, it's awesome.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Half-Borg on November 24, 2016, 02:04:05 PM
The forum needs a way to follow without posting...
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Cannot Wait! on November 24, 2016, 07:38:45 PM
You could click 'notify' and get email notification until you post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: johnny847 on November 27, 2016, 05:16:15 PM
You could click 'notify' and get email notification until you post.

Some of us hate getting email notifications. I do. I get enough email notifications as it is. Logging in occasionally and checking new replies to my posts works much better for me.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dryer on November 29, 2016, 12:23:49 PM
following
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on December 01, 2016, 07:19:42 AM
One thing I found sad after the election is forum members here (specifically ones who were devastated by Trump's election) being intolerant of others who didn't mourn the exact same way they did.

If we didn't immediately react the same way--if a certain comforting article spoke to us, but didn't resonate with them; if the words we used, or the explanations we told ourselves wasn't to their liking--we were told off. We were put down, or told we could never understand because of inherent traits we had, or didn't have, or even berated.

I try to tell myself the same thing I wish they had been telling themselves: they just grieve differently.  They are lashing out due to being scared, due to being sad.  But still, lashing out at those who agree with you, those who are already in pain themselves... it hurt.  Especially when coming here looking for like-minded people to commiserate with, finding some, and then having them turn around and lash out.  MMM forums should be a safe space; I still don't feel safe being myself or being honest in some journals right now.

I had a PM conversation with a member about it, and a text conversation with a different one (neither initiated by me), so I know I wasn't the only one (and if there were at least 3 of us that felt alienated like this, I'm sure there was more).

It's such a minor, teeney, tiny thing compared to the overall horribleness of the election.  A completely inconsequential thing.  But it was a personal cut, an unnecessary one, and one that just made me sad.

Skipping past that, one thing I very much enjoyed that I hope everyone upset by the election can take as an awesome message is Maya Angelou reading her poem "Still I Rise"... this was recorded about 10 years ago, but the message she prefaces it with in this video is something that--were she alive today--I think she could have said after last Tuesday's election.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqo50LSZ0

Ok, this one is not posted today, but ARS nails this on the head.
(I got slammed for posting some link, so this is very appropriate to explain what happened).
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on December 01, 2016, 10:41:47 AM
That's what you have to do to win them over, convince them that government isn't incompetent.

Can you convince me that government is inevitably incompetent?  Not our current government, not governments of the past but all governments.  What fundamental property of governments make them inevitably incompetent?

I ought to be able to convince you that government has a systemic weakness.

There's a controls issue.

I am going to be stealing most of these arguments and examples, from a lot of sources, and I'm not going to cite them, because this is decades of reading all kinds of things and I honestly don't sort information in my head that way.  But it is easiest to identify the issue when you look at it in simple terms.

You buy a certain amount of milk per month for your household.  Maybe it is zero, maybe it is one gallon.  So how much milk does the country need to produce?

Well, it needs to produce (amount individual wants)x(number of individuals).  But each person wants a different amount.  No problem, we'll estimate that, we'll use a formula, with a distribution.  And we'll come up with a range, and we'll produce some extra, cuz fuck it, we're rich like that.

But you actually prefer 1%.  OK, we'll make two kinds of milk.  Your friend wants 2%?  No problem, 3 kinds of milk.  You kid wants chocolate?  OK, 6 kinds of milk.  You don't want to buy it in a 1 gallon jug, you want four size options?  OK 24 kinds of milk.  You changed your mind when bikini season drew near and now want skim?  OK, 36 kinds of milk and a seasonal variation in demand.

So, to get the right amount of milk, even if you forget details about regional variations, distributions, etc, "THE ECONOMY" has to perform an incredibly complex calculation.  If you really dig into the weeds of what I described up above what you'll find is that a decision about milk needs to happen a couple of million times per day.  And that's just to still it get it wrong daily.

This milk problem is not just a milk problem.  It applies to literally everything.  Who to marry, to have kids or not, how many, where to live, what kind of house, what job to do, car or bike, socks or sandals (or both! fuck you you don't know my life).

So government solutions fundamentally fail to recognize this systemic weakness.  Or rather, the rhetoric of political debate fails to accept, with any sort of humility, this reality.

And I can say reality because of people starving in cities during the great depression not because of crop failures, but because of crops literally rotting in the fields due to poor government decisions.  I can say reality because of 30-90 million (and some argue many many more) dead communists under Stalin, Lenin, and Mao in countries that can literally grow enough food to feed the entire world.  These weren't failures that were the result of bad people, government simply is not up to the job of making, what amounts to, quintillions of decisions every day.

There's no computer made, no collection of computers, that can do this, except the biological entity known as the human race.  And even that, billions of the best organic computers ever made, all working together to not starve to death, gets it wrong seemingly as often as not.  The mechanism we use to communicate all of this information is price.  And so when the government tries to make this decision it thinks it can substitute all of those quintillions of decisions made daily by just fixing the price.  Any subsidy is this.  Actual price fixes are this as well.  And it doesn't work.  I mean, it staggeringly and disastrously does not work.  It kills people, is how bad it works.  More people have been killed by fixing prices than by shooting guns, dropping bombs, or swinging swords.  No human has ever done more damage than one that fixed a price with the power of government.

Think of it in another way.

The individual possesses everything they need to negotiate the price of everything they need.  The seductive idea presents itself to the lazy brain that serves that individual that it can relax and let someone else handle that tedious task for them.  This is tempting!  And so lazy brain agrees.  And then that other entity gets something wrong.  This is of course because that will happen whenever you outsource your own decisions.  But instead of recognizing that the outsourcing is to blame, lazy brain identifies others who are also doing lazy brain, and blames them.  The correct solution was always to take back the decision making power and go back to negotiating for yourself.  But lazy brain is lazy, and that's harder.

If your computer started telling you that it wasn't going to do the things you wanted it to do, because it had elected a computer in the next office over to do that work, you would get a new computer, and never again interact with that steaming pile of shit.

But for some reason, the human race, and I think its because of millennia of starvation, is hooked on the idea of leadership.  And I will agree that a government of some kind is necessary.

But for the day-to-day, it is simply impossible for the government to be as good as the individual at governing the individual life.  Regardless of how bad the individual is.  Regardless of how good the government is.

And so for any given problem, the solution needs to be as local as possible.

Can I fix this myself?

Can me and my family fix this?

Can me and my friends fix this?

Can me and my local action committee fix this?

Can our church/school/local charity fix this?

Can our county/city fix this?

Can our state fix this?

Can our group of states fix this?

Can our country fix this?

Can our world fix this?

So if you take a step back and ask yourself honestly if certain items on the Democratic platform were even tried before just going straight to the federal level?  And you find resoundingly that most of them were, and had great success, because most of them are much more easily solved locally.  Upon going national, most were set back, and are less effective now than they used to be.

And more recently, you find that most just skipped the first 8 steps.  Because fundraising is hard.  It is so much easier to just tax the money away.  But it robs the individual being charitable of any of the positive effects of charity, and denies the recipient of that charity the opportunity to be grateful.  It turns citizens helping each other into citizens forced to help each other.  It turns aid into entitlement.  These are real effects, and they are bad.  And they are inevitable if it is government doing the thing.

There is an argument FOR government.  And that's that certain shit is just not going to get done otherwise.  But it is critical that everyone going to government understand that it ought to be the last resort.  Nothing else has worked, we have to do this.

The history of progressiveness is one that likes to lay claim to certain things, when in reality those things were coming anyway, and progressives jumped out to force it the last 2% and claim 100% of the credit.  And in so doing, provide all the justification needed for an opposition to then fight was an inevitable cultural shift.  The only legitimate victories to be claimed are the ones found in the constitutional amendments.  And even there, you find failures as well.

It is reactionary and understandable, as that's also the history of conservatism.

A law that says don't shoot your neighbor unless he's trying to shoot you, makes sense.  The reason that is so cut and dry and should be a law is obvious.  It depends not on history or party or anything.  An extra tax on single people?  Denying them survivor benefits?  Treating them unequally under the law?  That makes no sense.  It depends entirely on history and party.  (And I choose that as an issue as it is just not talked about at all by republicans or democrats, is clearly a thing, and so I like it as an example.  Don't get bogged down by the detail though.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, you aren't paying attention).

Where you see clashes between democrat and republican, almost universally, they are arguing over things that government shouldn't be involved in one way or the other.

That's very different from "there shouldn't be a government at all."  Obviously we do need a government, but that is the end of where history and party should be part of the conversation.  From that point on, if you act knowing that government sucks at everything, you arrive at the constitution of the united states.  Government is going to do these things at the federal level, and no others.  Because individuals, if left to their own devices, are capable of governing themselves.

Please note that the above reasoning doesn't even take into account the quality of the people chosen as leaders.  You could pick the absolute best, most honest, most intelligent, hardest working, people, and the systemic weakness inherent in central planning would still lead to shit outcomes.

That's the problem, portraying the failures of the system as the result of character flaws in the opposition is what elections are about, but it isn't why government doesn't actually work.  The idea that the inefficiencies you see would go away if someone better was doing it, that it would all just sort of "drop out" when you balance the equation, is incredibly seductive.  But there's a reason it has never worked.

And it hasn't.  That's the first clue right there.  You can blame the resistance in the wires for why power isn't getting to your customers, but at some point, maybe DC just wasn't the right choice.  Maybe the reality underlying everything is that what you're trying to do is going about it all wrong.

And Democrats and Republicans do fundamentally agree on this.  Education is so universally emphasized on both sides because of how critical that individual governing is.  Republicans just look at how many people grow up to become democrats and conclude there must be something wrong with the schools, and then Democrats attack Republicans for attacking education, when the actual target was schools, because even though we're all the same, when we start making decisions that forget government sucks at everything we forget what the root cause of the problem is.

To fix the schools you don't privatize them, you de-nationalize them.  You get the federal government out of it.  In some places you maybe get the state government out too.

I'm going to say it again because you shouldn't dismiss it as cynicism.  Regardless of who is involved, the government sucks at everything.  It is the employee at your workplace that shows up late, takes a two hour lunch, takes a 15 minute break every hour, leaves early, calls in sick weekly, asks for cash advances on the next paycheck, has relatives that show up drunk, and periodically can't work because of court appearances.  It's fine not to fire them, but for god sakes don't give them anything important to do.  And as someone who has worked in government the past four years or so, that is the exact description of almost everyone I work with.  It isn't that they are bad people, it's that government sucks at everything.

Wow, found two great posts today!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Lagom on December 01, 2016, 11:45:38 AM
I keep meaning to contribute to this thread then always forget to do so when I encounter a great post. So I figured I should at least follow and hopefully I'll remember sooner or later!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: bernieb on December 01, 2016, 12:19:33 PM
good stuff. following
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on December 02, 2016, 08:43:50 AM
Awesome pictures. He mentioned that he takes  his pictures with an iPhone (not sure if he changed to a regular camera when they switched to an RV.)

Go thru all of the posts for great pictures.

MOD NOTE: Removing picture shared in private journal section.  Click link heading this quote to see it.

 Edit: He is still using an iPhone.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Vertical Mode on December 02, 2016, 11:28:37 AM
Definitely GrimSqueaker's phrase "fornication donation" upthread. Made my day.

Posting to follow along.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: With This Herring on December 18, 2016, 06:47:17 PM
Spork's advice on keeping a brokerage account safe:

Some of these have been mentioned already:

* A complex password.  Not a dictionary word.  I use a password generator that minimally does 16 character (and guarantees upper/lower/special characters).  It has options for longer/shorter/etc because some sites have ridiculous, bad password requirements. 
* since it is a random bunch of characters, you'll have to use a password manager, as mentioned
* Don't re-use that password anywhere
* Don't re-use your userid (if there is one).
* Don't re-use your email address either.  If you get an email from Vanguard, it better damn well go to the email address you expect it to.  If you get an email address from spammyguy and it comes to the Vanguard email address you've never used anywhere else... this is a flag that something dastardly is going on. 
* Because you're using multiple email addresses, these will also have to be folded into your password manager.  For my many multiple email addresses, I use a combination of dedicatedmail@mydomain.com and sneakemail.  Sneakemail is a paid service that will generate unique email addresses and tag them.  They will then forward to one or more back end accounts with the reply-to rewritten.  If you reply, it goes back through sneakemail and rewrites it to the original sender.  Highly recommended.
* for account reset questions: ALWAYS LIE.  These are usually stupid questions that are public knowledge.  Use a different one for every account.  "What's your mother's maiden name?  Blackwoodpecker"   Add these to your password manager.
* I actually use an entirely separate browser instance for financial institutions.  For normal browsing, I try to use plugins to limit scripting and ads (both of these are slowly becoming impossible to limit these days).  For financial institutions, I pretty much allow everything.  Minimally this keeps cookies separate.  If nothing else, it makes you think:  I'm using the financial browser... think before you click.  It also keeps things like tabnapping from happening.
* I don't actually believe in changing passwords often.  I think this is a bad practice that tends to make people make bad passwords.  Instead of a password like "1fF1F4dnP1I1oHv4" ... you end up with "MyPassword01" that changes to "MyPassword02" ... etc. 
* Two factor auth is awesome.  I'd take it further and make sure you keep it 2 factor.  In other words, if you're browsing on your phone and the 2nd factor is SMS... it's really not a second factor.  You already are holding both factors on the same device.  (I worked for a company with a complicated login process, but every single factor was controlled by your Windows credentials.  If you had those, you owned every 2nd factor in the system: email, desk phone options, etc.)
* As much as automated stuff is cool... I'd say do not use it for financial data.  I am not a fan of web sites (Mint, etc) that log into your financial institutions and download data.  The primary mantra of computer security is "least required privilege".  The least required privilege for those sites is "none". 
* Keep your computer up to date.  "Do you want to update/upgrade?" is a question you cannot refuse.  Don't run on out of date platforms.  If Windows XP is not supported, upgrade or buy a new computer.  (The same goes for smart phones.  When Google/Apple/Moto/etc stop supporting your model, you pretty much have to upgrade.)
* Stay away from shady web sites.  Even on-the-level web sites tend to sell ads that can run javascript on your machine.  Bad actors have become pretty smart.  I try very hard to limit javascript... but that really is becoming difficult.  If you're going to play around on those sites... use separate machines (or VMs) for those sites vs financial sites.
* It's not a bad idea to learn Linux.  It can be more secure, IMO.  (But: it's totally possible to make a insecure mess with Linux just like it is with any OS.)  If nothing else, you are a smaller target.  Large scale hacks tend to go towards the mainstream.  The IoT is slowly changing this, as a lot of IoT is embedded Linux.  It is becoming a larger target over time.

edit to add:
* Never use a user id on your computer that has administrative privileges.  Use a "normal" userid for daily use.  When you need admin privs, it should require a (strong) password to escalate your privs.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on December 19, 2016, 07:59:08 AM
Great post on making friends.

Since it is a journal, I'll just give the ref to the post
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/%27i-was-in-the-pool!-i-was-in-the-pool!%27-shrinkage-is-real/msg1345887/#msg1345887

Edit: Removing the quoted post and just adding a ref.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on December 31, 2016, 07:21:37 AM
Looks like I am becoming a big fan of FIRE_at_45.
Great post on dressing well.

On Dressing Better

This year I decided it was time to make a change in the way I dress.  Part of my motivation was to do better in the dating scene.  The other part was just learning more about how to shop effectively.

I have always tried to shop with purpose but I had no direction.  Since I am fairly slim Calvin Klein stuff fit me fairly well so that was my go to store.  I did okay with my method of just sticking to one store that fit me fairly well.  Okay, not great. 

I first went through my wardrobe once and set aside everything I had not worn for 6 months.  Then I went through everything that was left and made hard decisions on what was left.  I probably donated half my wardrobe that I had accumulated over 5 years or so. 

I then decided that I needed to learn more.  This was actually my introduction to blogs prior to finding MMM.  The only difference was these blogs teach you how to spend money and in some cases you could spend wildly. 

The first blog I found was a guy who is shorter in stature.  This one was good for me because at 5 foot 8 inches it is harder to find clothes that fit in comparison to the average build.  I learned that the fashion industry generally caters to the average to taller build.  It makes sense.  They do not want to carry too many sizes. 

It has always been hard for me to find pants with the right inseam length.  I thought I did sometimes but really I was creating a look of bulky fabric at the hem. 

Through my reading I learned a huge amount of things I did not know about previously. 

- Types of shoes that look good with dress pants and jeans
- How your pants should be hemmed
- How to layer your clothing
- To avoid t-shirts at all costs
- To wear long sleeve shirts rolled up, instead of a sleeveless button up shirt
- Dark wash jeans look best with no extra detailing
- White dress shirts seam to make you look most dressed up
- Pocket squares should not match but compliment your tie
- Dress shirts should be hemmed & sometime darted
- Close fitting clothing makes you appear slimmer

And the list goes on and on.

The best blog I found that fit my style aspirations was this one.  He has designed what he calls a Lean Wardrobe.  Basically, you do not need a lot of clothes in your closet.  You just need ones that are easy to mix and match to create different looks. 

http://effortlessgent.com/

The one for short dudes.

http://www.themodestman.com/

Armed with this information I started to gradually change my wardrobe.  I had several nice pairs of dress pants, suit, ties and other items.  The problem was that nothing fit me properly. 

This leads into the single most important part of looking stylish.  Wear clothes that fit your body.  Most clothing that you buy off the rack will not fit you properly unless you happen to have model physic.  When it does not fit the best thing to do is go to a good tailor.   

So that is what I did.  I looked up on google and found a tailor in my area.  I called her up and took in a handful of clothes.  The experts say you should take 1 pair of pants and 1 dress shirt.  After the tailor makes their adjustments then you decide if you are happy.  I took more of a risk and had her do about 4 pairs of pants and a couple shirts. 

The results were amazing.  Suddenly the hem of my pants fell in the exact right spot on my shoes and the legs were no longer baggy.  With the dress shirts she hemmed them so they do not all bunch up or pull out.  They also fit slim to my body and arms. 

Here is an example of how most men wear a dress shirt.

(http://i.imgur.com/gT71Jv6l.jpg)

This is how a dress shirt should fit (ignore the belt).

(http://i.imgur.com/FukBNLll.jpg)

It makes a huge difference in how you look and really you could be wearing the exact same shirt that is just tailored properly. 

This pictures shows the difference between pants that fit poorly (left) and ones that fit well (right).

(http://i.imgur.com/upMIQg3l.jpg)

So after I trusted my tailor I took her the majority of my clothing.  She charged me $30 for dress shirt alterations (hem & slimming), $30 for pants (hem & slimming) and $125 to fully alter a suit.  It was not cheap but this made the biggest difference in my appearance. 

When I went shopping I was meticulous about what I was looking for and I did not settle.  It was a pain in the ass actually because I do not like to shop.  I did some stuff online and other stuff in person.  I looked for sales wherever possible.  I also experimented buying some stuff from China direct.  That saved a lot but I am not sure I would do it again.  My jean jacket for example cost $45 and it fits me perfectly.  Only problem is the rivets are cheap and I have broken two already.  In comparison this would cost $115-$125 or more in a store. 

So what are my observations of this process?

When you consume all this information you absolutely create wants for yourself.  I did not buy half of what I was trained to want. 

Dressing better did have a significant positive impact on my confidence level.  People took notice at work.   I went into 1 department at work to meet someone for a meeting.  The department is all women.  When I get there she says 'wow, you look fantastic!'...and drags me into a few offices to show her colleagues.  Then when we are meeting she says 'Can I give you a compliment?'  Of course I say yes.  She says 'you look good always but today you look so dapper...like out of a magazine'. 

How can compliments not boost your confidence?  That day I literally had 15 people stop me and give me a compliment and a lot of them were actually from men.  One male colleague I was walking by literally stopped me when I was walking by and said "Seriously, where do you buy your clothes? You look fantastic!".

I have also been stopped in stores by women who want me to help them pick out clothes for their husbands.  That was probably one of the most flattering experiences.

Did it help with dating? 

I am not sure because I met my ex-GF right about the same time.  I know she loved it. 

This was not a mustachian move by any means!  I ended up spending about $2,000 as outlined below.  I will now wear the crap out of these clothes and in 2017 I probably will spend 25% of that amount to replace worn clothes and upgrade a few items.

(http://i.imgur.com/QX8q3j3l.gif)   

I am curious what people think?  Does the way you dress impact the way you feel?  If you were dating do you think that you notice how your date is dressed?

My go-to date attire for a restaurant: brown dress shoes monk strap, matching belt, dark wash slim fitting jeans, white dress shirt, gray blazer.  I did get to wear this once before I met my GF and my date actually commented on how I was dressed (in that she liked it).
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: markbike528CBX on December 31, 2016, 09:10:37 AM
[quote author=TheOldestYoungMan link=topic=64980.msg1324095#msg1324095 date=1480610304
......huge snip".........
It isn't that they are bad people, it's that government sucks at everything.
[/quote]

Sort of self-referential to this thread, but it was The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums.   mostly posting to follow and apparently to get into an infinite DO loop of thread self-referentiality.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on January 23, 2017, 02:13:12 PM
...
Quote from: AJ41
Can you explain what it took and how your consulting firm got started?
After college, I spent a year looking for work. Getting the first job was the hardest. I got a job with the State doing IT support for 32k a year - got a high score on the written test, then waited a year for them to work through the people with bonus points (at the time, our state gave bonus points to veterans and minorities, and there was a lot of competition for the jobs). It was a 37.5h a week job, and I got great benefits. But I was bored out of my mind.

I spent two years there, then I got introduced to two guys doing client-server database consulting work. They wanted to write some software to solve problems common to most of their clients. So I traded in my 37.5h a week job for an 80-100h a week job for the same money and half the benefits, wrote software, then transitioned to consulting work. I did a lot of good work in a short period of time, and got rewarded with raises. Within six months, I was billing out at $150-200/h and making $50k, so they only needed to book me about one week out of eight to make money, and I was writing software for them the other seven. I traveled for them about one week out of three or four.

I spent a lot of my time with one partner, and he took me under his wing. He showed me how the marketing and sales worked. They taught SQL training classes, then they'd keep in touch with their students and offer free advice, and the consulting offers would mature naturally out of that channel. They spent a lot of time on the training material, and keeping it up to date between software releases, but they wanted to control that and wouldn't allow anyone else to teach it. I think they would have done better to license the content. The company wrote a few nationally-available books, and we had a deal with Sybase where they steered clients our way sometimes. 

After two years with the company, the partners had a falling out. So they broke up the business, and the partner I liked offered me a 1099 role subbing through him for a client in Atlanta. Part of the breakup was to divide the clients, and we'd already been working for this one for a while. This gave me a chance to learn how to build a consulting business of my own with a mentor to guide me. He connected me to his lawyer and I formed an LLC (if I had been smarter, I would have formed an S-corp right from the start, but this is what my mentor suggested). I was 24.

I spent about a year working with the good partner until we had our own falling out. By that time I knew enough to keep my head above water. I knew how invoicing worked, and I had seen enough of what they had done to build my own marketing plan. Mostly my clients came from word of mouth, and if I'd been smart, I would have spent my time selling, hiring and training, and building the business. But I didn't really have the skills for that at 25.

I shut down my first consulting company after Little Axe was born. It was a combination of a client canceling work on short notice (leadership change, all projects canceled) and a desire to travel less and be around my infant daughter more. So I took a job and relocated to the NoVA area outside of DC, spent two years with a failed .com, and tried to relaunch my consulting practice in the shadow of the Internet crash. I had learned some things, but not enough. I had worked my way into a team lead role at the company and had learned a little bit about team leadership.

After a year of scraping by and spending down our savings (one week I'd bring home a $30,000 check from a consulting client, then I'd spend three months trying to find another one) I took whatever job I could get. Mrs Axe was working as a realtor and introduced me to a friend of a friend who needed an IT support person for their email compliance application. It was easy work but I was making half what I made at the .com. I spent less than a year there. I had decided that I didn't know enough about leadership to build a company, and I needed to learn by doing. So I went looking for a Fortune 500 company who would give me a chance to lead.

I found that job and spent seven years there. I got promoted and had 110 FTE's on my team at one point. Learned a lot about leadership and staff development. Also learned how to write proposal responses for $300m-$1b government procurements, present at orals, and win the big projects. Enough so I could build my own business to work in that arena.

That division got sold, so in 2010 I found a different job, and moved out of NoVA back to Hometown. Specialized in Healthcare and Project Management. Got my PMP cert (very helpful for public service procurements), and learned everything I could about the Affordable Care Act. That led me into a dozen different consulting deals for state healthcare planning work. Left that job to help build Health Insurance Exchanges, wrote a proposal and won a $141m deal for my firm in Hawaii, and spent a year in Honolulu leading the project.

When that job was wrapping up, I decided to take my third run at building a consulting company.

So how did I get here? A combination of:
* Hard work - years of extra hours, 60, 80, and 100 hour weeks. Especially with new technologies, if you are working with something 80 hours a week, you're an expert in it before anyone else is, just by virtue of the time you spend on it. A year of 80 hour weeks can make you a national expert on something if it's new.
* A mentor early in my career - helped me a lot, but also showed me through counterexamples what I didn't want to do.
* Using The Man to train me to lead
* Constant network management - my professional network is good, because I work hard to keep it that way. Keep a spreadsheet with every person you've ever met in your professional life, and make contact with them once or twice a year, forever. You never know when that will come in handy.

My advice for folks who are just starting out in this business, spend two years working for a big company to learn the ropes, pay attention, and never say no to anything. Work hard. Large consulting firms are great for learning opportunities just coming out of school, but don't end up spending your whole life there. Use them to learn, then forge your own path.

Keep your day job while you build up some clients whom you service nights and weekends. When the day job interferes with your ability to deliver, quit your day job.

Here's my standard advice for building a consulting company from scratch.

Axecleaver's Steps for Starting Your Own Consulting Business
WHAT
1. Cut your minimum monthly living expenses as deeply as possible.
2. Build up a transition fund to pay your expenses for 6-12 months.
3. Write a business plan: visit www.score.org for templates.
3a. Set your services and rates (1/1000th of your annual salary is a good starting point).
4. Identify customers.
5. Set meetings to sell your services. If you sell everything you pitch, then you're not pitching to enough people. Shoot for a 25% close rate.
6. Keep your day job and deliver on nights/weekends until you have at least 20-40h/week of deliverable work sold.
7. Incorporate your business.
8. Once your day job is impacting your ability to deliver, turn in your notice.
9. Purchase insurance: errors and omissions/professional liability, general liability
10. When your sales exceed your ability to deliver, add staff.
11. Hire a payroll service, HSA and 401k providers. (Caveat: explore Solo-K and SEP-IRA if you never intend to have staff.)

WHY
1. If you run out of money, you're going back to work for The Man for the rest of your life.
2. Most consultants bill monthly at the end of the month, on net 30 terms. Clients can take up to 45 days to pay. Large checks take seven days to clear. This means a job you start working on June 1 may not make funds available to you until August 22 - nearly 12 weeks.
3. A business plan template will ask you questions you haven't thought to ask yet - what are your services and what is your rate, who are your customers, how will you market to them, what does your staffing plan look like, will you offer products or just services, what margins will you use?
4. Use every resource at your disposal to find customers: your rolodex, temp agencies, headhunters, Craigslist, etc.
5. Pipeline management is a critical skill in the  consulting business. You should be selling services at least three months out, but this takes time to develop. You should always be selling.
6. Building a reliable customer list takes time. Deliver against your core services while keeping your day job. Get used to 80-100h work weeks.
7. S-corps are popular choices for consultants because it allows you to pay yourself distributions, which avoids payroll taxes on a portion of your income.
8. Ease the transition into consulting by keeping your day job while you build your experience and customer list.
9. Protect yourself and your company with liability insurance. Many customers and prime vendors require it. Look for a million per instance in coverage as a starting point.
10. Hire staff as your company grows. Always be selling.
11. Outsource the administrative tasks that make the most sense.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Playing with Fire UK on January 24, 2017, 09:17:09 AM
Emotion and reason are not mutually exclusive.

In other words, just because emotion plays into a decision doesn't make it irrational.

This from ARS.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Lagom on January 29, 2017, 01:42:41 PM
Really liked this one by Sol re: how to advance science on a limited budget. Great activity ideas for retirement (or before!).


"Pioneering new fields of science" isn't something humanity does very often, so you'd be hard pressed to do it alone in your retirement.

But there are LOTS of ways you can use a scientific background to advance humanity, on a limited budget.  Just giving this 30 seconds of thought...

1.  I know a handful of amateur astronomers who have digitized their backyard reflector telescopes and who use their home computers to scan each night's images to look for changes.  These are the people who routinely discover new comets and such, or find unexplained variances in star brightness.  They are part of online communities for reporting and discussing what they see.

2.  People with GIS experience are in high demand in virtually every field of useful applied science.   Learn to download and automate the processing of free google earth imagery.  These folks find previously undiscovered archaeology sites, or track deforestation in the amazon rain forest, or the melting of greenland's ice cap. 

3.  More hand's on folks are currently changing the world with consumer grade electronics.  Spend a month watching maker videos on youtube, learn to program a raspberry pi, and you can design and manufacturer your own smart_whatever hardware.  Just look at the explosive growth in smart home technology, the field of wireless connectivity and phone integration is ripe to upset a hundred different established industries.  With cheap ministick computers plus a sub-$1000 3D printer and you can reproduce thirty different startups already valued at >$1million.

4.  Apply technologies that are currently research experiments to residential use.  Read up on algal biofuels and then build a reactor in your back yard, build a methane digester to go with it, figure out how to integrate the two and make it cheap and reproducible and you'll have thousands of people building them.

5.  Unprofitable genetics.  Seriously, for about $15k in laboratory equipment you can do basic genetics research in your kitchen, of the type that nobody else is doing because there's no money in it.  We have fifty labs working on how to make photosynthesis more efficient, and nobody at all working on why wiener dogs have short legs.  That person could be you, for six months worth of work.  Or if you're the evil type, you can weaponize influenza and wipe out half of the planet's population.  Nothing says "going down in history" quite like "evil genius who started a global pandemic".  So easy an undergrad could do it!

There are huge amounts of unanalyzed data available to the public, waiting for the right person to come along and dig into it.  Each year the google science fair (https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/) produces at least three or four potentially world-altering technologies that some high school kid came up with on a shoestring budget.  You can do that, too.  It's not "pioneering new fields of science" but it is making a difference.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: With This Herring on February 01, 2017, 12:58:54 PM
Diane C revealing in the tiny kitchen thread that refrigerator doors are made to be reversed with minimal effort:

Wow! That is an incredibly efficient kitchen.
It sure is! Do you know you can reverse your fridge and freezer door handles to open on the right side for even more efficiency? That's why there is a white plastic dot on the right hand side of the door. Just takes a screwdriver and a few minutes time. Easy-peasy. If you're unsure, I'm sure there's a dozen You Tube tutorials. More life-changing than Marie Kondo.

Yes.  I've looked at it, but the fridge came with the rental so I don't want to touch it!  I suppose I could mention it to the landlord. Hmm.
Don't waste their time. It's so easy. Check out You Tube. Really. Just be gentle so you don't scratch or over-torque anything. I'm amazed at how often I see an "after" with the doors opening bass-ackwards. I think people just don't realize how easy it is to change. Looks like your LL might be one of them. You can do this!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: APowers on April 04, 2017, 10:25:19 PM
Laura33's use of "For the love of Pete"! Because this is the MMM forum, and we all know who our patron saint is...

I am going to tell you the same thing I told myself when I was in my horrible, horrible job:  no job is worth your self-respect and mental health.

That's it.  Done.  Nothing more to discuss here. 

Quit.  Breathe.  Then go look for another job if you need to for the sake of your relationship (I, too, am working largely due to DH's desire for a more spendy lifestyle, so I get that particular frustration).  But for now, for the love of Pete, quit for your own sanity and well-being.  Now.  Today. 

Then go post all the details on the "Epic FU money stories" thread.  We will be waiting with bated breath.  :-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: aspiringnomad on April 05, 2017, 08:46:11 PM
Great thread. Posting to follow.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on April 18, 2017, 05:47:16 PM
This post by Sol on why free markets, including healthcare, function best with balanced regulation.

Yeah.  I believe in free markets so I must be a nut.  What the fuck ever.

Nah, man.  Free markets are great!  But what you're asking for is TOO free, and has historically resulted in worse outcomes for people.  Markets need rules, like "no stealing" and "no blackmail" and "no monopolies".  People need to have the protections required to participate in a market, which includes the power to have their contracts honored, their disputes resolved by a higher authority, and their means of payment protected. 

The US economy has been so wildly successful precisely because it has been able to thread that narrow path between too much regulation and too much anarchy.  Markets where strongmen and criminals rule the roost do not generate huge profits for everyone.  Markets where the government takes all profits also fail.  You (we) need to find that middle ground, to seek out the path that helps everyone succeed.

Lots of countries don't have fiat currency, or a court system, or police to deter crime.  Lots of countries don't have any taxes or market regulations at all, and as a result they rapidly have no widespread profits to protect because they have no capital to invest, no companies to generate revenue, and no shareholders to turn those profits back into the demand that drives more sales, more revenue, and more capital.

American Capitalism, despite it's flaws, is hugely profitable!  That's because the US government collects taxes from the most successful market participants and uses those funds to protect and expand the marketplace for everyone.  If we took away the source of capital (debt) or tried to curtail regulations (the bathtub) or starved the taxes (theft!) the system would fall apart.  By advocating for these archaic policies, you are actively undermining the very things that have made America so successful.  Why do you hate America so much?

So no, you're not a nut for liking free markets.  You might be a nut if you want markets to be so "free" that they can become dysfunctional, in which case you're not really a "free market" kind of guy so much as you are an "anti-market" kind of guy.

Healthcare can work the same way, because healthy citizens participate in markets.  Sick people, injured people, hospitalized people, addicted people, depressed people, these folks don't work.  They don't generate profits for their corporate overlords, they turn from a national asset to a national liability.  Good healthcare, just like good education, can turn those liabilities into productive taxpaying worker citizens.  As long as they generate more value for the economy as an aggregate population, than they cost in healthcare, then it absolutely makes sense for the government to raise taxes to provide that care.   From a macro-perspective, it's just capitalism protecting itself.   This is a case where we apparently need more taxes and more regulation, not less.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Malum Prohibitum on April 20, 2017, 06:23:36 AM
nereo, it looks like he is arguing a strawman, as nobody supporting "free markets" argues for markets that permit theft, blackmail, etc.  Would you please provide a link to your best post of the day so the rest of us can find it?  Thanks.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on April 20, 2017, 07:17:41 AM
nereo, it looks like he is arguing a strawman, as nobody supporting "free markets" argues for markets that permit theft, blackmail, etc.  Would you please provide a link to your best post of the day so the rest of us can find it?  Thanks.

you can click the link to follow back to the thread where the post was made (i.e. click ehre it says "Quote from: sol on April 18th...".
This works any time someone quotes someone else's post.  It doesn't work if they just hit the "quote" icon or type it shorthand with brackets.
His earlier post (#2008) and subsequent responses are necessary to gain the full context of the arguments being made.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Malum Prohibitum on April 20, 2017, 10:36:40 AM
nereo, it looks like he is arguing a strawman, as nobody supporting "free markets" argues for markets that permit theft, blackmail, etc.  Would you please provide a link to your best post of the day so the rest of us can find it?  Thanks.

you can click the link to follow back to the thread where the post was made (i.e. click ehre it says "Quote from: sol on April 18th...".
This works any time someone quotes someone else's post.  It doesn't work if they just hit the "quote" icon or type it shorthand with brackets.
His earlier post (#2008) and subsequent responses are necessary to gain the full context of the arguments being made.
  Thanks, I completely missed the link in your post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: hobbes1 on April 20, 2017, 11:42:38 AM
great thread!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: better late on April 20, 2017, 01:52:03 PM
Following as well.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MichaelB on April 20, 2017, 02:28:12 PM
P2F
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: intellectsucks on April 28, 2017, 11:59:53 AM
Scantee commenting in the modern parenting thread:

My sense is that the parenting insanity of the current moment is mostly attributable upper-middle class parents' anxiety about their children's futures in our winner-take-all society. That anxiety fuels an (unconscious, I think) desire on the part of parents' to provide the very best in every realm so that their children will have a leg up compared to all of the other upper middle class children whose parents couldn't or didn't make the optimal choice. We see this crop up in all of the parenting wars about the "best" way to raise kids. Breastfeed/bottle feed. Stay-at-home/work. Attachment parenting/traditional parenting. Lots of activities/more unscheduled time. Public school/private school. And on and on. I think there is this sense that if we just make the right decisions and give our kids these just-so-perfect lives then they won't be at risk for falling down the economic ladder towards a lifetime of struggle.

To me, none of these decisions is all that important. There is no way to game the system, choose the exact right life, and ensure your kids will have struggle-free lives 20 to 30 years from now. What really matters is what has always mattered: being there for them, supporting and guiding them, helping them develop the emotional and intellectual tools to adapt and thrive in whatever environment they find themselves in as adults.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: afuera on May 11, 2017, 07:56:06 AM
This quote is from LWTG's journal where he talks about being happy along his journey to FIRE even though his journey looks different than others.  I feel like it can be easy to try and save more/earn more than everyone else on the forum and its always good to reflect on your journey and make sure you are doing what is best for your own situation and life.


I realized early on that "Keeping up with the MMMers" would not make me any happier (or successful) than "keeping up with the Jones".
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on June 08, 2017, 07:56:00 AM
Quote from Mr Green illustrating the mental white noise of decision making pre-FIRE vs post-FIRE.


I actually meant white noise to be a little bit different than news. I mean all the little mundane decisions that you are forced to make daily that you don't realize how much they cumulatively weigh you down until you don't have to make them anymore.

My alarm just went off. Do I have a meeting today that I have to be in the office at a certain time or can I go back to sleep for a bit? Did I wear this shirt just a day or two ago? Can I wear it again today? If I time that light just right I'll get though it without having to sit. Do I speed up and try to tailgate the car in front of me a little because the guy merging is probably going to cut me off if I don't? Did I get in the right lane for where traffic slows down because it moves faster? Did I remember my badge getting out of the car? I have to remember to leave at 4pm because I have to be at this place at 5pm. This will give me enough time to get there unless traffic is hosed. I need to remember to check traffic before I leave work.

I think that illustrates the idea enough. Many of those questions/thoughts are always about ensuring that you can fit something into your schedule because you have work at a certain time and other obligations and only so much free time outside of those things. When 90% of your waking hours become "free time" it all just stops. All the sudden I didn't care if I made it through the traffic light. I didn't care about speeding up to try and prevent someone from cutting me off. I generally didn't drive as fast because I didn't feel pressed for time. I left for appointments a little earlier because I didn't care about waiting for 10 minutes. The grocery line was no longer frustrating.

Knowing that I had such limited free time created all those negative feelings and the noise of those thoughts and questions use brain power, whether we realize it or not. It's almost like death by a thousand paper cuts. Ironically, most folks will never know that this is how it really feels because they'll never stop working long enough for all those feelings and thoughts to dissipate, so they won't even realize they're burdened. I started to pity people who were screaming in their cars because traffic wasn't moving fast enough. They have no idea.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: markbike528CBX on June 08, 2017, 09:53:32 AM
Quote from Mr Green illustrating the mental white noise of decision making pre-FIRE vs post-FIRE.
+1

I've been reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle which could be summarized by Mr Green's post.
It is really hard to "be in the Now"  with all the micro-decisions in ones life.  Mr Green's post made it obvious why seekers of enlightenment retreat to a quiet place and are quiet.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: bebegirl on June 08, 2017, 11:03:19 AM
Advice for a 17 year old from Cyaphas


Wow! Amazing advice! Thanks for sharing! ))
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: neo von retorch on June 08, 2017, 11:19:53 AM
Quote from Caoineag (with permission!)

My feelings on risk

I have been seeing a lot of posts about people wanting to plan out the future and worrying terribly about the what ifs if they retire too soon because something might change after their retirement and I understand those type of concerns so I have avoided posting anything too point blank in the forums about this but figured I would do a post here to explain why I have a hard time with people putting their lives on hold for what ifs. I may have posted something similar somewhere or not, I know I have certainly thought about it a lot and it might help anyone following my journal to understand my philosophy better. This post might be a bit morbid for some people so feel free to skip it.

*Personal details snipped*. One or both of us may not either so the earlier we retire, the more likely we are to experience it.

It is entirely possible that cancer will kill me. *Edited* Its also possible that one day I will get sick, or get in an accident and then my life will be over. Even if I beat the odds and reach old age, there is no guarantee that my husband will. Or any of the other people I know and love. Knowing this, means that I need to focus on making decisions I won't regret, spend as much time as I am able enjoying the life I have, the people I love and not worry about the unimportant things. Despite all the grief and pain we experience in life, life is beautiful, limited and precious.

I want to spend as much time with my husband making memories with him before anything happens to one or the other of us. Maybe we have to work later for a little bit because we retired now (whether for money, healthcare, etc) but at least we will have had some time to do things together that we wanted to do. We are good at being flexible and that is a skill that will serve us well in all the versions of our life that we may live.

Anyways, the point of this is just that you have to balance the risks of what ifs with the risks of if only. You will never be able to plan for all of it, you just have to do the best (for you, using your standards) you can with what you have and live life as fully as you are able.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dividendman on June 08, 2017, 01:24:05 PM
To follow
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BTDretire on June 08, 2017, 03:35:15 PM
I just happened to run across this post which answered a question my husband and I had been searching all over the internet to find the answer to.  This seems to happen to me quite a bit on this site.  Someone posts an explanation of  a question I have that thoroughly answers the question so I can understand it perfectly!

Don't worry about the disclaimer from SSA saying "based on the assumption that you will earn $117,000 a year from now until retirement." Even if you quit working now and earn/contribute $0 from here on, your benefits will be very close to those estimates. You have already contributed, by far, the lion's share to Social Security for accruing benefits. In fact, you are now only accruing very small increases to your projected payments based on Social Security's progressive nature (it's complicated, but you are now getting back only pennies for all the dollars you contribute).

For comparison, your numbers and mine are fairly close. I'm a bit younger than you (48) , so your impact to stopping working now will be even less. I went through the detailed calculation of my actual benefit to figure out just how much impact that disclaimer would have, and here's the difference:

Estimated payment at full retirement age (67) and continuing to earn: $2235
Actual payment at full retirement age (67) with zero earnings from now on (i.e., ignoring the disclaimer): $2173

As you can see, the difference is negligible ($62/month out of $2235, so about 3% or less??). Definitely not worth continuing to work another 19 years for that! I could go through the other figures for early retirement and full retirement ages, but the result is the same: The difference between continuing to earn and stopping all earnings is negligible to the future SS payout.

Whoa!  That is good information to know! 

This is a great thread.  I'm glad I found it!

 I very recently calculated if I continue at my wage for 5 more years I'll increase my SS check
by $52 a month, if I retire and shift our business income to my wife she will increase her SS by $257 a month.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on June 09, 2017, 11:36:13 AM
Following. Grimm Squeaker appears to be a clear MVP candidate.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on June 09, 2017, 12:02:26 PM
Hey, neo, thanks for posting ^that^. Just read it and would have sought permission to post here next, so thanks and thanks. Great post, Caoineag!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on June 12, 2017, 07:02:50 AM
Haven't read The Global Debt Trap, but from the synopsis you provided, it is not unique. It was probably written in 2009 at the bottom of the market to investors looking for a paradigm to understand what happened and what would happen next. However, it was a wrong / debunked approach.

Assumptions of classical, pre-depression economics:

1) Money has zero value unless the government guarantees to exchange it upon demand for (of all valuable things in the world this one thing) gold.
2) Government should not intervene in recessions/depressions because a "cleansing" process must occur. Metaphorically, this is a religious redemption.
3) Inflation occurs because the number of dollars in existence are like shares in a company, and to expand the number of dollars is to dilute existing shareholders.

Let's pick apart these assumptions one at a time.

1) Money only has value because people agree to use it as a medium of exchange. In that sense, it is the same as gold. Its value is in our heads. It is a token system for exchanging and storing the outputs of work. Many elements are more scarce than gold, yet not exchangeable for as much cash. FWIW, the value of the US dollar became more stable in the decades since the "gold standard" was dropped and the dollar became a fully fiat currency.

2) Read up on Herbert Hoover's response to the Great Depression, and what we learned. The "cleansing" that was expected only got worse, and "liquidating" everyone was a humanitarian catastrophe. Note how Ben Bernanke's response to the Great Recession was different than Andrew Mellon's response to what would become the Great Depression. You'll notice that books in this genre promote the discredited Herbert Hoover / Andrew Mellon set of assumptions. Most modern economists think government inaction exacerbated the Depression. http://potus-geeks.livejournal.com/450718.html 

3) To debunk this idea, compare a chart of M3 (one measure of monetary supply) against inflation. Do you see any relationship? As you can see, the amount of money in existence has exploded since that book was written, going from $8.5T to $13.3T.  Yet instead of experiencing hyperinflation like the theory suggests, the US has struggled to avoid deflation and get inflation consistently above 2% for several years.
M3 chart: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MABMM301USM189S
Inflation table:http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/
Most modern-day economists think inflation is related to the velocity of money, not the quantity of it in existence.

Bottom line... read up on economics. It can be counterintuitive. Pulp books like the one you read seem commonsense and paint a clear picture of economic villains and a predictable future, which is why they sell well, but if you invest based on those assumptions, prepare to be burned. Never accept a theory that the data does not support.

Solid understanding of macroeconomics here, guys.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: oneday on June 25, 2017, 02:15:50 PM
Bicycle_B gives Adventine some advice against willy-nilly spending

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/throw-down-the-gauntlet/quick-slap-some-sense-into-me!/msg1584728/#msg1584728
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bracken_Joy on June 26, 2017, 06:20:53 PM
Bicycle_B gives Adventine some advice against willy-nilly spending

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/throw-down-the-gauntlet/quick-slap-some-sense-into-me!/msg1584728/#msg1584728

Wow. Really glad you linked that here, I had missed that thread. SOLID advice, and just what I need to hear today =)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: teen persuasion on June 27, 2017, 12:35:58 PM
Loved this analogy, from the what comes after the ACA thread:

 
Why do republicans put so much time and money into pro-life efforts and then try and kill 22 million people?

It doesn't make any logical sense.

Because in their minds, once you are an adult, you can earn enough to live or else die. They don't see health care as a right.

"Kill 22 million people."  I love lines like this. Because they add fear to the discussion without any backing of reality.  Who needs reality when you have fear.  Just an FYI, our hospital system treats about 20% of its patient who are uninsured and no pay.

If we were really serious about making healthcare affordable we would be yelling at our congress people to allow CMS to negotiate on medication purchases.  We would be pushing to decrease law suit liabilities from big pharma and minimize the regulatory burden the FDA imposes so that we can have less expensive drugs.  US has a much more stringent drug approval process as compared to European countries.  We would be pushing our congress people to demand educating the public on death with dignity. We would push to decrease the regulatory burden and unnecessary personnel involved in the delivery of healthcare. But no, we just clamor about who will pay the bill.

We all pay in some form or another except the very very poor who still qualify for medicaid.  And even they suffer because only so many providers are willing to accept the piss poor reimbursement of medicaid.  But hey, at least we can comfortably say we did not kill 22 million people.

You're not wrong!

But this argument is like saying we should campaign our government representatives for a better sprinkler and alarm system while half of them are filing up the kerosene tanks on their flamethrowers. Yes, cost control is extremely important and we should fight for it, but let's make sure nobody burns the building down first.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Moonwaves on June 28, 2017, 01:01:52 AM
This post from wwweb (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/need-a-simple-plan-i-can-understand-to-live-off-my-savings/msg1603172/#msg1603172) really stood out for me yesterday. From the thread Need a simple plan I can understand to live off my savings (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/need-a-simple-plan-i-can-understand-to-live-off-my-savings/)

Take a deep breath! You are in a great position. You and your wife are going to be fine. Take your time getting familiar with investing - it won't hurt to spend a few weeks just gathering information.

It sounds like you are confused about the mechanics of the 4% rule. Here is an simple example of how it works with some sample numbers.
1) You invest $1,000,000 in 70% stocks 30% bonds.
2) The first year you withdraw $40,000 from your account. The inflation rate is 2%
3) The second year you withdraw $40,800 (1.02*40,000) from your account. The inflation rate is 5%
4) The third year you withdraw $42,840 (1.05*40,800) from your account. The inflation rate is 3%
and so on. You have to handle the withdrawals (no one sends you a check). If the market falls, you still withdraw the calculated amount for that year.

As you do this the value of your investments will fluctuate. Sometimes they will double in value. Occasionally they will fall by 30% or more. They are likely to fall below their original value at some point. To follow the 4% rule you need to be able to stomach this. The worst thing you can do is invest your money in stocks, panic when the market falls 30%, and withdraw all your money. In my opinion, the most important thing you can do right now is get comfortable with the way the markets work. It is okay to take your time doing this. If you don't think you will be able to watch your net worth fluctuate by 30% or more in year, then all the advice to setup a Vanguard account is premature. Instead ask lots of questions and don't be afraid to ask for clarification if you don't understand something.

I hope this is helpful. If not feel free to ignore it.
Since I don't really expect to ever actually RE (I've gone for the moving to a low-paying, less hours job now to increase quality of life option), I've never really put any thought into, or read about, how the 4% rule actually works when you come to the other side of things and actually want to start withdrawing money. And I do struggle with concepts sometimes and need to have things explained in very simple, very practical terms. So it may be old hat for most mustachians, but I found this post really clicked and made sense of a whole lot of stuff that has gone into my head in the last few years but never entirely made sense.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Adventine on June 28, 2017, 04:28:53 AM
Bicycle_B gives Adventine some advice against willy-nilly spending

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/throw-down-the-gauntlet/quick-slap-some-sense-into-me!/msg1584728/#msg1584728

Wow. Really glad you linked that here, I had missed that thread. SOLID advice, and just what I need to hear today =)

I do go back to that thread every couple of days to reread! :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Trifle on June 28, 2017, 04:33:54 AM
Posting to follow.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on June 30, 2017, 07:31:44 AM
AxeCleaver on cultivating the habit of persistance.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/cleaving-to-fi/msg1599217/#msg1599217

For those who do not read AxeCleaver's journal, you are missing a lot of wisdom.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DeskJockey2028 on June 30, 2017, 07:49:01 AM
Also posting to follow. Great thread!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Vindicated on June 30, 2017, 10:15:31 AM
Quote from Mr Green illustrating the mental white noise of decision making pre-FIRE vs post-FIRE.


I actually meant white noise to be a little bit different than news. I mean all the little mundane decisions that you are forced to make daily that you don't realize how much they cumulatively weigh you down until you don't have to make them anymore.

My alarm just went off. Do I have a meeting today that I have to be in the office at a certain time or can I go back to sleep for a bit? Did I wear this shirt just a day or two ago? Can I wear it again today? If I time that light just right I'll get though it without having to sit. Do I speed up and try to tailgate the car in front of me a little because the guy merging is probably going to cut me off if I don't? Did I get in the right lane for where traffic slows down because it moves faster? Did I remember my badge getting out of the car? I have to remember to leave at 4pm because I have to be at this place at 5pm. This will give me enough time to get there unless traffic is hosed. I need to remember to check traffic before I leave work.

I think that illustrates the idea enough. Many of those questions/thoughts are always about ensuring that you can fit something into your schedule because you have work at a certain time and other obligations and only so much free time outside of those things. When 90% of your waking hours become "free time" it all just stops. All the sudden I didn't care if I made it through the traffic light. I didn't care about speeding up to try and prevent someone from cutting me off. I generally didn't drive as fast because I didn't feel pressed for time. I left for appointments a little earlier because I didn't care about waiting for 10 minutes. The grocery line was no longer frustrating.

Knowing that I had such limited free time created all those negative feelings and the noise of those thoughts and questions use brain power, whether we realize it or not. It's almost like death by a thousand paper cuts. Ironically, most folks will never know that this is how it really feels because they'll never stop working long enough for all those feelings and thoughts to dissipate, so they won't even realize they're burdened. I started to pity people who were screaming in their cars because traffic wasn't moving fast enough. They have no idea.

I loved this.  Thanks!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Steelers1982 on June 30, 2017, 12:54:25 PM
Sorry to dig this one up from the dead... but being a 34 year old who is recently into MMM... This hit the nail precisely on the head to how I currently feel.  Even down to the 15 years to retirement(although my goal is 13, 15 is probably my realistic number). 

Saw this on Pooperman's journal.

Dude...i know how you feel. I mentioned it in another thread about stache envy, but i said i dont have that, I have age envy. Seeing people 10 years younger thinking what-if, and seeing people 15 yrs older and wanting to fast forward time.

i feel like the process is:
1) discover mmm
2) obsess over mmm
3) murder spreadsheets for months and months and months
4) repeat steps 2-3 for many months
5) take a break from mmm
6) Your 10-20 year plan is set in place...
7) ...so now what? freakin sit and wait? it sucks!
8) come back to mmm to piddle around while you watch the calendar

I've come to the conclusion that next year my goal should be to do all the things i always talk about doing. Develop some REAL hobbies. Camping, fishing, woodworking, reading, gardening, etc. I need to develop these things to 1) pass this awful 15 waiting period til retirement, 2) actually live life, and 3) find something to retire to rather than from

But its tough. Everyday i think to myself, "self, you have a plan in place, now what?"....sounds like you are kind of there as well. Good luck!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: shelivesthedream on July 01, 2017, 05:03:04 AM
What if the world economy takes a sustained 30 year hit, you lose everything, and you have to get survival tips from the smelly dude on the freeway offramp with the cardboard sign?

What if you RE and wake up one day to find your spouse and his or her lover drained your accounts and ran off to Chile?

What if you drop dead at work choking on a bagel because you're working for the perfect, 100% guaranteed safe retirement savings?

What if you achieve the 100% bullet proof survival plan and the zombie apocalypse breaks out and you're stuck in a cornfield with a bunch of stupid teenagers chased by circus clown zombies?

What if you RE to fulfill your lifelong ambition work in an elephant sanctuary and one of the larger pachyderms sits on you?

What if there's a computer error and your ID gets mixed up with an illegal alien and Trump deports you to Mexico?

What if you truly are THE irreplaceable, key component of the workforce and your early retirement summarily ends world civilization?

What if you RE and all your relatives find out and all come to mooch off you?

What if you're on cruise control to RE when you eat tainted smashed avocado and you have to have your large and small intestines replaced at prohibitive cost?

What if aliens invade and you get drafted into the new United Nations Army and sent on a human wave attack armed with a sack of broccoli and a rock to save Disneyland?

What if you decide to imitate MMM and bicycle everywhere and get run over by the Nickelback Tour Bus?

What if you RE to do charity and decide to help the crazy cat lady next door only to find out she's, 1) A misanthrope and, 2) A witch, when she turns you into a Russian Blue?

What if you RE and live a long, hearty life doing whatever the hell you want, whenever the hell you want and change the world for the better by being epically chill?

What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if?What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if?


There are no guarantees.  You direct your life according to your values/desires, reckon the odds, plan as best you can, pray if you've got the faith, and go forth as boldly as you dare.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: rpr on July 01, 2017, 05:44:16 AM
Great collection! P2F.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Sydneystache on July 01, 2017, 05:45:12 AM
Damn, beat me to it. I'm sure @EricL works in Hollywood :-P

My favourite is : What if aliens invade and you get drafted into the new United Nations Army and sent on a human wave attack armed with a sack of broccoli and a rock to save Disneyland.

Sooooo Alice in Wonderland that even my DS had a chuckle. Why save Disneyland?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: shelivesthedream on July 01, 2017, 07:04:03 AM
Damn, beat me to it. I'm sure @EricL works in Hollywood :-P

My favourite is : What if aliens invade and you get drafted into the new United Nations Army and sent on a human wave attack armed with a sack of broccoli and a rock to save Disneyland.

Sooooo Alice in Wonderland that even my DS had a chuckle. Why save Disneyland?

My favourite is: what if you are truly THE irreplaceable component of the workforce and your retirement precipitates the end of world civilisation?

Everyone secretly thinks they're special :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: With This Herring on July 01, 2017, 01:20:12 PM
Everyone else may know about this one already, but member MacGyver has kindly coded a line of javascript that will let you filter the "Unread posts since your last visit" page AND the "New replies to your posts" page to exclude journals.  This is great if you like to read just a few journals but aren't interested in all of them when you go to the unread pages.

PtboEliz:

I created this Javascript bookmarklet (see toggle-journal-posts.txt attachment) to toggle unread posts from the Journals category.

Add a bookmark to your browser with the contents of the [.txt] file as the URL for the bookmark. Then, when you're on the Unread Posts (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/unread/) page, clicking the bookmarklet will show or hide any post that is in the Journals category.

The source to the bookmarklet is in the second attachment (toggle-journal-posts.js). I ran the source through https://jscompress.com and http://mrcoles.com/bookmarklet/ to create the bookmarklet code in toggle-journal-posts.txt. You can edit the source file to add additional categories that you want to toggle by updating the "exclude" array. Run the source through JSCompress and the Bookmarklet generator again before re-saving your bookmark.

Enjoy!

I've updated the script to allow one to exclude both posts/topics and categories from any topics page (i.e. Unread, Journals, Off-Topic, etc.). I've also added some instructions and comments to the original source for those wanting to modify the script.

Enter the full URL to the post/topic or category that you want to hide from the topics page. For instance:

exclude = [
   'http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/',
   "http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/a-merciful-break-in-the-heat/",
];

Will hide any post within the Journals category and the post "A merciful break in the heat" (the last post in the Off-Topic page).

Enjoy again!
When done editing your list of excluded items, compress your source using JSCompress (https://jscompress.com), convert the code into a Bookmarklet (http://mrcoles.com/bookmarklet/), and save it to your bookmarks/favorites list.

One click later, and you'll be toggling visibility on those posts/topics and categories in your exclude list.

Bolding added for emphasis.

The files are attached to the original two posts (which you can access by clicking on the link at the top of either quote).
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nouveauRiche on July 03, 2017, 01:29:24 PM
I just thought this from aceyou was pretty neat:

When I was younger, even in high school, I remember contemplating how people had very different incomes, but all seemed to retire at the same time, which seemed illogical to me.  I'd ask myself, "isn't it weird that everyone who makes 3 times more than average chooses to buy 3 times the stuff, rather than retiring 3 times earlier".  I'd think about why high earners never seemed to choose to live in tiny houses, buy used cars, and just get out in a few years.  But since I was unaware that anyone was doing it, I more or less just went with the flow. 

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: teen persuasion on July 04, 2017, 10:51:14 AM

My favourite is: what if you are truly THE irreplaceable component of the workforce and your retirement precipitates the end of world civilisation?

Everyone secretly thinks they're special :)

My favorite, too.  I realized just how replaceable we all are when my director died unexpectedly quickly in 2014.  We kept the place running, but there were lots of unknowns that Rose just quietly handled, and we had to reinvent the wheel, over and over.  Two and a half years later, two directors later, and I find I'm the only staff member left from "before Rose died", hell, the only staff member with more than one year experience.  I still feel like the "new" person, as the staff I started with had worked there for decades.  The board of trustees is also turning over, so lots of loss of continuity and institutional memory.

But the library lives on!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on July 05, 2017, 01:07:29 PM
How the One Percent Lives

Little FL fell asleep in the car on an outing this weekend, and so as not to wake him, we drove around for a while. Our aimless driving took us to Plandome (https://www.redfin.com/city/15139/NY/Plandome), a very rich NYC suburb on the north shore of Long Island.

It was one display of extreme opulence after another: gated estates surrounded by rolling parkland, or big, gorgeous mansions on hilltops shaded by old trees. And I had the thought: I could have a life like this.

OK, maybe not the giant multimillion-dollar estates, but I could afford a decent luxury house, say around $1 to 1.5 million. Even in the HCOL NYC suburbs, that would go far. I realize that I'm a high earner compared to a lot of people, and I don't deny it's a privilege to make that kind of salary.

Even so, the asterisk is: I could buy a house like that if I was willing to cash out my stash for a down payment and devote my salary for the next 30 years to paying off the mortgage. And that's not even counting taxes, upkeep, or any other expenses (a groundskeeper to mow the lawns and trim the hedges? maids to clean those hardwood floors and granite countertops? a luxury car to "go with" the house? country club membership to get to know the neighbors?).

With that thundercloud of debt hanging over my head, I'd have no choice but to accept any long hours or poor treatment my bosses might dish out. I'd never be able to go part-time or quit, and if I lost my job I'd be screwed. That's not the life I want to chain myself to.

But many high earners do accept that bargain. The people who own those houses are making a ton of money, but a lot of them are spending all or almost all of it just to demonstrate status, to prove they've "made it." They're mortgaged to their fingernails, working such long hours (https://qz.com/134064/the-industrial-revolution-destroyed-the-link-between-hours-worked-and-wealth-so-why-are-we-still-working-so-much/) that they hardly ever see the mansions they're working so hard to afford.

This is how I know Mustachianism has gotten into my head. I'm not some Buddhist monk. When I see something nice, I still get that knee-jerk reflex of "I want it!" But after the first flush of wanting fades, I ask myself how many years of my life I'd be willing to trade for it. For a house like this, the only answer is "Not that many."

It also helps to remind myself what else I could do with that money. The cash that would buy one of those houses, if invested, would be more than enough to fund decades of comfortable retirement almost anywhere else in the world. It would be working for me instead of against me, growing and compounding rather than costing me in interest. This way of thinking makes those mansions seem like such a bad bargain, it's hard to believe that so many people are willing to make it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Sydneystache on July 05, 2017, 04:37:28 PM
The thing is, that Plandome McMansion is the start of it. You cannot live in that neighbourhood foregoing other expenses your neighbours use: maid, chauffeur, golf club memberships, private schools etc.

Love how Firelane talked himself out of his luxury prison!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: deborah on July 09, 2017, 09:40:38 PM
From the "cheap things that make you happy thread"...
Homemade hot-chocolate

Marshmellows over a fire

Oh I forgot.... reading the MMM forum ;)

All this.

Plus, hanging out with you.

You're cheap and you make me happy. :D
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on July 13, 2017, 10:13:12 AM
When RyanRyan asks about holding cash until the bottom of the recession, SmokyStache hits this one out of the ball park!

RyanRyan,
It is a very compelling goal - I too would love to be able to save myself some money and maximize returns. I believe that looking back (below is a 20 year S&P returns example), that it seems so obvious that we could sell "somewhere" the top and buy "somewhere" near the bottom (it doesn't have to be perfect, after all, look how much difference is between the highs and the lows!!!). After all, I realize that I can't pick the exact high and the exact low, but even getting close looks like it would be a huge advantage. Right!?!

(http://awealthofcommonsense.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SP-10-Yr.png)

Unfortunately that's wrong. One reason is the power of just a handful days. One of the most compelling realizations for me to avoid trying to buy/sell into highs/lows is when I learned about the power of missing out on the X (5, 20, etc.) best days in the market over a period of time and how that would affect my long term returns. For example, the graph below shows that if you miss out on just the 10 best days over 20 years and your return would drop 3.75% (From almost ~10% return to ~6%). Ouch.

Miss out on the next best 10 days and your returns drop even further to 3.6% (Obviously, this is just one example).

So among other factors, the question is NOT "Can I see when the market is kinda close to the top and kinda close to the bottom" - the real question is: "Can I predict the 1 day every two years when I will get huge returns?" And then during the next bull/bear cycle, can you do it again, and again....  Because if you don't, you'll lose out on huge gains.

(http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5500d5eeeab8ea8556b843e1-1200-900/cotd-missed-days.png)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on July 16, 2017, 08:41:42 AM
Talking to someone who is considering OMY:

I was very much where you are, until an irresistable redundancy offer pushed me over the cliff.

My friend, you are institutionalised.  You have been in a prison called "working at X500 Corp" for the last 15 years.  That is a life sentence.  Now you have all the problems that anyone coming out of prison has: resetting your life, and doing it without that externally imposed timetable that says that every Monday at 9am you have to be in the prison laundry and every Tuesday at 10.30 am you have to be in the prison exercise yard.

It's great that you have a project to move on to.  But my recommendation would be to spend at least a month after you retire doing exactly nothing (possibly doing nothing in a favourite place in the world), just to let the reality of your life reset sink into your pores while the prison stink leaches out.

You are young (relatively), educated, healthy and wealthy.  You can press the button on your retirement now and be fine.  You can always earn more money, you can never earn more years.

Good luck.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Double Yu on July 16, 2017, 06:36:34 PM
following

thanks for starting this - lots of great linked-to reading here and much food for thought!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on July 18, 2017, 09:57:40 PM
Written in regards to worrying about eking out a slightly lower WR for fear of running out of money, and working extra years to do so, to help "ensure" you don't fail at FIRE:

(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2555/32137492394_f092c80db8_b.jpg)

What I am saying is having the money you planned to spend each year in FIRE is only one element to being successful at retiring. There are lots of ways you can fail at FIRE that don't involve running out of money.

- poor health [physical and/or mental]
- dying early
- damaging important relationships
- not developing any other interests outside of work to transition to in retirement
- etc...

Not only are these ^^^ types of issues not mitigated by a low WR, but if you work extra years you are likely to exacerbate them. People focus on money because it's easy to calculate, spreadsheet and there is a lot of fear in our society around money, but it's far from the most important risk FIRE success. I'd put your health and time ahead of money if I was prioritizing FIRE risks, but that's not what I read about on MMM much.

Awesome chart thanks to Maizeman. It always helps me put things in perspective.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on July 19, 2017, 05:52:13 AM
can anyone tell me what graphing program Maizeman used?  I love the look
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Vindicated on July 19, 2017, 06:28:50 AM
can anyone tell me what graphing program Maizeman used?  I love the look

He has mentioned it before in his journal, but I don't recall off-hand.  Most of his data work is over my head :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on July 19, 2017, 07:56:43 AM
can anyone tell me what graphing program Maizeman used?  I love the look

He has mentioned it before in his journal, but I don't recall off-hand.  Most of his data work is over my head :)

Yep, check his journal. It's only 3 or 4 pages, pretty short, and worth reading anyways.

IIRC it's matlab with an xkcd plugin (which you can google and I think it's on github, or the journal has the exact link if you can't find it there).  :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: oneday on August 02, 2017, 10:00:07 PM
This one hits too close to home...

Welcome!   You've gotten a ton of great advice from the previous posters, so I'll refrain from specific spending advice.

In good news, if you do find the motivation to make cuts you are going to be able to make SO much progress so quickly.  The spending you posted for the end of July is very promising indeed.   You have a great income and the childcare expenses won't last forever.

I would highly recommend reading Your Money or Your Life by Joseph Dominguez and Vicki Robin.  This was very helpful for me in figuring out what is important to me and understanding how little I was living in accordance with those purported values.  For me --- I said I valued time with my family, travel, theater, and supporting local businesses.  But my spending said that I valued chain restaurants, alcohol, boxed food from the giant grocery store, and mindless spending.   It was eye opening seeing the disconnect.   

Your spending in your original post says your highest priorities are eating pricey meals away from home and buying random shit from Target/Amazon.  Is that who you want to be?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mustachepungoeshere on August 03, 2017, 12:08:57 AM
PTF
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: deborah on August 03, 2017, 02:11:30 AM
I'm advocating that we not pretend that the market, at high as it is right now, will actually realize the historical market returns that the 4% rule blindly assumes.

I'm advocating that the market WILL.  I will literally wager a million dollars that a 4% SWR will survive for 30 years, on the exact day I retire.  I have no hesitation about this bet.

But you're not an aspiring early retiree, and you don't believe in (or even understand, apparently) the historical analysis this decision is based on.  In fact, I'm not even sure why you're here.

Please go away.  Work just as long as you like.  Bet against the stock market all you like.  Wallow in pessimism and doom as much as you like.  Just stop doing it here.

Because frankly I'm sick and tired of all these folks showing up in carefully researched and referenced threads they have not read and loudly shouting the opposite conclusion without any evidence, forethought, or credibility.  You degrade the quality of this conversation and you look like an ignorant rube.  Just read the thread already, and you'll see that all of your questions and naive criticisms have already been answered thoughtfully by caring people with professional expertise.

But we all know I'm fooling myself.  You won't read it.  You don't want real answers because you're not asking real questions.  You're regurgitating cable show talking points without any understanding of context or motivation.  You've been duped, and it shows.  Your consistent and total refusal to accept the education offered to you here is, I suppose, a clear explanation as to why you were so easily duped in the first place, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

So to reiterate: please go somewhere else.  The internet is full of forums targeted at people just like you, places where you will be welcomed with open arms.  Here, you do not fit in.  Here, you are obviously out of place, a single black rose in a field of yellow daylilies.  Go away, and leave us in peace to spread our message of hope and optimism to others eager to escape their 9-5 treadmill of oppression and despair.  You are clearly happy with that life, but it has no place here and neither do you.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on August 04, 2017, 08:00:41 AM
Deborah and Sol-
was there context that made Runewell's inquiry particularly frustrating?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Turkey Leg on August 04, 2017, 08:09:46 AM
Deborah and Sol-
was there context that made Runewell's inquiry particularly frustrating?

Click the link at the top of Deborah's post (the text that reads "Quote from: sol on August 02, 2017, 10:48:27 AM") and you'll be taken to the thread to get the context.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: sw1tch on August 04, 2017, 09:08:10 AM
PTF...
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on August 04, 2017, 04:38:11 PM
Wow what great posts !!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mustachepungoeshere on August 07, 2017, 11:44:46 PM
... Question:  is your drive to FIRE in 7 years driven by your past experience of losing the job/house with an infant?  If so, that would be completely understandable -- we've lost the primary job with a newborn as well, and had to sell my dream house and move to another state for DH to be able to find a new job.  It was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through, and it left me for years afterwards feeling like the Sword of Damocles was dangling over my head.  So it is completely logical and natural that you would come out of that wanting to FIRE ASAP, so that if the shit hits the fan, you can just say "fuck this" and walk.  The problem is it takes years to get there -- even on an extremely tight budget.  So how do you feel secure in the interim?  FWIW -- and this is just from my own experience, so YMMV -- to me, the best way I found was to keep all of our necessary expenses to what we could afford on the lowest earner's income.  That way, I knew that I wouldn't ever have to leave my dream house and uproot my life again if we didn't want to.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Snow on August 08, 2017, 03:35:24 AM
Posting to follow. This thread is great!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: brooklynguy on August 09, 2017, 05:09:37 PM
Maizeman on acceptance of risk as "the price of being alive":

runewell, what is your suggestion and why?
No particular suggestion, just saying that if we can't predict the future, why do we have any reason to believe the 4% rule will work at all.

You are right. The future is unknowable, all we can do is make our best efforts to forecast which futures are more likely than others.

Your chance (or mine) of dying in an asteroid impact is somewhere between 1:75,000 and 1:700,000. More personally, sudden cardiac arrest is a threat we all live with every day of our lives. Basically every time you or I go to sleep, there is a chance we're never going to wake up for one reason or another. So we triage what we're going to worry about every day based both on (1) our estimates of how likely a particular issue is to occur, and (2) our ability to do anything to effectively avoid it or prepare for it. I may very well die from cancer, but there's not much I can do to mitigate that so I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it. I'm about equally likely to die from heart disease, but there I can reduce the risk somewhat through diet and exercise, so I spend a bit more time thinking about that one. I could also do things to reduce my risk of death by mountain lion (avoid their habitat, carry a weapon when hiking), but I've chosen not to because my estimate of the overall risk is so low to begin with.

Now if I die in a mountain lion attack, or FIRE on 4% of my stash and run out of money, I'll feel a bit foolish (though obviously not for very long in the case of the mountain lion). But that's the price of being alive. We spend our lives making the best choices we can with the data we have at the time and we don't really know if they were the right choices or not until our lives are over.

Edited to fix typo (in my lead-in, not in maizeman's quoted post).
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Padonak on August 09, 2017, 09:53:18 PM
Following
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on August 17, 2017, 06:03:22 AM
The thread itself was pushed by anti-vax trolling, but Tass had a response that knocked it out of the park:
(link to the full thread is here (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/vaccines-vol-2/msg1662507/#msg1662507))
Hi iceberg. As far as I can tell both your duplicate threads have requests to delete them, so I'm just picking one and running with it.

I'm a PhD student in biology, and I wanted to let you know that medcraveonline is an incredibly sketchy source of information. Their "about us" page reads like it was written by a thesaurus algorithm:

Quote from: Medcrave
We are amazed by science and its wonderful forms and we now bring this beauty to you too. MedCrave is a collection of many perspectives, essays, research content and other works of pure significance. The topics covered are relevant to science and are open for all interested members around the globe. They range from the traditional divisions to contemporary works.

Compare that to the mission statement of Nature (one of the most respected bio journals in the world):

Quote from: Nature
First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science. Second, to ensure that the results of science are rapidly disseminated to the public throughout the world, in a fashion that conveys their significance for knowledge, culture and daily life.

I think it's clear they aren't participating in the same scientific ecosystem.

Medcrave's peer review system provides very little space for a paper to be rejected, implying very low standards of credibility - they'll publish whatever they can get their hands on, essentially. A journalist at The Scientist magazine demonstrated this handily when he submitted a completely made-up prank manuscript that was published in a Medcrave journal, for a requested "nominal fee" of only $800! He refused to pay the fee, and Medcrave published his completely fake work anyway. He said: "My short-term goal is to expose MedCrave as a publisher that will print fiction, for a price. My long-term goal—an ambitious one, I know—is to stop the production of predatory journals altogether." http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49071/title/Opinion--Why-I-Published-in-a-Predatory-Journal/ (http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49071/title/Opinion--Why-I-Published-in-a-Predatory-Journal/)

Medcrave also has deployed what I can only assume is an army of bots across the internet to counter the perception that they are a predatory journal; blogs like this (1) and this (2) have no content except repetitive posts insisting that Medcrave is reliable. The bots also flood the comments on sites like this (3), pretending to be multiple people and again insisting that Medcrave is great. Their identical stunted English gives them away.
(1) http://medcravenotpredatorypublisher.podbean.com/ (http://medcravenotpredatorypublisher.podbean.com/)
(2) http://medcrave-is-not-predatory-publisher.blogspot.com/ (http://medcrave-is-not-predatory-publisher.blogspot.com/)
(3) https://www.quora.com/What-is-Medcrave-predatory-publisher (https://www.quora.com/What-is-Medcrave-predatory-publisher)

In summary, nothing published by this company - and they own several "journals" - can be assumed to be reliable or even real.

I have seen the specific articles you cite, though, so I'll address them in brief. First, if we google the author of "Micro- and nanocontamination," Antonietta Gatti, her CV shows up here: http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/scmp/documents/cv_gatti_en.pdf (http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/scmp/documents/cv_gatti_en.pdf)

You'll note it contains alarming formatting and grammar mistakes, including claiming she is a "Doctor in Experimental Phisics". This should be a *bit* of a red flag. She also doesn't have a faculty webpage, and neither does her co-author (and apparent husband) Stefano Montanari, though he has a blog. Most legitimate researchers working for scientific institutes and universities have home pages with those organizations that list their qualifications, their research interests, and their accomplishments; for example, here is the page of one of 2016's Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry: http://stoddart.northwestern.edu/Index.php?View=Fraser_Stoddart/General.php (http://stoddart.northwestern.edu/Index.php?View=Fraser_Stoddart/General.php)

Googling the authors also led me to this blogger's deconstruction of the flaws of the paper, which is going to save me a lot of time. (They're a bit scornful of antivaxxers, so I apologize if you find them disrespectful, but I request that you keep a level head and read their points fairly, if only so that I don't have to restate them all more nicely.)
https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/another-anti-vaccine-article-bad-journal-bad-data/ (https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/another-anti-vaccine-article-bad-journal-bad-data/)

Here's the basic takeaway:
Quote from: SkepticalRaptor
The numbers are well below the level of biological activity, if these various chemicals even have biological activity (most don’t). For example, the authors found 1569 particles or precipitates in one drop of Cervarix (an anti-HPV vaccine). Sounds horrific right? Except that one drop of vaccine contains around 1.39 X 10^21 individual molecules. This so called contamination approximately 0.0000000000000000000719% of these so called contaminants.

For the second paper, I had even more trouble connecting the authors to legitimate scientific institutions. The first author only turns up soccer results (which is fine; he seems to be an undergraduate). The last author (typically where you put the name of the supervising scientist) doesn't have any affiliation to an institution, which means there's no way for me to be sure which Klaus Weber to look for. Is it this guy (4) at Northwestern's school of management, and if so, what does he know about vaccines? Is it this guy (5) who made legitimate scientific contributions to biochemistry, and if so, how is it that this paper was published after he was already dead? The whole thing is pretty shifty.
(4) http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/directory/weber_klaus.aspx (http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/directory/weber_klaus.aspx)
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Weber (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Weber)

I apologize if there's a more elegant way to format those links, I'm still learning my way around this forum.

Unfortunately my computer is dying and I don't want to lose this work, so I won't be looking at the rest of that paper in any detail. If you had any specific points about it I'd be happy to look at it again later when I have a charging cable.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Kl285528 on August 17, 2017, 06:43:51 AM
PTF
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Zoot on August 17, 2017, 05:12:38 PM
Posting to follow.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on August 17, 2017, 05:48:16 PM
I really liked this response in the WhiteTrashCash journal about the role education played in lifting oneself out of a cycle of an impoverished upbringing. It seems as if poverty is equal parts economic as well as educational/intellectual deprivation. 
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/whitetrashcash's-journey-from-the-trailer-park-to-wealth-and-happiness/msg1663919/#msg1663919

I just found your journal and I'm posting to follow.  I read the first page and I can't even begin to explain to you how much it resonates with me.  Between my two divorced parents I lived in 4 different trailers growing up.  Every single thing you have said so far about hillbilly/white trash ideology is completely true.  I was lucky that I read like no other growing up and I put myself through school to escape from that lifestyle.  Unfortunately no one else in my family, not even my younger siblings have figured it out yet. 

I'm an economist now and my graduate thesis was about income inequality and education's impact on it.  You mention early on in your journal that you graduated with $75k in student loans but without them you wouldn't have gotten a job that allowed you to enter the middle class.  This is completely true and we have hard statistical evidence to back it up!  I've tried to get others on this forum (and in real life) to understand this but they just don't get it.  It is "fashionable" right now to argue that school is a waste of time/money or that if you cannot pay for it outright without loans you shouldn't go.  A direct quote out of my thesis said "Higher education is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for making it from the lowest income quintile to middle class."  This is essentially saying that for a child born into poverty, they cannot make it to middle class without higher education (which could be a trade school or normal college); however, higher education isn't enough and not everyone who receives this education will make it to the middle class.  In contrast, children born into middle class or higher families may not need higher education to live middle class lifestyles, but children born into poverty do.  You've figured that out for yourself!

Kudos to you for realizing your potential, from another whitetrash graduate trying to live a mustachian lifestyle!  I really look forward to catching up on your journal and reading along!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: aetherie on August 25, 2017, 05:57:48 AM
dpc on giving money to charity and perspective:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/disgusting-question-donation-to-charities/msg1671495/#msg1671495
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: solon on August 25, 2017, 09:13:58 AM
dpc on giving money to charity and perspective:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/disgusting-question-donation-to-charities/msg1671495/#msg1671495

I agree, that is the best thing I saw (or will see) on the forums today.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on August 28, 2017, 07:12:09 AM
Pretty much this whole thread on the use of gold in your asset allocation:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/gold-price-and-the-hazards-of-backtesting/

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on September 03, 2017, 08:44:07 PM
I really liked this post by Chasefish today, because it was such an honest appraisal of the futility of dividend chasing/stock picking. The post reinforces the virtues of passive stock index investing.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/what-do-you-think-of-dividend-growth-income/?topicseen

I accumulated a DGI portfolio from 2010 to 2013, now I'm struggling with it.  Here's the downside to doing it:

I've invested mostly in a taxable account because I've maxed out my deferred options.  I have some nice holdings that were awesome companies 4-5 years ago, but are now struggling this year.  One company can come in and displace the other, and you still win by owning the index because you get the net effect of economic growth.

One of my holdings is Genuine Parts Company - It is (was) the conservatively run parent company of NAPA with all these other parts divisions.  NAPA was built on having a great logistics network and servicing the auto professional market (your corner mechanic), they got paid a premium price because of their ability to deliver on time.  I have some shares in the 40s for its cost basis and its a nice dividend aristocrat.

CEO/CFO retire and new folks are promoted.  They spent a bunch of money on acquisitions instead of internal infrastructure and are now getting taken to the woodshed by Amazon and Starboard Value has taken a big stake in their rival Advance Auto Parts.   Its performance is now dreadful relative to the market, but I'm sitting on individual shares I have to pay pretty hefty capital gains on.   Will they survive?  Probably. 

Banks were also on the aristocrat list until 2008.  It was disproportionately full of banks and banks should be a reflection of the US Economy, with them going a little more up when times are good and a little more down when times are bad during leverage.   BBT was a dividend aristocrat.  "Paid a dividend through the great depression", 30x straight years of dividend increases, mainly located in the Southeast where economic growth is great.  So in September of 2003, you pay $38/share for BB&T stock and get a $0.32/share dividend.   14 years later, FOURTEEN YEARS, it now trades around $46/share and your dividend is $0.33.  It was trading below $40 a share before the start of this year!   In the same time period, VTI went from $49/share to $127/share and paid similar dividends for the second half of the comparison period.   The regulatory environment changed, scale began to matter more, acquisitions stopped being net positive. 

There's also the investment theory that a company only generates a dividend when they can no longer meet an acceptable rate of return by expanding their own company.  This would imply you're already buying "Yesterday's news" by going after the typical dividend aristocrats.   Look at the components of the 1970's Dow Jones Industrial Average.  How many of them are still in there today?  The top 30 companies in the DJIA look a lot like the dividend aristocrat list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_components_of_the_Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average

Take it from me, I've been there, I've worked my rear end off analyzing, analyzing, analyzing, and my returns are within 1% of the index.  It would have been a better use of all that time going on Rover and walking people's dogs and indexing the extra money. 

Good luck in your journey, I wish I could get the last 10-15 years of time back I spent analyzing all this crap.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on September 07, 2017, 07:05:51 AM
I've toyed with DGI. I'm grateful to this community for helping me to see that healthy dividends are the BI-Products, not the causes, of strong returns.

However, if you're determined to stock-pick (and it seems like a lot of people go through a phase when they are), is it the best risk/return way to do it?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on September 14, 2017, 02:16:49 PM
This was just the funniest response from Roe.

I think I understand the frustration here. If you're a dual, high income couple like Pete and his wife, or a lot of people on this forum, a large part of the blog is a success story that is realistic and repeatable. Even if you're not high income, there are great lessons to be learned.

But the economy can only support a relatively small number of celebrity bloggers who make money writing native advertising or passing out referral links. Chances are, you will not be one of them.

As such, Pete's more recent blog posts can seem alienating. And many readers find themselves at a crossroads. It was great in the beginning, watching the dramatic impact on your FIRE date that could be had by cutting out expensive things that, as it turns out, you don't actually value that highly. But eventually, you get to a point at which cutting expenses becomes undesirable. It becomes a bad trade-off. Living a shittier working life so that you can live a shittier retirement a few months sooner.

The MMM blog can't help you here. People write what they know, and what Pete knows, is retiring early by living simply, with a high savings rate (helpful, repeatable), and running a popular blog that brings in income and allows the expensing of an exciting and adventurous lifestyle (less helpful, not repeatable).

If you're saving 50%+ of your income and you're still not on the path that you want to be on, you probably need to make more money. Spending time reading about how to advance your career or start a business is probably more helpful to you than reading MMM at this point. You're just going to find yourself annoyed by naval gazing at MMM's hypothetical expenses and frittering over what should or shouldn't be listed.

This place is (jokingly) referred to as a cult for a reason. I think we could all stand to cool it on worrying about what is or isn't, "Mustachian". You have to set your own metrics for happiness and success. Getting input from the blog, or from others on this forum can be a huge help, but ultimately, you're the only one who matters.

Well put.

I also think part of the reason the forum tends to dwell on definitions of "Mustachianism", and part of the reason for the culty vibes, is that we are an analytical group. Lots of lawyers and engineers. Can't just throw out a statement about what something is, without properly defining it, assigning it a value.

Still, MMM changed my life. I don't care if Pete decides to rent a yatch and lounge around the tropics while a servant handfeds kobe beef to an army of chihuahua to make them wag their tails enough to create a gentle breeze. My life is still changed, no matter where he budgets the chihuahuas.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on September 17, 2017, 08:46:30 AM
Rdaneel0 on how to make sure you pick a good FIRE location to move to.

I have some insight on this because I grew up in a very rural LCOL area and now live in a super urban HCOL area. I've also lived in affluent suburbs, blue collar towns, and small cities.

There are people in all types of locations who are provincial and close minded, that's for sure, but in low population areas that aren't diverse (or are diverse but are highly segregated by both class and neighborhood), people are different. I am definitely going to leave our HCOL area for a cheaper place, but not a place that's so low cost that I can't enjoy my life. I'd rather work an extra 5-10 years and live in a place I like than retire earlier and live in a place I hate.

My husband and I have been researching areas to move to that are smaller and cheaper than where we live now, but still a good fit for us. Here are a few questions I ask myself when considering a city, maybe this will be helpful for others:

1. What is the population, is it growing or shrinking? I only consider cities that are over 200k and growing, I don't look at "metropolitan area" as this can be very misleading in urban sprawl areas. I avoid cities with declining populations.

2. What are the major employers in the city and who are the newcomers? When the major employers are government, schools, and healthcare, and there's little else, that's usually a sign of a pretty sleepy town with lots of likeminded people. I like small cities that have a few different areas of industry, and I really like small cities that have new companies moving there with some frequency.

3. Are there industries or organizations (or other factors) that might draw transplants? In my opinion, a bigger factor than population in terms of the culture of a place is the percentage of transplants. I have lived in cities that were a decent size but where almost everyone was born and raised there (or close to there), and those places feel like really small towns and outsiders often have a hard time.

4. Which businesses are thriving? I like to go on yelp and check out restaurants, grocery stores, boutiques, gyms, and other services/entertainment in the area. If a town is on the small side but has an Asian market, a Middle Eastern market, a fish shop, pubs, cafes, venues, an orchestra, and a college...odds are you'll find a fairly interesting population. If the only businesses are chain restaurants, big box stores, nail salons, malls, and things like that, you're in for a more homogeneous population.

5. What are the annual town/city events? Most local papers will have a section for annual events. Towns, even small towns, that have a diverse offering of well-attended events are usually a good choice. When you see arts festivals, beer festivals, music festivals, sporting events, cultural events, food events, and the like, it means people in the town care about and enjoy that stuff and have the money to spend at events like that. It also means there's a sense of community and public involvement.

6. What do the local newspapers report on? Local newspapers will teach you a lot about a place. If most of the paper is dedicated to reporting on crime, city/town hall, traffic, national events, and high school sports, that's a decent indication that you're looking at a fairly rural place without much happening. When a small newspaper reports on crime, city/town hall, traffic, national events, sports, AND upcoming public events, opening of new businesses, op-eds, features, reviews, profiles, things that show town pride, that's a nice sign that the town has a lot going on.

7. What's the demographic breakdown? I always check what the latest census says about the breakdown of race, age, income, and education in a city. I like a nice mix of people from different places, a good distribution of income, and a highly educated population.

8. How are the libraries, parks, and schools? I like to look at how much the city spends on things like public spaces and education as well as how locals feel about those areas. Reading reviews of parks and libraries is a great way to get a sense of how places are perceived/valued by the population. Also, when you see that a city is pouring money into urban development, small businesses, education, libraries, free entertainment, after school programs, and things like that, I think it's a really good sign of a place on the rise.

It's not a perfect system, but I think it's pretty good in terms of discerning between sleepy areas where people used to urban areas would struggle and LCOL areas that might be smaller but still enjoyable for people used to urban areas.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Eric222 on September 17, 2017, 09:48:06 AM
PTF
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CanuckExpat on September 18, 2017, 04:40:14 AM
Someone asked me the other day how I like not working, I told them I finally found my calling :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: maizefolk on September 22, 2017, 05:52:45 PM
Lhamo on Mr. Orange's FIRE Journal. (I've edited out some stuff specific to his own situation since it was posted on journals -- not indexed by search engines -- and this thread is.)

...
A question I often ask myself when I am caught up in something emotionally and finding it hard to move forward is:

Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?

It often helps me move forward in a more positive direction.

Simple words, but an incredibly important concept.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on September 24, 2017, 06:12:10 AM
WhiteTrashCash's brilliant analysis of "Why the white trash are in an uproar about football players not standing during the national anthem". Since it is in journals, I am posting a link

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/whitetrashcash's-journey-from-the-trailer-park-to-wealth-and-happiness/msg1707338/#msg1707338
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on September 25, 2017, 11:35:00 AM
Context: We were talking about a YubeTube channel where the guy switched from an RV to backpack around the world to a van to a house over the space of a few months.

I found this reply insightful for more than that one person's situation.

Yeah, his behavior does seem to indicate a certain level of desperation. I think people who are "living the dream" (and I certainly am among those people) can get a bit despondent when it doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would. I can understand his urge to make rapid-fire, half-hearted attempts to try new things when he got sick of #vanlife or whatever.

It can be hard sometimes when you live a life that everyone constantly tells you is amazing, but you're sick of it.

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lexde on September 26, 2017, 03:17:42 PM
Context: We were talking about a YubeTube channel where the guy switched from an RV to backpack around the world to a van to a house over the space of a few months.

I found this reply insightful for more than that one person's situation.

Yeah, his behavior does seem to indicate a certain level of desperation. I think people who are "living the dream" (and I certainly am among those people) can get a bit despondent when it doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would. I can understand his urge to make rapid-fire, half-hearted attempts to try new things when he got sick of #vanlife or whatever.

It can be hard sometimes when you live a life that everyone constantly tells you is amazing, but you're sick of it.
I remember this response catching my eye, too. Honestly this is one of my biggest fears: being unhappily FIREd. It's like grinding away at an RPG which sucks but you keep looking at the big picture, then you finally get all the good gear, and boss battles (bills) are no longer difficult, and the mini games and side quests (vacations/trips) get boring after a while now that you can beat them without grinding more. Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Playing with Fire UK on September 27, 2017, 01:24:45 AM
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: marty998 on September 27, 2017, 01:54:57 AM
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.

Yeah I agree, the whole point of FIRE is so that you can live that new life (play that new game).
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lexde on September 27, 2017, 05:38:36 AM
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.

Yeah I agree, the whole point of FIRE is so that you can live that new life (play that new game).
That's my hope! But that little bit of fear is still there for me (as with anything unknown!) and this guys experience shows that it sometimes feels like you're stuck in the old game. I hope FIRE opens new doors for me rather than feeling like I'm stuck in an after-credits game. But it's a long way off, anyway!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on September 27, 2017, 06:25:16 AM
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.

Yeah I agree, the whole point of FIRE is so that you can live that new life (play that new game).
That's my hope! But that little bit of fear is still there for me (as with anything unknown!) and this guys experience shows that it sometimes feels like you're stuck in the old game. I hope FIRE opens new doors for me rather than feeling like I'm stuck in an after-credits game. But it's a long way off, anyway!

In that case, instead of FIREing, just take a sabattical. You can always make that last longer or eternal. But at least it keeps the door open to go back to the working world. And there is no shame in deciding that the RE is not your thing and that you continue working in a nice job, under your conditions.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lexde on September 27, 2017, 06:54:10 AM
Then what? You get a new game. But you can't do that with life.

To me this is the exact point of FIRE. I mean you can't change who you are, but you can absolutely change the focus of your life. Getting a new exciting hobby feels exactly like starting a new game to me.

Yeah I agree, the whole point of FIRE is so that you can live that new life (play that new game).
That's my hope! But that little bit of fear is still there for me (as with anything unknown!) and this guys experience shows that it sometimes feels like you're stuck in the old game. I hope FIRE opens new doors for me rather than feeling like I'm stuck in an after-credits game. But it's a long way off, anyway!

In that case, instead of FIREing, just take a sabattical. You can always make that last longer or eternal. But at least it keeps the door open to go back to the working world. And there is no shame in deciding that the RE is not your thing and that you continue working in a nice job, under your conditions.
That's so true. I definitely feel like I want to RE but my "retirement" may be running a small business or doing a side hustle just to stay busy. Who knows! And I like the idea of a sabbatical. Either way, FI will give me options which is something I don't really have right now.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on September 27, 2017, 08:38:54 AM

That's so true. I definitely feel like I want to RE but my "retirement" may be running a small business or doing a side hustle just to stay busy. Who knows! And I like the idea of a sabbatical. Either way, FI will give me options which is something I don't really have right now.
Sounds like you may be a prime candidate SWAMI (Satisfied Working Advanced Mustachian Individual). As a SWAMI, once you've reached FI-hood you can work however you like, choosing the jobs and hours that interest you independently of the salary and benefits. We intend to be SWARMIs for the next few decades as we slowly 'glide' into full FI/RE.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/30/weekend-edition-retire-in-your-mind-even-if-you-love-your-job/ (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/30/weekend-edition-retire-in-your-mind-even-if-you-love-your-job/)

ETA:  oops, fixed the acronym...
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lexde on September 27, 2017, 11:55:14 AM

That's so true. I definitely feel like I want to RE but my "retirement" may be running a small business or doing a side hustle just to stay busy. Who knows! And I like the idea of a sabbatical. Either way, FI will give me options which is something I don't really have right now.
Sounds like you may be a prime candidate SWARMI (Satisfied Working Advanced Mustachian Individual). As a SWARMI, once you've reached FI-hood you can work however you like, choosing the jobs and hours that interest you independently of the salary and benefits. We intend to be SWARMIs for the next few decades as we slowly 'glide' into full FI/RE.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/30/weekend-edition-retire-in-your-mind-even-if-you-love-your-job/ (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/30/weekend-edition-retire-in-your-mind-even-if-you-love-your-job/)
This, exactly! I had a feeling I'd read something like that before (because that's what MMM and the Mrs. do) but this re-read was great. Thank you! I needed that. Seems like that's my plan for now.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Adventine on September 27, 2017, 08:25:03 PM
Wait, is it SWAMI or SWARMI?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on September 27, 2017, 08:33:26 PM
No 'r'.  Also this thread got really off topic the last half dozen posts. Someone find us a good post to get us back on track. :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: gatortator on September 28, 2017, 10:13:58 AM
I have thought back on this quote often since I first read it.  The original thread is discussing "Camper trailors, boats, side by sides, and other expensive toys".

The question is never whether or not someone else's choices are inline with your priorities, but whether or not their actions are inline with their own priorities.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: gatortator on September 28, 2017, 10:51:34 AM
This was originally discussed on the thread "FIL addicted to bullets - what to do..."

This won't change your FIL, but it might help you and your wife cope a bit. I recently learned about what seems to me to be a constructive way to handle someone who constantly complains to you about the same thing. It's sort of a three strikes thing:

Next time they bring it up: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What do you think you're going to do about it?"

Next time after that: "Yes, I remember you mentioning this before. What did you do about it?"

Third time: "We're talked about this before. If it's not important enough to you to do anything about it, then it's not important enough for us to waste our time talking about it. Until you start taking action to change what you're complaining about it, I don't think you and I should talk about it. <change subject>"
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Le Barbu on September 28, 2017, 03:06:56 PM
This was originally discussed on the thread "FIL addicted to bullets - what to do..."

This won't change your FIL, but it might help you and your wife cope a bit. I recently learned about what seems to me to be a constructive way to handle someone who constantly complains to you about the same thing. It's sort of a three strikes thing:

Next time they bring it up: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What do you think you're going to do about it?"

Next time after that: "Yes, I remember you mentioning this before. What did you do about it?"

Third time: "We're talked about this before. If it's not important enough to you to do anything about it, then it's not important enough for us to waste our time talking about it. Until you start taking action to change what you're complaining about it, I don't think you and I should talk about it. <change subject>"

So usefull in so many situations! Thank you and the author!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on October 03, 2017, 10:03:48 AM
In response to the question "Do you ever go a day without spending money?"

I’m not sure exactly what my point is. I’m just wondering if anyone else struggles with this. I’ve also had some random expenses come up. I’ve been the middleman between friends who’ve been trying to sell/buy things so I’m having random fluff expenses (that zero out) in my transactions. Oil change. My tires have 54k miles on them so it’s due time to buy some new ones, albeit my Ford Focus is part of the lemon law lawsuit (and after 3 fixes  I’m on the verge of taking it in again because it still shudders/shakes when I accelerate from a stop randomly).

Other random stuff has just come up that I normally wouldn’t budget for, so it sort of feels like this universe is just trying to slow down my FI progress (albeit each month I still invest at least 50% of my income.) part of my sort of feels like saying screw it and just splurging for a while until things settle back down again.

Yeah, ok, so there's your problem.  All of the stuff I mentioned above is in my budget;* when I actually hand over cash or write a check is 100% irrelevant.  Oil changes and new tires are entirely predictable, known aspects of car ownership; you may not know exactly when it will happen but there's no doubt that it will happen.  So you'd better budget for it.  If your friends are selling stuff, and you want to buy, you need to plan for that, too.  Etc.

In short, you don't feel like you are treading water because of the number of days in which you have some sort of financial transaction.  You feel like you are treading water because you haven't planned for all your known expenses.  Your budget is a fiction, a pretty picture that you can never live up to. 

Look, my commute to work takes 16-23 minutes, depending on traffic variability.  I can plan on 16 minutes if I want to - and I might even hit that a few times a month.  But the other 20 of 22 days I will be annoyed because I failed to hit every single light perfectly, and it took 18 minutes, or 22, or whatever, and now I'm late, and dammit why can't the city just get its fucking lights timed correctly?  Or, you know, I can plan for it to take 23 minutes and generally arrive on time or even with time to spare.  Sure, once a year or so there'll be a huge fubar and it takes 45 minutes, and I growl and complain.  But then the next day it's back to 19 minutes and I'm back on track.

Tl;dr:  Set yourself up for success, not failure.  Figure out what your life actually costs, in the real world that you actually live in, and budget around that.

*Except for the damn cats.  But I have a big enough cash stash that that's not a problem.
As usual, Laura33 nails it.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/do-you-ever-go-a-day-without-spending-money/msg1717981/#msg1717981
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: shuagster on October 03, 2017, 03:33:12 PM
PTF
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Vegasgirl on October 04, 2017, 07:48:00 AM
Love this:

I also retired at 47 after losing passion for my career. It's been great, I definitely don't regret the decision. Like others, there was some trepidation about giving up the high pay and benefits and going from accumulation to withdrawals. But when you're done, you're done. Plus I was starting to dislike the marginal employee I was becoming. When you no longer like the work you're doing, it's inevitable you're going to become less effective, and I didn't feel it was fair to my coworkers or employers that I wasn't living up to my potential because my heart just wasn't in it any longer.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on October 05, 2017, 11:12:26 PM
On how to treat others:
A lot of [emotional intelligence] is about being self aware of your emotions and also recognizing other people are nothing like you! 

Going to the oldy but goody from the Bible...do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Awesome, right?  But most people read this and think, I should treat others how I like to be treated.  No!  That's only half way.  What you really want is for other people to take the time and figure out how you like to be treated and then treat you that way.  If we all treated everyone how we like to be treated, we would all be miserable because we are all unique humans with unique needs.  So, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, you have to really understand what they want and need and then give them that.  Because that is what you would want them to do for you. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on October 06, 2017, 01:06:48 AM
On how to treat others:
A lot of [emotional intelligence] is about being self aware of your emotions and also recognizing other people are nothing like you! 

Going to the oldy but goody from the Bible...do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Awesome, right?  But most people read this and think, I should treat others how I like to be treated.  No!  That's only half way.  What you really want is for other people to take the time and figure out how you like to be treated and then treat you that way.  If we all treated everyone how we like to be treated, we would all be miserable because we are all unique humans with unique needs.  So, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, you have to really understand what they want and need and then give them that.  Because that is what you would want them to do for you. 

I am Dutch and my mother often told us the expression: "Wat u niet wilt dat u geschiedt, doe dat ook een ander niet.".
This is the opposite of what is mentioned above: Don't do to others what you don't want to be done to yourself.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: PizzaSteve on October 07, 2017, 09:31:44 AM
I loved this great articulation of emotional decision making in a thread about bonds.  Our 20 somethings who may face this someday should read and understand about how emotions can impact investment choices.  ...

People keep throwing around 50% losses as if that mattered in and of itself. I'd rather have 50% of $2M in my portfolio than 80% of $1M.

Well, a good portion of my generation started the workforce in the late 90's. All my investments kept getting slaughtered all the way thru 2009. Just when I felt like investing in stocks was the "right" thing to do, I got punched in the gut, beaten with a wet towel, and dragged behind a prius for 200 miles. The emotional toll of such volatility definatly triggered some fight or flight, especially when the industry I worked in is HARD and each dollar came at great costs to my personal life to learn learn learn, work work work 18 hour days... Then to see it all just disapear so quickly is tought to stay the course. I know now in retrospec if I stayed the course and just went with a TSM I would have been very happy today, but everytime the stock market got a little higher after those crashes, you kept hearing constant doom and gloom about bubbles so you were always questioning your investments (even today). It took a good 15 years!! to see significant gains, which is kind of forever, especially in your 20's when you cannot even imagine your 40 year old self. I strongly believe in diversification even at the cost of gains if you have any emotion reactions to significant drops.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Raenia on October 13, 2017, 05:21:59 AM
On inheritance, and what people choose to do with it:

Large inheritances ( think trust fund) make for lazy, loser adults. I’ve seen it in real life. Teach your kids well and help them limit debt. That is the sweet spot.

And that attitude/sweeping judgement is likely why anyone that has inherited is made to feel guilty or embarrassed and dislike discussing this sort of thing in general. This is a very narrow-minded view, and implies that those that did get anything notable didn't deserve it and always end up being lazy and losers with the money. It's not black and white, and it is very insulting to anyone that did end up inheriting a large amount of money. So every trust fund and heir is a loser? Seriously?

Here's a scary thought: It has nothing to do with money or being "spoiled" by wealth. It has everything to do with the person inheriting, and their individual character. You can teach a child just about anything you'd like, but their following those teachings is another matter altogether. You might get lucky and have children that all basically have a level head on their shoulders, but don't rule out the fact that you may also end up with a kid or two that just can't handle it, or chooses not to restrict or deny themselves once they are grown.

TL/DR: spendthrifts can be born, AND made to be that way. Don't assume outside factors always dictate their character as an adult, or overestimate your influence on building said character. Do your best to instill some good values and responsibility but then hope like anything that they also have a decent character and the ability to play the long game so they will avoid going nuts with money if given a large amount.


I apparently am one of the few folks on here apparently that has had a life-changing inheritance (or at least is willing to admit to it). I received an inheritance that made me instantly FI, and within 2 years after (to figure out how investing works and get all the ducks in rows) both my husband and I retired.

And while I did not hope for or expect a single penny, I know and appreciate just how incredible a gift this was - it is humbling and scary and exciting and sometimes a source of extreme sorrow. I'm still working through my feelings even years later.

My parents taught my sibling and myself how to be responsible with money and debts, how to save, and to have a good work ethic.

I was already well on my way to retiring in my mid 50s and the only thing I lacked was investing knowledge, but figured I had decades to get that stuff down (no clue about FIRE stuff at the time). I am frugal, had no debts, and was a hard worker with a long career with much recognition.

My sibling, raised by the same parents, is fucking terrible with money. Has been since they were a child. No impulse control, buys things because they deserve it, massive consumer debts. No ambition, no work ethic, no marketable skills. Spotty work history doing very low skill work (fast food, warehouse clerk, phone sales) with mostly no work at all over the last decade.

Considering sibling was raised the exact same way as me, you'd think we'd be roughly the same in terms of responsibility and being decent with money, but we are far apart in terms of basic world views really.

Inheriting a life changing sum didn't change who I was. I already was a hard-working, frugal person and I didn't change into a loser overnight and start throwing piles of money away on gold-plated cars or anything. And my sibling (who isn't a terrible person, just a terrible with money person) didn't turn into a frivolous spender just because they suddenly had instant wealth. They were already a spendthrift decades ago.

I took my inheritance and learned how to invest and grow it to hopefully provide a scholarship and some pretty kickass charitable trusts when I'm gone, but in the meantime, I'm doing just fine, and likely will never worry about money another second for the rest of my life.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on October 13, 2017, 09:05:38 AM
I ♡♡♡♡♡ the wisdom  of Frankies Girl. When that Ghoul speaks, I listen. Wise woman, indeed.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: shelivesthedream on October 14, 2017, 11:38:39 AM
This is a brilliantly thoughtful post explaining a little about how American patriotism comes across to those of us from other developed Western democracies.

The grass is always greener. I'm gonna step up to the plate for the USA here...

It is very difficult to discuss differences between countries, because as soon as the topic of USA enters the discussion, Americans* step up to defend their country. Everyone is proud of their country, but I wonder if maybe the US school system takes this patriotism too far. For instance; I don't know any other democracy where parents would accept that their kids should learn to "pledge alligience to the flag".

A few examples of how something that must be trained into kids at school in the US, because it comes out so automatically in every discussion, and it just looks weird (or even slightly insulting) from the outside:

1) The WW2/Nazi thing.
All the allied countries learn to be proud about what their country did in the war. The UK take great pride in how they kept on fighting on even though London was bombed to smitherins. Norway is very proud of our skiing saboteurs who stopped the Nazis from getting enough heavy water to develop the atom bomb. The Faroes are very proud of their sailors, who ensured that goods and food got into the allied countries, despite staggering losses of men and ships (largest per capita in Europe). Even the Swedes are proud of how their neutral diplomats managed to care for refugees and save people from the camps. But we all learn that we were part of an alliance, and that this joint effort is what won the war, with three main turning points happening around 42/43: the major one was Germany's losses on the eastern front, where millions of Russians died in their effort to decimate the German troops. 3/4 of all German losses were by Russian troops, and the war in Europe was over when Russia took Berlin in 1945. The second turning point was in Africa, mainly thanks to the Commonwealth forces from India, Australia, New Zealand, etc. This knocked out Italy, and spread the German forces even thinner. The third turning point was the US entering the war.

When discussing this issue with people from USA, it sounds like they have only been taugth about their own part of the war, and that they are convinced the only reason Germany didn't win is that the US "came in and saved Europe's ass". When annoyed Europeans then respond with "hey, thanks for showing up late and claiming all the glory", it often seems like the Americans are hurt and feel attacked. This is very different from the banter the rest of us can have about this issue - about how the Russians turned their cape when the wind shifted, how we lost the battle of Norway in less than a week, how the French... were French, etc. There is no room for making light of the US military, that is taken as ungratefulness and insults.

*By Americans I mean US citizens. I know America has a large number of countries, but don't know any good word for the people living in the US.


2) The Constitution.
The US pride of their consititution, and how they view it as ancient, sacret, and unchangeable, is just weird for an outsider. It doesn't seem like they know that all other western democracies have similar laws, and that most of those are much older? Laws age, and need to be updated. Norway just changed several parts of our 1814 consititution; although it is younger than the US one, it still needed updating. If we were to become originalists, we would have a problem: The consititution has ties back to "the Law of Norway" from 1687, that replaced (or really revamped) Magnus Lagabøtes law of 1274-1276. This again was based on "the Gulating law" and "Frostating law", that have ties back to the 5th century. The UK have their Magna Carta, the southern Europeans have proud traditions stretching back to the Romans. The US consitution is nice, but it is really not that special. The Roman laws, and the Magna Carta, are the ones that really changed the world.


3) "Everybody wants to come here"
As shelivesthedream and snowball explained, a lot of people from poor countries want to move to any rich country to have more opportunities (they even want tocome to cold and dark Norway), and a lot of people in rich countries too find it interesting to try to live in different countries and experience different cultures. My mother is a scientist, and every so often she takes a semester abroad as a visiting scholar. She has been to other Nordic countries, the UK, parts of eastern Europe, etc. Last year she went to the US. It was a weird experience, and she will probably not try to do that again. I think we were 10 people involved to navigate the paperwork at its worst. Even going to Russia caused less and easier paperwork. Blank forms were printed and sent in the mail for her to fill out and send back. We had to find a bank that knew how to, and were willing to, handle paper checks. She had to drop everything on a days notice to get to the nearest US embassy for interviews. It was all so cumbersome and old fashioned.

And the really weird thing is that if you tell a Russian that the paperwork and bureaucrazy was a bit of a struggle, they will agree with you, and crack a few jokes about it. If you tell that to an American, they will often angrily resond with "yeah - if you think it is so bad, maybe you should just stay at home".
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on October 15, 2017, 05:55:43 AM
I really liked this well described point of view about wanting to have children or not.

I have two kids. Love them more than I thought possible and super thankful for the gift of having them in my life. Outgoing love focused on others (as opposed to possessive love) involves sacrifice and effort, but this is additive rather than subtractive. That is, my love isn't divided between my kids, it has been added to with each kid. It's hard work and at times frustrating, disappointing, exhausting, scary. But the opportunity to love is worth it. As Brené Brown puts it a TED talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability/transcript)

Quote
This is what I have found: To let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen ... to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee -- and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that's excruciatingly difficult -- to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive." And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says, "I'm enough" ... then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves.

Although my kids have helped me to better understand this, I don't think they are a necessary condition. On the contrary, those who look to kids to bring fulfilment and meaning to life are, IMO, likely to miss this bigger picture. Kids aren't about the satisfaction from seeing them succeed (however we define success), how they turn out. They are about loving for no other reason than they are worthy of it simply for being human, even when they disappoint or frustrate or even hurt us. As a father I sometimes think of what it would be like if one of my kids died tragically. Early on this gave me a lot of anxiety, but now I realize that even if the unthinkable happened all the sorrow and grief and pain would still be worth it just for having the opportunity to know and love them.

All this to say, I don't think people are necessarily missing out if they choose not to have kids. I think the key is to understand that it's all about connection with others, which can and does happen without kids. And unfortunately often does not happen with kids.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CanuckExpat on October 18, 2017, 01:51:36 PM
Quoted emphasis mine

I don't think this forum has gone soft, I think it has gone more mainstream.  My perspective it the major first world countries.  I don't think many folks from Zimbabwe or Afghanistan frequent this site.

The vast majority of us, going down to lower middle and upper poor class, get in our reliable cars and drive paved roads to a stable job.  We work in safe environments, and if they are not safe, it can be resolved with a phone call or two.  We work our shift and drive our reliable car on paved roads back to our weather tight home.  We might stop by a well stocked grocery store to pick up some affordable food.  We walk into those weather tight homes, turn on the tv, take a leak and flush the toilet with running water, and have a nice dinner.  Over dinner we discuss how bad our lives are and we need to improve them.  We decide to finance our way out of this hard life.  We open monthly subscriptions to various services, we finance a nicer reliable car, and upgrade to a bigger weather tight house, we pay someone to mow the nice lawn.  We eat out because our jobs are too stressful to worry about cooking, we watch tv instead of interacting with our neighbors, we build 6' wooden fences to keep people out instead of getting to know who lives next door, then we drink or other such indulgences because we are fighting loneliness and stress from jobs and stress.   

I think Pete's original message is for us to take a step back and analyze our situation.  We are social beings.  Why are we actively configuring our lives to remove the social aspect?  Why are we trying to outdo our neighbors instead of getting to know them?  We are also physical beings.  Why are we sitting in an office chair in order to make more money to pay someone to do our physical things that we are perfectly capable of?  Why drive a 2 ton vehicle 1.5 mile to the store when we can walk it in half an hour or cycle it in 4 minutes?  What will your kids have better memories of, the well made movies 3 times a week, or the same hours of your poorly played ukulele and singing?

We all know the guy who works 60+ hours a week to afford the $50k truck that pulls the $40k boat to the lake on the weekend, and always seems stressed out.  We also know the guy who drive a reasonable used car, no boat, but has a good relationship with his friends and neighbors.  Who do you want to be, and who do you want to spend your time with?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on October 23, 2017, 11:18:20 AM
Man. I just responded to, then removed my post in a thread where someone asks how to get his (assuming poster is a guy) wife to be more into MMM. He called his wife's ideas dumb. I was ill tempered, and possibly an asshole.

Sometimes such threads really are worthy of being posted. It's deeply unfair to have a spendthrift spouse drag a responsible spouse down into insolvency. It's equally unfair to use money as some sort of power fulcrum. People in those situations should be supported, and hopefully guided, by the community.

But I'd say a good 50% of spouse threads could be solved by pausing to remember that Pete is one crazy motherfucking dude. If your wife wants a minivan because she spends all her time shoving 3 under-5's into 3-across car seats and it's driving her insane, you don't automatically have the moral high ground because Internet Pete wouldn't bless your purchase. Similarly, if your wife wants a birthday present, buy her a fucking birthday present even though Internet Pete declared all such exchanges stupid. Because people, Internet Pete is very unlikely to snuggle you when you are scared, succor you when you are ill, or provide unto you sexytimes when you are horny.

Some posters seem to forget that basic politeness still applies when discussing your spouse on a random internet forum. So weird. Do not approve.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bourbon on October 23, 2017, 11:35:05 AM
PTF
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on October 23, 2017, 11:35:36 AM
Sol, as usual, on the "can anybody retire early" thread.  Just, damn.

No, not everyone can retiree early.  YOU can retiree early though.

You already have a huge head start.  You are a natural born American citizen.  You received an adequate education that gave you literacy and curiosity and a desire to better yourself.  You are technologically savvy enough to ask the right question in the right place.  You appear to be free from the handicaps of abuse, hunger, inclement weather, or robbery of your personal assets.  You live and work in a society that values and rewards hard work and initiative.  Most of the world is not in such an enviable position, so I think the head start you already have is pretty great.  Just don't waste your golden ticket.

You have youth and health, and the fortunate position of having some secure time to come up with a plan.  The Forbes 400 list is full of people who started out in a worse position than you are in right now and still managed to become billionaires through hard work and calculated risks.  None of them did it on $11/hour, though.  You can read their stories, decide if that's what you want in life, and emulate the blueprint they have followed.  Or pick a different goal, identify the path to get there, and start putting in the hard work required to make it happen.  But whatever it is you want, someone else has already done it and shown you how.  Don't complain about your current circumstances, focus on finding the right path forward.  In your case that could involve a year of reading biographies, introspection, goal setting, and writing a coherent life plan. 

Impoverished people suffer for a variety of reasons, not least of which is a dearth of imagination.  Expand your horizons a little, then figure out if you're willing to work harder and smarter than 99% of people in order to have more success than 99% of people.  You already have a huge head start.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Roe on October 23, 2017, 12:36:33 PM
Man. I just responded to, then removed my post in a thread where someone asks how to get his (assuming poster is a guy) wife to be more into MMM. He called his wife's ideas dumb. I was ill tempered, and possibly an asshole.

Sometimes such threads really are worthy of being posted. It's deeply unfair to have a spendthrift spouse drag a responsible spouse down into insolvency. It's equally unfair to use money as some sort of power fulcrum. People in those situations should be supported, and hopefully guided, by the community.

But I'd say a good 50% of spouse threads could be solved by pausing to remember that Pete is one crazy motherfucking dude. If your wife wants a minivan because she spends all her time shoving 3 under-5's into 3-across car seats and it's driving her insane, you don't automatically have the moral high ground because Internet Pete wouldn't bless your purchase. Similarly, if your wife wants a birthday present, buy her a fucking birthday present even though Internet Pete declared all such exchanges stupid. Because people, Internet Pete is very unlikely to snuggle you when you are scared, succor you when you are ill, or provide unto you sexytimes when you are horny.

Some posters seem to forget that basic politeness still applies when discussing your spouse on a random internet forum. So weird. Do not approve.

Thanks for bringing that one up, great post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on October 23, 2017, 04:54:39 PM
If you run the fastest in a race, you get a medal.  The medal doesn't change anything about you.  If another person happens to come to the next race, and you run as fast as before, but he runs faster, he gets the medal.  Nothing about your runnning is changed by the medal.  It's not really the important thing.  Running has made you stronger, healthier, and etc.  If you push yourself too far in an effort to get the medal and get hurt, then did you still really win?  The medal is a fancy decoration made up by some other people.  The process and not the outcomes is what life is!

The whole quote is great, then the culmination in that last sentence... <3
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Kl285528 on October 25, 2017, 07:24:43 AM
If you run the fastest in a race, you get a medal.  The medal doesn't change anything about you.  If another person happens to come to the next race, and you run as fast as before, but he runs faster, he gets the medal.  Nothing about your runnning is changed by the medal.  It's not really the important thing.  Running has made you stronger, healthier, and etc.  If you push yourself too far in an effort to get the medal and get hurt, then did you still really win?  The medal is a fancy decoration made up by some other people.  The process and not the outcomes is what life is!

The whole quote is great, then the culmination in that last sentence... <3
Wow... This put into words a concept I've carried in my brain but could not verbalize. Wow.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: GreenSheep on October 25, 2017, 10:07:03 AM
PTF. Lots of wisdom here.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Abe Froman on October 25, 2017, 11:45:48 AM
PTF
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Chaplin on October 26, 2017, 10:57:22 PM
If you run the fastest in a race, you get a medal.  The medal doesn't change anything about you.  If another person happens to come to the next race, and you run as fast as before, but he runs faster, he gets the medal.  Nothing about your runnning is changed by the medal.  It's not really the important thing.  Running has made you stronger, healthier, and etc.  If you push yourself too far in an effort to get the medal and get hurt, then did you still really win?  The medal is a fancy decoration made up by some other people.  The process and not the outcomes is what life is!

The whole quote is great, then the culmination in that last sentence... <3

I'll comment on this one as I my PTF. I totally agree about the medals, but I did a race where I placed high enough in the "masters" (40+) to win a growler of beer, not some silly medal. If someone else had run faster I wouldn't have had the beer and I would have been changed - I would have been less happy. This is only in meant in humor of course.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on October 27, 2017, 01:46:02 AM
If you run the fastest in a race, you get a medal.  The medal doesn't change anything about you.  If another person happens to come to the next race, and you run as fast as before, but he runs faster, he gets the medal.  Nothing about your runnning is changed by the medal.  It's not really the important thing.  Running has made you stronger, healthier, and etc.  If you push yourself too far in an effort to get the medal and get hurt, then did you still really win?  The medal is a fancy decoration made up by some other people.  The process and not the outcomes is what life is!

The whole quote is great, then the culmination in that last sentence... <3

I'll comment on this one as I my PTF. I totally agree about the medals, but I did a race where I placed high enough in the "masters" (40+) to win a growler of beer, not some silly medal. If someone else had run faster I wouldn't have had the beer and I would have been changed - I would have been less happy. This is only in meant in humor of course.

For professional sports people, there is also a big impact on becoming number 1 or number x behind the winner. Winning means fame, popularity, sponsors, prize money, being invited for competitions/interviewS/TV-shows against high pay.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: matchewed on October 27, 2017, 05:28:14 AM
If you run the fastest in a race, you get a medal.  The medal doesn't change anything about you.  If another person happens to come to the next race, and you run as fast as before, but he runs faster, he gets the medal.  Nothing about your runnning is changed by the medal.  It's not really the important thing.  Running has made you stronger, healthier, and etc.  If you push yourself too far in an effort to get the medal and get hurt, then did you still really win?  The medal is a fancy decoration made up by some other people.  The process and not the outcomes is what life is!

The whole quote is great, then the culmination in that last sentence... <3

I'll comment on this one as I my PTF. I totally agree about the medals, but I did a race where I placed high enough in the "masters" (40+) to win a growler of beer, not some silly medal. If someone else had run faster I wouldn't have had the beer and I would have been changed - I would have been less happy. This is only in meant in humor of course.

For professional sports people, there is also a big impact on becoming number 1 or number x behind the winner. Winning means fame, popularity, sponsors, prize money, being invited for competitions/interviewS/TV-shows against high pay.

I know this is drifting off topic but even in that scenario that didn't change anything about you. Just the things around you.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: runbikerun on October 27, 2017, 07:01:28 AM
For elite sports, though (and some levels below elite!), position relative to others is the entire metric we use. Nobody cares exactly how many hours, minutes and seconds Peter Sagan takes to finish Paris-Roubaix next year: the only thing that matters, the the near-total exclusion of all else, is whether he's first across the line in the velodrome.

Similarly, if a talented amateur triathlete finishes an Ironman in nine hours, that's a hell of an achievement: however, for a lot of them, what matters vastly more is whether they've done well enough in their age category to qualify for Kona. The purpose of the training is to get that invite to the world championship: it's a completely legitimate approach not to care about anything except relative performance.

For what it's worth, I think this is a hugely healthy approach for a Mustachian: it can be very difficult to let go of that competitive drive to outdo your neighbour, and sublimating it into something that improves your health and gets you out into the fresh air is far better than letting it slip into your car purchases or your housing decisions.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: marty998 on October 28, 2017, 05:24:48 PM
For elite sports, though (and some levels below elite!), position relative to others is the entire metric we use. Nobody cares exactly how many hours, minutes and seconds Peter Sagan takes to finish Paris-Roubaix next year: the only thing that matters, the the near-total exclusion of all else, is whether he's first across the line in the velodrome.

You can see it on the faces of riders who finish second in a one-day classic or the world champs. There's nothing more disappointing than to ride at full tilt for 7 hours, make a break, hold off the peloton, and get beaten by the length of a tyre rim.

But sorry, that's not the point of this thread :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: runbikerun on October 29, 2017, 02:37:23 AM
For elite sports, though (and some levels below elite!), position relative to others is the entire metric we use. Nobody cares exactly how many hours, minutes and seconds Peter Sagan takes to finish Paris-Roubaix next year: the only thing that matters, the the near-total exclusion of all else, is whether he's first across the line in the velodrome.

You can see it on the faces of riders who finish second in a one-day classic or the world champs. There's nothing more disappointing than to ride at full tilt for 7 hours, make a break, hold off the peloton, and get beaten by the length of a tyre rim.

But sorry, that's not the point of this thread :)

True, it is a little off topic!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: HappierAtHome on October 29, 2017, 02:55:02 AM
Man. I just responded to, then removed my post in a thread where someone asks how to get his (assuming poster is a guy) wife to be more into MMM. He called his wife's ideas dumb. I was ill tempered, and possibly an asshole.

Sometimes such threads really are worthy of being posted. It's deeply unfair to have a spendthrift spouse drag a responsible spouse down into insolvency. It's equally unfair to use money as some sort of power fulcrum. People in those situations should be supported, and hopefully guided, by the community.

But I'd say a good 50% of spouse threads could be solved by pausing to remember that Pete is one crazy motherfucking dude. If your wife wants a minivan because she spends all her time shoving 3 under-5's into 3-across car seats and it's driving her insane, you don't automatically have the moral high ground because Internet Pete wouldn't bless your purchase. Similarly, if your wife wants a birthday present, buy her a fucking birthday present even though Internet Pete declared all such exchanges stupid. Because people, Internet Pete is very unlikely to snuggle you when you are scared, succor you when you are ill, or provide unto you sexytimes when you are horny.

Some posters seem to forget that basic politeness still applies when discussing your spouse on a random internet forum. So weird. Do not approve.

That post of Sam's is still one of my all-time favourites.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Hula Hoop on October 29, 2017, 03:22:47 AM
Man. I just responded to, then removed my post in a thread where someone asks how to get his (assuming poster is a guy) wife to be more into MMM. He called his wife's ideas dumb. I was ill tempered, and possibly an asshole.

Sometimes such threads really are worthy of being posted. It's deeply unfair to have a spendthrift spouse drag a responsible spouse down into insolvency. It's equally unfair to use money as some sort of power fulcrum. People in those situations should be supported, and hopefully guided, by the community.

But I'd say a good 50% of spouse threads could be solved by pausing to remember that Pete is one crazy motherfucking dude. If your wife wants a minivan because she spends all her time shoving 3 under-5's into 3-across car seats and it's driving her insane, you don't automatically have the moral high ground because Internet Pete wouldn't bless your purchase. Similarly, if your wife wants a birthday present, buy her a fucking birthday present even though Internet Pete declared all such exchanges stupid. Because people, Internet Pete is very unlikely to snuggle you when you are scared, succor you when you are ill, or provide unto you sexytimes when you are horny.

Some posters seem to forget that basic politeness still applies when discussing your spouse on a random internet forum. So weird. Do not approve.

That post of Sam's is still one of my all-time favourites.

This is a great post.  Human relationships are so complex.  Going through life in a three legged race with someone else is not easy - especially when sharing finances and children.  It's a wonder that it works out as often as it does.  Those of us with un-mustachian spouses need to value what we have and not be jerks about it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on October 29, 2017, 06:16:51 AM
Nope. Sam just outdid even Sam on another thread. Hold that thought while I go rummage around to find it...

Okay, here's my question, followed by SS's brilliant response...

Someone help me out gently here, please. I always thought that if a person who identifies as heterosexual called someone who identifies as homosexual "queer" that it was considered a slur and beyond rude. I've heard my gay friends refer to themselves as "queer", but I thought it was, I dunno, an inside term, so to speak?

Maybe I'm just hopelessly out of it. Mostly I just call my gay friends by their names, not by a label. Dunno.

Also, I admire Erica's willingness to voice her concerns, based on her own experience. I am not saying that I am in agreement. However, since the topic's been broached, I am seeking to understand the use of this specific term.

And no misguided hate, please. I've loved and lost more gay friends than I care to count. The silver lining, if there is one, is at least nowadays they're dying of old age. Damn it.

Finally, apologies for the late response. I missed this thread completely until now. Congratulations on your success, M2!

BTW, my kitty, who I inherited when her gay daddy died, completely approves. She can't wait to get her own copy so she can chew all the corners.

Hey Dicey, my perspective is that the non-pejorative uses of the word queer is a generational thing.

I was born in 1980. My world was formed by Ryan White, Matthew Sheppard, Ellen DeGeneres. Gay culture was confined to the big cities. As a kid I knew about funny men because of the AIDS epidemic. I didn't women could also be funny until 1993, when Ellen DeGeneres caused such a stir. The state mandated sexual education at my school was strictly about how babies were made. Anything extraneous to babies was left out, and I had no idea women could have orgasms until one very surprising day in the early 90's. We played smear the queer at recess, the populace called for ghettoization of anyone with AIDS. There was no Gay Straight Alliance. The internet didn't really exist. Don't Ask, Don't Tell was seen as a progressive and merciful policy. "That's so gay" rang through the halls of my highschool to note anything stupid, dumb, or ugly. I was tainted. It was isolating. I wanted to die. Hearing the word queer from a heterosexual person could never be anything besides an epitaph, and it was rarely positive even from a homosexual person.

Adults born 10 or 15 years after me had a completely different experience. People with HIV lived. Will and Grace was on mainstream TV. Queer as Folk, and the L word were on the edgier channels. Gay culture cropped up in smaller cities, even towns. Civil unions were declared legal. Gay Straight Alliances were formed in schools. Safe spaces. Sexuality was a discussion people were having. The internet provides support and community. To these slightly younger people, the reclamation of the word queer was a powerful thing. To a half generation younger than me, queer is a word that's sometimes negative, and sometimes positive, depending on the speaker. Much like the reclamation of racial pejoratives among the subjugated class.

Now, the word has dropped even more of it's negative connotations, thanks to the transgender and pansexual movements. The boxes for gay, straight, and bi-sexual are too confining. Especially when viewed through the idea that allowing for only two genders is equally confining. If you happen to be a gender fluid young person, and you're making eyes at someone who was genetically born male but is taking androgen blockers because she definitely know's she's a fabulous girl...well, what is that? What word could you use to encompass what you're feeling? You aren't gay, and you aren't straight, but you can certainly be queer. So now, for people born 20 to 25 years after me, queer is just what they are. Sure, sometimes the word gets miss-used by assholes, but fuck that noise.

So, that leaves us with your question: if a person who identifies as heterosexual called someone who identifies as homosexual "queer" that it was considered a slur. The answer is, it depends. I shudder when I encounter the word queer; MonsterMonster embraces it. Different people, slightly different generations. As with many personal things, the best thing to do is simply ask the person directly their opinion.

To close this wall of text, I'll point out that your question is very obviously from a standpoint of curiosity and a desire to learn. Thanks for being cool.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: human on October 29, 2017, 06:29:55 AM
Man. I just responded to, then removed my post in a thread where someone asks how to get his (assuming poster is a guy) wife to be more into MMM. He called his wife's ideas dumb. I was ill tempered, and possibly an asshole.

Sometimes such threads really are worthy of being posted. It's deeply unfair to have a spendthrift spouse drag a responsible spouse down into insolvency. It's equally unfair to use money as some sort of power fulcrum. People in those situations should be supported, and hopefully guided, by the community.

But I'd say a good 50% of spouse threads could be solved by pausing to remember that Pete is one crazy motherfucking dude. If your wife wants a minivan because she spends all her time shoving 3 under-5's into 3-across car seats and it's driving her insane, you don't automatically have the moral high ground because Internet Pete wouldn't bless your purchase. Similarly, if your wife wants a birthday present, buy her a fucking birthday present even though Internet Pete declared all such exchanges stupid. Because people, Internet Pete is very unlikely to snuggle you when you are scared, succor you when you are ill, or provide unto you sexytimes when you are horny.

Some posters seem to forget that basic politeness still applies when discussing your spouse on a random internet forum. So weird. Do not approve.

That post of Sam's is still one of my all-time favourites.

This is a great post.  Human relationships are so complex.  Going through life in a three legged race with someone else is not easy - especially when sharing finances and children.  It's a wonder that it works out as often as it does.  Those of us with un-mustachian spouses need to value what we have and not be jerks about it.

So I guess Pete is the consumption police and you all are the relationship morality police? Get over yourselves. It's subie v. Minivan don't turn it into some opportunity to demonstrate to everyone what a man bun flip flop wearing guru you are.

MOD EDIT: No.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on October 29, 2017, 06:36:30 AM
[snip]
This is a great post.  Human relationships are so complex.  Going through life in a three legged race with someone else is not easy - especially when sharing finances and children.  It's a wonder that it works out as often as it does.  Those of us with un-mustachian spouses need to value what we have and not be jerks about it.

So I guess Pete is the consumption police and you all are the relationship morality police? Get over yourselves. It's subie v. Minivan don't turn it into some opportunity to demonstrate to everyone what a man bun flip flop wearing guru you are.

Let's stick to the forum rules (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/forum-information-faqs/forum-rules/), please (spec 1, 2, & 4)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: meerkat on October 29, 2017, 08:21:17 AM
That was a great post Dicey, thanks for sharing it - and thanks Sam for putting those words down and sharing it with the internet.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Loren Ver on October 31, 2017, 06:01:44 PM
PTF
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Kitsunegari on October 31, 2017, 07:29:53 PM
PTF too
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: techwiz on November 02, 2017, 08:41:32 PM
Ptf 3
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CogentCap on November 04, 2017, 02:26:23 PM
following
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: solon on November 04, 2017, 02:32:57 PM
Rather than post "PTF" you could just post something awesome you saw on the forums...
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: englishteacheralex on November 04, 2017, 03:01:25 PM
Not to be a dingbat, but I don't actually know how to cross quote a post. I know how to cut and paste text from posts, but I don't know how to take a quote from one thread and then post it in a different thread.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: former player on November 04, 2017, 03:28:26 PM
Not to be a dingbat, but I don't actually know how to cross quote a post. I know how to cut and paste text from posts, but I don't know how to take a quote from one thread and then post it in a different thread.
There may be a technically approved method, but my technologically challenged method is to have both threads open at the same time, use the quote feature to create a reply in the first thread and then copy the text in that reply box to the reply box in the second.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CanuckExpat on November 05, 2017, 01:27:02 PM
The recent discussions in the Stop Worrying About the 4% Rule thread inspired by a Q&A with Wade Pfau really brought home the fact that while the term "4% Rule" is widely used in retirement circles often we are not using it to say the same thing, which leads to confusion and unnecessary debate.

Working from the same $1M starting portfolio and $40K/yr spend incl taxes...

Pfau's 4% Rule:
- spend $40K/yr + inflation every year without fail
- zero non-essential spending
- never go back to work or do anything to earn money
- paying high fees [1%] is unavoidable
- a conservative 60/40 portfolio is smart risk management
- using 25% worse than worst case historical scenarios is smart risk management
- not factoring Gov't benefits because they may change
- 30yr success rate = 70%
- 40yr success rate = 49% [estimated from his Q&A and cFIREsim]
- 50yr success rate = 33% [estimated from his Q&A and cFIREsim]

MMM-esque 4% Rule

- spend $30K - $50K/yr depending on needs and market returns
- adjust for inflation as needed
- $8K/yr non-essential deferrable spending
- okay with an easy $10K/yr PT job if needed
- use historical data
- more aggressive portfolio 90/10
- low fees no problem [~0.11%]
- factoring in reasonable assumptions for Gov't benefits
- 30yr success rate = 100% based on cFIREsim
- 40yr success rate = 100% based on cFIREsim
- 50yr success rate = 100% based on cFIREsim

One on hand you have an analysis that leaves the author deeply concerned about a short 30yr old retiree's chances for success let alone an early retiree with a 40yr or 50yr+ retirement. On the other hand you've got me and a bunch of other MMM types who are mystified by the pessimism/doom and gloom around the 4% Rule. The problem of course is that we are not talking about the same thing. 

The solution is not that we all have to agree 100%, but we do need to understand why we disagree so that folks can clearly appreciate the opportunity cost of pessimistic assumptions or from Pfau's perspective the risks of optimistic assumptions.

I'll likely FIRE at a 4.5%WR for me to get to a Pfau approved 3%WR using a 7% market return after inflation and a $30K/yr spending addition working FT it would take me an extra 5.5 years of FT work. 5.5 years chained to a desk with all the negative health and personal relationship impacts that entails. Not to mention retiring at 56 vs. 50 thereby giving up more than half a decade at the prime of my life. That's a steep price to pay in my books so I'd want to be sure I understood what my other options were.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: maizefolk on November 05, 2017, 01:43:36 PM
That's a good one. I try to lurk on RC's journal, but the forums have been so active recently that I missed this post, thanks for highlighting it CanuckExpat!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FireLane on November 07, 2017, 05:40:36 AM
I liked this from the Overheard at Work thread:

Staples and basic goods are as cheap as ever. Rice/beans/oatmeal/frozen veggies (simple meals cooked at home), basic clothing items, econobox cars, TV antenna, etc. If you purchased the same staple basket as your grandparents did, your purchasing power has probably gone way up. 

But our cultural expectation for what constitutes a good standard of living has increased dramatically. People define "the good life" as eating out frequently, drinking at bars, fast fashion, cars that are fun to drive, new furniture, subscription boxes, etc.

Health insurance and housing (in many markets) have gone way up in relative terms, but so has our demand for fancier housing (laundry rooms, dishwashers, granite countertops, garages, closet space, etc) as well as way more square footage per person.

This is one of the core messages of Mustachianism. When someone complains about having to cook at home, they're ignoring the incredible luxury of having enough food to eat that day. Someone complaining about their shitty beater car is probably still driving one of the most reliable cars ever manufactured. By almost any objective standard, basic living conditions on Earth are better than they have ever been for an increasing swath of the population. But you have to get off the consumerist treadmill of hedonistic adaptation first to realize that pursuit of more material goods won't make you happy.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on November 07, 2017, 06:30:30 AM
Staples and basic goods are as cheap as ever. Rice/beans/oatmeal/frozen veggies (simple meals cooked at home), basic clothing items, econobox cars, TV antenna, etc. If you purchased the same staple basket as your grandparents did, your purchasing power has probably gone way up. 

But our cultural expectation for what constitutes a good standard of living has increased dramatically. People define "the good life" as eating out frequently, drinking at bars, fast fashion, cars that are fun to drive, new furniture, subscription boxes, etc.

I wrote a whole guest post (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/07/08/early-retirement-cant-work-or-id-have-heard-of-it-before/) on the blog about this one time, backing it up with numbers.

...and that was apparently over 5 years ago.  Time flies.  :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Moonwaves on November 07, 2017, 09:54:44 AM
Posting just the quote from Rinch without the link part, as this was in a journal. Just a tiny bit of a short discussion on what FIRE means for people who are glad to have discovered it because it gives them hope of actually being able to retire at all, even if the early part might not be possible. Thought it was a nice way to think about it.

Quote
All in all it's a sliding scale from easy to impossible I'm hoping to move along a bit, not a binary work/don't work switch. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: sherr on November 07, 2017, 12:26:19 PM
Not to be a dingbat, but I don't actually know how to cross quote a post. I know how to cut and paste text from posts, but I don't know how to take a quote from one thread and then post it in a different thread.
There may be a technically approved method, but my technologically challenged method is to have both threads open at the same time, use the quote feature to create a reply in the first thread and then copy the text in that reply box to the reply box in the second.

I think that's the correct way. Note the specifics there that are important:

It's important because of the metadata in the quote tag, "link=topic=40752.msg1759432#msg1759432" or similar. That's what allows the forum to link back to the original message in the original thread. If you simply open a new post here, hit the "Insert Quote" button, and then copy-and-paste the text then that link will be lost.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: tralfamadorian on November 07, 2017, 02:22:20 PM
I use a pretty simple test for determining whether it's a good idea for me to try stock picking: I go and take a look at the times for the men's 5,000 metres at the last Olympics.

Wait, bear with me.

In the market, the vast majority of actively traded money and stocks is in the control of professional money managers of one stripe or another. They're generally extremely intelligent, work incredibly hard, and are backed up by some of the most advanced analytical tools money can buy. And, generally speaking, they don't successfully outperform index funds.

If I decide that I can actively trade in this world and do better than the weighted average of this market, then I'm also implicitly deciding that my estimation of likely market moves is superior to that of some of the smartest, hardest-working people in the world. As mrspendy puts it, stock picking is an arrogant act.

This is why I look at the 5,000 metres. Thanks to the sheer weight of the biggest and most professionalised players in the market, trading in the stock market is roughly equivalent to running a 5k against Olympian specialists. Successfully competing at that level involves being the trading equivalent of an Olympic finalist. I know what my best 5k time is, and I can compare it to the last-placed finalist from Rio.

It turns out that Joshua Cheptegei ran that final in 13:09. My personal best is a solid eight minutes slower than that. Not only can I not run that kind of pace, I'd be out of my goddamned mind to imagine I could ever run that kind of pace. I am not lean enough. I am not long-legged enough. I do not cool fast enough. I do not train enough. I will never train enough. But if running was like investing, I could beat Cheptegei and claim a time of 13:06 and change, simply by indexing my run. No 5am alarms for double sessions, no vomiting on the side of the track after one sprint too many, no skipping roast potatoes at Christmas because it doesn't match my diet. Instead I just sign a piece of paper that says I understand I'll get the average time from the final, and I magically lose thirty kilos and gain fifty watts on my power threshold.

In other words:
1. The existence of the index fund is like being able to become a sub-14-minute 5k runner by signing a document.
2. Given that there are no medals for being best at retiring, refusing to sign that document because you think you can train hard enough to go to 13:03 is not a particularly sane option for people simply aiming to retire early.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BiochemicalDJ on November 08, 2017, 08:39:39 AM
I always think of the "$40k gift to buy a car question" when I think about the difference between BH, ER.org, MMM, and ERE.

Basicly: if someone gave you $40k and said you had to use some or all of it to buy a vehicle what would you buy.

A BH would put the who $40k as a down payment on a $100k luxury car and work longer to pay for it.
An ER.org person would buy a new $40k sensible sedan.
A MMM person.would buy a used Prius for $20k and invest the rest...in Vanguard.
An ERE person would buy a $10 used bike at the thrift store and use the remainer to retire on.

Even though this is tongue-in-cheek, I liked this a lot because I read ERE and MMM. Haven't checked out the other two resources, but they definitely wouldn't surprise me :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BiochemicalDJ on November 10, 2017, 12:31:03 PM
Someone recently said "Why save?  I could die tomorrow."

People seem so defeated.  They just say F it and keep spending like there is no tomorrow.  I try to lend advice, and it falls on deaf ears.

My preferred response to "Why save? I could die tomorrow." is "But the overwhelming odds are that you won't, in which case you're going to need to provide for yourself and have something set aside for emergencies, instead of becoming a burden to others the first time something unexpected comes up."

That's the best response I could think of, and I never thought to say it. I'm taking it with me for the future.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: solon on November 10, 2017, 02:39:22 PM
I always think of the "$40k gift to buy a car question" when I think about the difference between BH, ER.org, MMM, and ERE.

Basicly: if someone gave you $40k and said you had to use some or all of it to buy a vehicle what would you buy.

A BH would put the who $40k as a down payment on a $100k luxury car and work longer to pay for it.
An ER.org person would buy a new $40k sensible sedan.
A MMM person.would buy a used Prius for $20k and invest the rest...in Vanguard.
An ERE person would buy a $10 used bike at the thrift store and use the remainer to retire on.

Even though this is tongue-in-cheek, I liked this a lot because I read ERE and MMM. Haven't checked out the other two resources, but they definitely wouldn't surprise me :)
Oh that Spartana. She's so funny  ;-). Posting to follow

This is also an excellent thought-provoking question. I'm going to ask my kids, "if someone gave you $40k to buy a car...", give them the four choices, and discuss their answers.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on November 10, 2017, 03:34:49 PM
I always think of the "$40k gift to buy a car question" when I think about the difference between BH, ER.org, MMM, and ERE.

Basicly: if someone gave you $40k and said you had to use some or all of it to buy a vehicle what would you buy.

A BH would put the who $40k as a down payment on a $100k luxury car and work longer to pay for it.
An ER.org person would buy a new $40k sensible sedan.
A MMM person.would buy a used Prius for $20k and invest the rest...in Vanguard.
An ERE person would buy a $10 used bike at the thrift store and use the remainer to retire on.

Even though this is tongue-in-cheek, I liked this a lot because I read ERE and MMM. Haven't checked out the other two resources, but they definitely wouldn't surprise me :)
Oh that Spartana. She's so funny  ;-). Posting to follow

This is also an excellent thought-provoking question. I'm going to ask my kids, "if someone gave you $40k to buy a car...", give them the four choices, and discuss their answers.
I'm a bit surprised by the idea of a MMMer paying $20k for a used Prius - that's practically brand new. I would have said $8k (with the rest going into Vanguard).
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on November 14, 2017, 08:11:45 AM
Laura33's response on how to deal with spendy family members (and timely with the holidays approaching)
Link to thread here. (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/dealing-with-spendy-event-planning-family-member/msg1771360/#msg1771360)
...
Just wondering how people (Mustachians especially) deal with family members who equate "togetherness" with "spending lots of money."
Honestly, your sister sounds like a bully.  Yeah, it's possible she sees your response as a slight on your relationship, but it's more likely that she knows that family togetherness is your weak spot, so she dove right for it to try to guilt you into changing your mind.  You need a consistent, calm response that you whip out every time she pulls this, along the lines of, "gee, I'd love to spend time with you, but that's not in my budget.  Can we have dinner at my place instead?"  [Or insert some other free/cheap get-together]  If she really is clueless, repeatedly offering her a simpler alternative will emphasize that you do want to get together; if she's just using it as a guilt trip to bend you to her will, the consistent response will eventually persuade her that you are done being a pushover. 

Also, expect it to get worse before it gets better -- people who are used to getting their way will tend to get even more aggressive the first time you say no, because they are used to you giving in, so they just assume if they push harder, you will resume your rightful (submissive) role.  Kind of like kids and tantrums, btw -- this is basically an adult tantrum, and so treating it as such tends to work very well.  FWIW, remaining calm and saying the same thing over and over will drive this kind of personality nuts more quickly than anything else -- first you're not doing what she wants, and now she can't even get you upset or angry or guilty about it?  It just sucks all of her power away from her, if she is so insignificant that she can't even ruffle your feathers.

And, yeah, I do have one of these.  I still remember when my SIL invited us and her other sister out to a very fancy restaurant (one of those with a famous-name chef) to celebrate her birthday.  DH and I were just married and had just bought a townhouse, so I was worried at the cost, but the SIL had introduced us and was clearly excited to have me in the family and wanted to include me, so I put my hesitations aside and went.  And boy had she set this up -- she had gotten the chef's table and set up this fantastic menu (e.g., we were greeted with the largest tray of charcuterie I have ever seen), which was definitely delicious, but waaaaay more food than we could possibly eat, and of course paired bottles of wine with each course.  And then she presented us with the tab.  For like $800*.  Because after all it was her birthday. 

WTF?  Who does that?  If she'd asked if I wanted to take her out for her birthday, I'd have said of course, and chosen a reasonable restaurant -- or at a bare minimum, taken over the planning to keep the menu and wine reasonable (we could easily have eaten at the same restaurant for less than half that cost).  But being presented with the check at the end was a real dick move that left us feeling like we had to pay to preserve family harmony.  And it was delicious, but not $400 delicious.  I really felt bad for her other sister, though, who made a lot less than the rest of us at the time -- I mean, you just don't do that, period, but you sure as hell don't do that to people who make maybe half of what you do.  Lucky for me, SIL was just clueless, not mean-spirited, and she's changed her ways since then. 

*Note that this was 20 years ago.  By today's inflated dining-out standards, it would probably have exceeded $2K.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DTaggart on November 14, 2017, 12:36:27 PM
PJ and Dollar Slice discussing the wonders of autocorrect:

Seriously though, now you get to hear my rant about autocorrect and predictive text. 

I have no idea what your man, autocorrect is a fantastic intercom. I don't know what I would do without is most helpful circus to my text. Technology week face is all.

(This post is brought to you by Swype and autocorrect)

You have certain change my mind about autocorrect with you expecting text imonial. I will available criticizes this except technician in the future. I have been conversation to it's glorifying uses.

Thanks you for sharpener your store.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Louisville on November 14, 2017, 12:40:19 PM
PJ and Dollar Slice discussing the wonders of autocorrect:

Seriously though, now you get to hear my rant about autocorrect and predictive text. 

I have no idea what your man, autocorrect is a fantastic intercom. I don't know what I would do without is most helpful circus to my text. Technology week face is all.

(This post is brought to you by Swype and autocorrect)

You have certain change my mind about autocorrect with you expecting text imonial. I will available criticizes this except technician in the future. I have been conversation to it's glorifying uses.

Thanks you for sharpener your store.

Engrish?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on November 14, 2017, 01:16:43 PM
PJ and Dollar Slice discussing the wonders of autocorrect:

Seriously though, now you get to hear my rant about autocorrect and predictive text. 

I have no idea what your man, autocorrect is a fantastic intercom. I don't know what I would do without is most helpful circus to my text. Technology week face is all.

(This post is brought to you by Swype and autocorrect)

You have certain change my mind about autocorrect with you expecting text imonial. I will available criticizes this except technician in the future. I have been conversation to it's glorifying uses.

Thanks you for sharpener your store.

Engrish?
I don't knee about you, butt I fell on lightened.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: wordnerd on November 14, 2017, 01:31:15 PM
Laura33's response on how to deal with spendy family members (and timely with the holidays approaching)
Link to thread here. (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/dealing-with-spendy-event-planning-family-member/msg1771360/#msg1771360)
...
Just wondering how people (Mustachians especially) deal with family members who equate "togetherness" with "spending lots of money."
Honestly, your sister sounds like a bully.  Yeah, it's possible she sees your response as a slight on your relationship, but it's more likely that she knows that family togetherness is your weak spot, so she dove right for it to try to guilt you into changing your mind.  You need a consistent, calm response that you whip out every time she pulls this, along the lines of, "gee, I'd love to spend time with you, but that's not in my budget.  Can we have dinner at my place instead?"  [Or insert some other free/cheap get-together]  If she really is clueless, repeatedly offering her a simpler alternative will emphasize that you do want to get together; if she's just using it as a guilt trip to bend you to her will, the consistent response will eventually persuade her that you are done being a pushover. 

Also, expect it to get worse before it gets better -- people who are used to getting their way will tend to get even more aggressive the first time you say no, because they are used to you giving in, so they just assume if they push harder, you will resume your rightful (submissive) role.  Kind of like kids and tantrums, btw -- this is basically an adult tantrum, and so treating it as such tends to work very well.  FWIW, remaining calm and saying the same thing over and over will drive this kind of personality nuts more quickly than anything else -- first you're not doing what she wants, and now she can't even get you upset or angry or guilty about it?  It just sucks all of her power away from her, if she is so insignificant that she can't even ruffle your feathers.

And, yeah, I do have one of these.  I still remember when my SIL invited us and her other sister out to a very fancy restaurant (one of those with a famous-name chef) to celebrate her birthday.  DH and I were just married and had just bought a townhouse, so I was worried at the cost, but the SIL had introduced us and was clearly excited to have me in the family and wanted to include me, so I put my hesitations aside and went.  And boy had she set this up -- she had gotten the chef's table and set up this fantastic menu (e.g., we were greeted with the largest tray of charcuterie I have ever seen), which was definitely delicious, but waaaaay more food than we could possibly eat, and of course paired bottles of wine with each course.  And then she presented us with the tab.  For like $800*.  Because after all it was her birthday. 

WTF?  Who does that?  If she'd asked if I wanted to take her out for her birthday, I'd have said of course, and chosen a reasonable restaurant -- or at a bare minimum, taken over the planning to keep the menu and wine reasonable (we could easily have eaten at the same restaurant for less than half that cost).  But being presented with the check at the end was a real dick move that left us feeling like we had to pay to preserve family harmony.  And it was delicious, but not $400 delicious.  I really felt bad for her other sister, though, who made a lot less than the rest of us at the time -- I mean, you just don't do that, period, but you sure as hell don't do that to people who make maybe half of what you do.  Lucky for me, SIL was just clueless, not mean-spirited, and she's changed her ways since then. 

*Note that this was 20 years ago.  By today's inflated dining-out standards, it would probably have exceeded $2K.
Spot on, per the usual.

I would read the shit out of a Laura33 advice column.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Monocle Money Mouth on November 14, 2017, 03:12:19 PM
This was over on the hoarder thread. I thought it had some really good insight on how to deal with garbage hoarding parents might give you that you don't necessarily want.

To restate where I'm coming from as far as my advice/commentary in this thread: I grew up in a hoarder house. As bad, if not worse than any you've ever seen on those television shows. Both parents (divorced, so I got the fun of being shuffled from one horrible house to the other horrible apartment/house, which just got worse as I got older). I am not talking "they're just a packrat" or "there's piles of stuff on some surfaces or clutter in every room" level - dad's house required a crime scene cleaner, many GIANT dumpsters and hazmat suits to deal with the level of filth/hoarding. Mother's house likely similar (maybe no hazmat) when it comes to that. I am a reformed packrat, who does deal with the echoes of pain/anguish getting rid of "family" items or stuff that that are no longer wanted/useful. I usually cry after driving away from the donation centers, but once it's done, I have little regret and I'm thankful for the years of counseling and self-exploration to deal with this horrible mental aberration.

marble_faun, I'd advise you to stop associating any items with possible family heirloom as "valuable" since you couldn't recognize them as such one way or another, and your mother is using this weakness to try to make you keep things you otherwise would not want at all. Why does it matter anyway? They are gone. The object should be judged/kept based off of whether you want to use it as intended or it gives you great pleasure in seeing/using said object. Period, full stop.

My own mother is unable to let things go at all unless she knows they will be used/valued, or can be sold for money. She is stuck in the sunk cost fallacy of hoarding, where she will not allow herself to process how messed up her life/house is and has been for all these years so she has to justify the hoarding as "saving valuable objects" or else she won't let them go until someone values them and promises they won't be thrown out, or gives her proof that she was being smart (by paying her money).

She justifies quite a bit of her current hoard in outbuildings as things she will sell in a garage sale, but she has never held a garage sale in her life, her house location is unsuitable for doing so, and she can't even stand on her feet long due to health issues so she can't organize anything anyway enough to price and set up. It is a fantasy she tells herself to justify the hoarding.

It sounds like your mother also has a bit of this mindset as she gifts things to others so she won't feel so stupid wasting her time/money/space having hoarded/saved the objects. Broken, stained or ill fitting objects - give to the daughter as she might fix/repurpose them and I have Done A Good Thing by not throwing them in the trash! See, I was really smart as I get to give them as gifts, I saved these objects and daughter will value them because they came from ME! Win/win situation in her mind...

Now that you've told her you won't accept general objects, she's switched tactics to tell you that these things might be "family heirlooms" so you will take the items and not dispose of them... therefore reinforcing in her mind that she wasn't being stupid holding the items herself because you will value them and become the custodian of her collection.

So a big thing to ask yourself: why the fact a long dead relative may have made/bought/touched said item makes it more important to you? You've already stated you got rid of things without any known association at the time (pencil case). So why would you need to keep the pencil case or doilies at all just because of family associations? You obviously weren't going to use or display the pencil case since you got rid of it already. Unless you really love and will use said items for what they actually are, you're leaving yourself open to becoming a hoarder as well. The tendency can run in families.

My father used to use gifting as an excuse to amass even more garbage/junk. He would pick up pictures or old books or anything that reminded him of me or things I liked (even if it was things I used to like when I was like 7 years old and no longer collected or even looked at) and then "save" them for gifts to give me. I lived 4 states away, flew in and had little suitcase space and he refused to pay for postage on even a card, let alone a package... and yet would try to give me large framed prints, comforters/bed-in-a-bag sets, dishes, etc... to take home, on a plane.

I told him finally to stop using me as an excuse to shop for junk. I couldn't take things anyway, and since I didn't need or want any of that stuff, anything he gave me would be donated, and it would be a more meaningful gesture for him to donate the money directly through his church or local charities. He got pretty mad about it (total denial about how terrible the house was, as in his mind he was never "that bad" and would get super angry when confronted), but finally stopped trying to gift me stuff.

The true goal here is start trying to wrap your mind around the idea of just letting them go.

Family IS important - their THINGS are not.



I'd suggest doing some reading on hoarders to help figure out the mindset and recognize the cliffs that you may be facing.
I got these at the library, but there are some great websites as well (http://childrenofhoarders.com/wordpress/ for instance is a great resource for other sites and info):

https://www.amazon.com/Stuff-Compulsive-Hoarding-Meaning-Things/dp/0547422555

https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Clean-Kimberly-Rae-Miller/dp/0544320816
^this one struck a nerve with me
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CanuckExpat on November 14, 2017, 03:22:12 PM
Good advice on how to start an FI bookclub in person and why you would want to do it:

I DO think book clubs are pretty neat, and it kind of embodies all the things MMM, Frugalwoods, etc. would approve of:
  • it's an excuse to hang out with like-minded folks
  • it's an opportunity to host frugally
  • books can be acquired from libraries or cheaply used / resell when done
  • yum, food/cupcakes/wine/beer/cheese

I didn't even do much to start this one except say yes to the real organizer, but I think my saying yes probably helped generate some accountability? SO, a guide, except I am mostly telling you what the organizer did:

  • ask your friends who have heard you rant about FI whether they would be interested in doing a book club
  • if your friends say yes, ask them if they know people who would be interested in an FI book club
  • decide on a pretty introductory but life-changing book that would pique an interest in this whole FI/RE thing, e.g. YMOYL, Simple Path to Wealth, or The Millionaire Next Door. Advice: DON'T start with Early Retirement Extreme or The Four Pillars of Investing. You want it to stay approachable!
  • Find a date 1-2 months out - this'll give people time to obtain the book, read the book, and hopefully time to find a date that works for most people. Facebook poll, Doodle, etc. can help with scheduling
  • Send out periodic reminders so people will read the book and remember to come
  • Send out a reminder the week of with promises of enticing snacks and an invitation that people can come even if they haven't finished the book
  • Prep some discussion points or potential points of contention to keep in the back of your pocket in case people are shy. Prepare a couple of different books to suggest for the next gathering, but let others voice what they would be interested in reading.
  • On day of, twiddle your thumb in hope that people actually show up
  • Feed people snacks. Be nice. Ask them their thoughts on particular ideas in the book. Have an awesome time!
  • Ideally, pick a book AND/OR the next meeting date before everyone leaves! This will keep them hooked and committed to coming back. Otherwise, follow up with email thanking them for coming and putting out book / dates for the next meet. Rinse and repeat.
  • After a couple of meetings, once you have a solid group, you can ask if others would like to host
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: PJ on November 14, 2017, 07:56:04 PM
PJ and Dollar Slice discussing the wonders of autocorrect:

Seriously though, now you get to hear my rant about autocorrect and predictive text. 

I have no idea what your man, autocorrect is a fantastic intercom. I don't know what I would do without is most helpful circus to my text. Technology week face is all.

(This post is brought to you by Swype and autocorrect)

You have certain change my mind about autocorrect with you expecting text imonial. I will available criticizes this except technician in the future. I have been conversation to it's glorifying uses.

Thanks you for sharpener your store.

Thank you, thankyouverymuch!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: PJ on November 14, 2017, 07:57:25 PM
Laura33's response on how to deal with spendy family members (and timely with the holidays approaching)
Link to thread here. (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/dealing-with-spendy-event-planning-family-member/msg1771360/#msg1771360)
...
Just wondering how people (Mustachians especially) deal with family members who equate "togetherness" with "spending lots of money."
Honestly, your sister sounds like a bully.  Yeah, it's possible she sees your response as a slight on your relationship, but it's more likely that she knows that family togetherness is your weak spot, so she dove right for it to try to guilt you into changing your mind.  You need a consistent, calm response that you whip out every time she pulls this, along the lines of, "gee, I'd love to spend time with you, but that's not in my budget.  Can we have dinner at my place instead?"  [Or insert some other free/cheap get-together]  If she really is clueless, repeatedly offering her a simpler alternative will emphasize that you do want to get together; if she's just using it as a guilt trip to bend you to her will, the consistent response will eventually persuade her that you are done being a pushover. 

Also, expect it to get worse before it gets better -- people who are used to getting their way will tend to get even more aggressive the first time you say no, because they are used to you giving in, so they just assume if they push harder, you will resume your rightful (submissive) role.  Kind of like kids and tantrums, btw -- this is basically an adult tantrum, and so treating it as such tends to work very well.  FWIW, remaining calm and saying the same thing over and over will drive this kind of personality nuts more quickly than anything else -- first you're not doing what she wants, and now she can't even get you upset or angry or guilty about it?  It just sucks all of her power away from her, if she is so insignificant that she can't even ruffle your feathers.

And, yeah, I do have one of these.  I still remember when my SIL invited us and her other sister out to a very fancy restaurant (one of those with a famous-name chef) to celebrate her birthday.  DH and I were just married and had just bought a townhouse, so I was worried at the cost, but the SIL had introduced us and was clearly excited to have me in the family and wanted to include me, so I put my hesitations aside and went.  And boy had she set this up -- she had gotten the chef's table and set up this fantastic menu (e.g., we were greeted with the largest tray of charcuterie I have ever seen), which was definitely delicious, but waaaaay more food than we could possibly eat, and of course paired bottles of wine with each course.  And then she presented us with the tab.  For like $800*.  Because after all it was her birthday. 

WTF?  Who does that?  If she'd asked if I wanted to take her out for her birthday, I'd have said of course, and chosen a reasonable restaurant -- or at a bare minimum, taken over the planning to keep the menu and wine reasonable (we could easily have eaten at the same restaurant for less than half that cost).  But being presented with the check at the end was a real dick move that left us feeling like we had to pay to preserve family harmony.  And it was delicious, but not $400 delicious.  I really felt bad for her other sister, though, who made a lot less than the rest of us at the time -- I mean, you just don't do that, period, but you sure as hell don't do that to people who make maybe half of what you do.  Lucky for me, SIL was just clueless, not mean-spirited, and she's changed her ways since then. 

*Note that this was 20 years ago.  By today's inflated dining-out standards, it would probably have exceeded $2K.
Spot on, per the usual.

I would read the shit out of a Laura33 advice column.

Agreed!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on November 15, 2017, 06:48:43 AM
Aww, shucks [blushes].  Thanks, guys.

Honestly, I've been having a hard time lately, so this makes me disproportionately happy.  :-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on November 15, 2017, 08:57:59 AM
Aww, shucks [blushes].  Thanks, guys.

Honestly, I've been having a hard time lately, so this makes me disproportionately happy.  :-)

Laura, any thing that you write is so chock full of information. The majority of your posts belong here!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: JustGettingStarted1980 on November 15, 2017, 10:13:40 AM
Laura33,

I agree wholeheartedly with the above posters. I would also "read the shit" of any Laura33 advise column or book.

Consider doing a self published book using a lot of the material you already write on this blog? Might be a fun project that makes you some nice passive income. Might also be a colossal waste of time, but you never know! The material is definitely worth paying for, in my humble opinion.

JGS
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: former player on November 15, 2017, 10:21:15 AM
Laura33,

I agree wholeheartedly with the above posters. I would also "read the shit" of any Laura33 advise column or book.

Consider doing a self published book using a lot of the material you already write on this blog? Might be a fun project that makes you some nice passive income. Might also be a colossal waste of time, but you never know! The material is definitely worth paying for, in my humble opinion.

JGS
Also agreed. I think a self-help book along the lines of "how your life circumstances derail you and how to get back on track" would fill a niche.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: koshtra on November 16, 2017, 02:01:16 PM
Yeah, what they all said. The first thing I do when I open up the forum is check whether Laura33's said anything new.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Kitsunegari on November 17, 2017, 09:17:58 AM
Laura33 you might want to consider a blog first, then an e-book : all of the fun, so much cheaper than a self-published book.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on November 17, 2017, 11:08:45 AM
Laura33 you might want to consider a blog first, then an e-book : all of the fun, so much cheaper than a self-published book.

I could help you setup  a blog! Technical guy here with web building experience

Now back to the regularly schedule "Best posts". Sorry for the derailment.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: cerat0n1a on November 17, 2017, 12:45:38 PM
Laura33 you might want to consider a blog first, then an e-book : all of the fun, so much cheaper than a self-published book.

Self-published book with Amazon createspace costs nothing? Well, apart from the time to write it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CanuckExpat on November 18, 2017, 10:47:07 AM
An interesting post here that presents some numbers and a comparison of the fact that the medical community and public health officials go out of their way to encourage parents to put their babies on their backs to sleep, but you almost never here a doctor asking if you walk instead of driving when possible. When in fact the reduction in death ratios is about the same (or maybe even more)

Just chatted with a doctor friend of ours who put his baby to sleep on her belly. I asked for the reasons behind that decision and the research he had done. He pointed me to this article which I found fascinating.

Quote
— Chances of a prone-sleeping infant succumbing to SIDS with no other risk factors: about 1 in 20,000 (range 10,000–25,000)
— Chances of a supine-sleeping infant succumbing to SIDS with no other risk factors: about 1 in 50,000 (range 25,000–60,000)
Let’s put those odds in perspective:

— Chances of the average person dying within the next year in a car accident: about 1 in 20,000
— Chances of the average person dying within the next year as a pedestrian involved in an accident: about 1 in 50,000

Quote
How often do doctors ask you if you walk versus drive to work?  If you had a choice, would they offer a strong recommendation that you walk, on the sole basis that you’d be less likely to die in an accident in the next year?

Most doctors would think such a recommendation on that basis alone would be ridiculous, since the odds are so low and there are so many factors involved that it would be difficult to prevent any given accident — and they only differ by a factor of 2-3.  Moreover, comparing SIDS to an accident is appropriate in this case, since without a proven cause (particularly in cases with no risk factors), statistically it is equivalent to an “accident.”

http://www.heracliteanriver.com/?p=97

For those who can make it all the way through, I am really interested in your thoughts. This seemed to bring up a lot of points and other considerations I hadn’t heard talked about before, such as developmental delays and missed sleep due to back sleeping.

This reminded me of both the The True Cost of Commuting (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-commuting/) and The Real Reason you should be Biking to Work (http://shifter.info/forget-all-the-other-reasons-you-should-be-riding-a-bike-this-is-the-one-that-matters/) (based on real data, the health benefits compared to sedentary commuting are massive, even if the people who commute sedentary try to exercise at other points in their day)

And it's a good reminder that humans area really bad at evaluating risk and probabilities
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: beltim on November 24, 2017, 05:36:17 AM
An interesting post here that presents some numbers and a comparison of the fact that the medical community and public health officials go out of their way to encourage parents to put their babies on their backs to sleep, but you almost never here a doctor asking if you walk instead of driving when possible. When in fact the reduction in death ratios is about the same (or maybe even more)

Just chatted with a doctor friend of ours who put his baby to sleep on her belly. I asked for the reasons behind that decision and the research he had done. He pointed me to this article which I found fascinating.

Quote
— Chances of a prone-sleeping infant succumbing to SIDS with no other risk factors: about 1 in 20,000 (range 10,000–25,000)
— Chances of a supine-sleeping infant succumbing to SIDS with no other risk factors: about 1 in 50,000 (range 25,000–60,000)
Let’s put those odds in perspective:

— Chances of the average person dying within the next year in a car accident: about 1 in 20,000
— Chances of the average person dying within the next year as a pedestrian involved in an accident: about 1 in 50,000

Quote
How often do doctors ask you if you walk versus drive to work?  If you had a choice, would they offer a strong recommendation that you walk, on the sole basis that you’d be less likely to die in an accident in the next year?

Most doctors would think such a recommendation on that basis alone would be ridiculous, since the odds are so low and there are so many factors involved that it would be difficult to prevent any given accident — and they only differ by a factor of 2-3.  Moreover, comparing SIDS to an accident is appropriate in this case, since without a proven cause (particularly in cases with no risk factors), statistically it is equivalent to an “accident.”

http://www.heracliteanriver.com/?p=97

For those who can make it all the way through, I am really interested in your thoughts. This seemed to bring up a lot of points and other considerations I hadn’t heard talked about before, such as developmental delays and missed sleep due to back sleeping.

This reminded me of both the The True Cost of Commuting (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-commuting/) and The Real Reason you should be Biking to Work (http://shifter.info/forget-all-the-other-reasons-you-should-be-riding-a-bike-this-is-the-one-that-matters/) (based on real data, the health benefits compared to sedentary commuting are massive, even if the people who commute sedentary try to exercise at other points in their day)

And it's a good reminder that humans area really bad at evaluating risk and probabilities

Interestingly, that itself is a bad evaluation of risk and probabilities.  The odds of you dying as a pedestrian are obviously dependent on how much you walk.  And the odds of dying as a pedestrian over a given distance (for example, walking to work) are MUCH higher than while driving1.  Of course, there are other factors involved (like the exercise benefits of walking - which, by the way, doctors always recommend), but using the odds of death without accounting for how often / far you travel using those methods leads you to the wrong conclusion.

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/662174/tsgb-2017-print-ready-version.pdf
Title: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: rockstache on November 26, 2017, 05:53:29 PM
This post, which Okits wrote about the definition of success and comparing oneself to peers.

Sun Hat, your post really resonated with me.

kork, we're about the same age (late 30s), and I think we are in an odd transition period where psychologically, we still think our youth and health are endless, and there's still so much opportunity and plenty of time to pursue it.  In reality, the shift has already started; now or soon we'll see people in our age range getting moderate-to-serious illnesses, one or two unlucky ones dying off, workplace ageism in some industries, our parents becoming infirm and needing our attention, for those that want it, the window of opportunity shrinking for the idealized family life (partnering with someone of a similar age who understands your generational points of reference, having it be the first marriage for you both with neither bringing existing responsibilities into the union, having the desired number of offspring with no difficulty or rush, having the carefree lifestyle you desire for a number of years before illnesses or dependents appear).

From the first perspective of bountiful youth and opportunity, yeah, the career achievements seem really desirable and important.  But the second perspective is, and has always been, closer to the truth.  The duration of your life is finite.  You must make choices.  Is your priority really some cheap wall plaque and some cash because this year you maximized shareholder value more than the other corporate drones?  If some things just have to fall away, wouldn't you put aside the career ladder for the friends that really care about you, the family that loves you, the causes that matter to you, the pursuits that inspire you?

I struggle pretty hard with looking like a loser on the outside.  I don't hand out business cards that proclaim the good fortune in my personal life or the size of my investment portfolio.  There is no external validation, which is what I was conditioned to live for.  Social approval is hard to forego.  Do it anyway.  Put the important things (NOT a career you don't really care about) first.  When you experience crisis points you will feel satisfied and grateful for your choices, and not a bitter realization that you spent your life on what doesn't really matter to you.





https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/how-do-you-handle-peer-success-when-you're-looking-to-fire/msg1785525/?PHPSESSID=aumfmjngjdvjrb2l4pig97rrv2#msg1785525
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BTDretire on November 27, 2017, 04:23:22 PM
Laura33 you might want to consider a blog first, then an e-book : all of the fun, so much cheaper than a self-published book.

Self-published book with Amazon createspace costs nothing? Well, apart from the time to write it.

 I had someone just today tell me that a friend of theirs sold a book on Amazon and they took 40% of the selling price. Can anyone confirm that?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: sherr on November 27, 2017, 08:46:11 PM
Laura33 you might want to consider a blog first, then an e-book : all of the fun, so much cheaper than a self-published book.

Self-published book with Amazon createspace costs nothing? Well, apart from the time to write it.

 I had someone just today tell me that a friend of theirs sold a book on Amazon and they took 40% of the selling price. Can anyone confirm that?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-account/mm-summary-page.html?ie=UTF8&ld=AZFooterSelfPublish&topic=200260520

"Earn royalties of up to 70%." So a 40% fee sounds within the realm of possibility.

But those are not contradictory statements. It costs you nothing (you don't have to write Amazon a check to get them to publish it), you just don't get as much money as the buyers are paying.


edit: Having re-read the conversation I retract that statement.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: HappierAtHome on November 27, 2017, 09:07:09 PM
This post, which Okits wrote about the definition of success and comparing oneself to peers.

Sun Hat, your post really resonated with me.

kork, we're about the same age (late 30s), and I think we are in an odd transition period where psychologically, we still think our youth and health are endless, and there's still so much opportunity and plenty of time to pursue it.  In reality, the shift has already started; now or soon we'll see people in our age range getting moderate-to-serious illnesses, one or two unlucky ones dying off, workplace ageism in some industries, our parents becoming infirm and needing our attention, for those that want it, the window of opportunity shrinking for the idealized family life (partnering with someone of a similar age who understands your generational points of reference, having it be the first marriage for you both with neither bringing existing responsibilities into the union, having the desired number of offspring with no difficulty or rush, having the carefree lifestyle you desire for a number of years before illnesses or dependents appear).

From the first perspective of bountiful youth and opportunity, yeah, the career achievements seem really desirable and important.  But the second perspective is, and has always been, closer to the truth.  The duration of your life is finite.  You must make choices.  Is your priority really some cheap wall plaque and some cash because this year you maximized shareholder value more than the other corporate drones?  If some things just have to fall away, wouldn't you put aside the career ladder for the friends that really care about you, the family that loves you, the causes that matter to you, the pursuits that inspire you?

I struggle pretty hard with looking like a loser on the outside.  I don't hand out business cards that proclaim the good fortune in my personal life or the size of my investment portfolio.  There is no external validation, which is what I was conditioned to live for.  Social approval is hard to forego.  Do it anyway.  Put the important things (NOT a career you don't really care about) first.  When you experience crisis points you will feel satisfied and grateful for your choices, and not a bitter realization that you spent your life on what doesn't really matter to you.





https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/how-do-you-handle-peer-success-when-you're-looking-to-fire/msg1785525/?PHPSESSID=aumfmjngjdvjrb2l4pig97rrv2#msg1785525

This is brilliant and amazing and I'd better print it out and read it every damn day.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on December 08, 2017, 08:38:32 PM
When someone posted about how they weren't "really" a millionaire with a net worth of 1MM, because the benchmark from some article they read was in 1996 dollars, so you'd need 1.6MM in 2017 dollars, FiveSigmas posted:
It's ridiculous to use such an arbitrary date as 1996. Clearly, you only count as a millionaire if you have the equivalent of 1,000,000 Roman denarii (in year 1 terms). According to wikipedia, 1 denarius was 1/25th of an aureus. An aureus was 99% gold and weighed ~8 grams, which makes it worth around $432 in today's money. Thus, you need 432/25*10^6 = ~17.3 million dollars.

And really, base 10 is pretty antiquated. I'd recommend 2^20 as the proper threshold.

On an unrelated note, what's the word for "enough-enaire"?

The first part made me laugh, but that final sentence, wow!  Love it!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on December 11, 2017, 08:51:11 AM
Pretty sure the word for "enough'enaire" is FIRE'd.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: wordnerd on December 11, 2017, 09:19:39 AM
On loving your job and still wanting to FIRE.

Yep, this is me too.

As I said in my journal, I have a job that pays well, is creative and not repetitive, and rarely demands more than 40 hours per week. I work in a climate-controlled office where I don't have to endure heat, cold or shitty weather, and if even that's too much to ask, I can work from home. I have generous benefits, a decent boss who trusts me to do my job without micromanaging, and coworkers I get along well with.

As work situations go, it doesn't get much better. But, y'know, it's still work. It's 40 hours a week that my time isn't my own and I can't do what I want to do. I still have to set an alarm and drag myself out of bed in the mornings when I'd rather sleep in, get stuck in commuting snarls, attend pointless meetings, deal with ridiculous customer demands, fend off people from other departments who want me to do their jobs for them, get called on nights and weekends for emergencies.

Those kinds of frustrations are inherent to any job, even the good ones. I acknowledge there are people who have it worse than I do, but that doesn't change the fact that every hour I'm at work is an hour taken out of my finite time on this blue earth. It's time I could spend traveling the world, imbibing knowledge and beauty, and being with my wife and my little boy. In the final accounting, those things are so much more important than my job that there's just no comparison.

I don't think FIRE comes from selfishness. I think it's an inevitable consequence of valuing the right things.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on December 11, 2017, 10:53:07 AM
Pretty sure the word for "enough'enaire" is FIRE'd.

Well I suppose it would be ridiculous for me to repost this in the exact thread that it's already in, but this was a great post. :D
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on December 11, 2017, 11:47:47 AM
Pretty sure the word for "enough'enaire" is FIRE'd.

Well I suppose it would be ridiculous for me to repost this in the exact thread that it's already in, but this was a great post. :D
Leave it to a Texan to coin such an appropriate word.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nawhite on December 11, 2017, 12:33:57 PM
In a discussion about the possibility of increasing your withdrawal rate in up years like 2017, gerardc left this great explanation of why that can be dangerous based on the assumptions of the 4% SWR research.

I did the calculation before and by resetting to 4% every year the market is at a new high, you're lowering your 95% success rate down to roughly 37%. Don't do it

Can you explain this? Because the 4% rule is worst-case historical rate-of-return, is it not? So it seems to me like you should be able to reset what "4%" means each year from when you retire until the first down year, because the up years are not "worst case" sequence-of-return years.

The reason is that 4% WR does not actually have a 100% success rate; if you take a 3.6% WR (or so) which does have 100% success rate, then you're right that you can reset anytime. But since 4% only has 95% success rate, there are a few starting years that fail historically. Those years are typically right before a crash or a long stagflation period, where there is typically a market spike. So if you reset every time the market is up throughout your retirement, chances are you'll eventually hit one of those years and fail then. Those failure years are well distributed throughout history so many retirement periods will include them.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on December 11, 2017, 02:16:01 PM
Pretty sure the word for "enough'enaire" is FIRE'd.

Well I suppose it would be ridiculous for me to repost this in the exact thread that it's already in, but this was a great post. :D
Leave it to a Texan to coin such an appropriate word.

You guys are kind, but I didn't coin either word, I just connected them.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on December 11, 2017, 05:39:50 PM
Pretty sure the word for "enough'enaire" is FIRE'd.

Well I suppose it would be ridiculous for me to repost this in the exact thread that it's already in, but this was a great post. :D
Leave it to a Texan to coin such an appropriate word.

You guys are kind, but I didn't coin either word, I just connected them.
Connecting two words to make a new one = coining, no? You don't have to keep it, but I'm totally giving you credit. And stealing it. Thank you.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on December 11, 2017, 05:49:35 PM
I think FiveSigmas coined it, if you read what I originally quoted that TallTexan was replying to. TT just changed the hyphen to an apostrophe, that's what he meant by combining it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on December 11, 2017, 06:26:11 PM
Laura's explanation of what financial independence means to her really gets at the emotional relief that can occur, and her writing style is vivid and palpable.

The $3m sounds large, but I suspect reaching the milestone will provide little emotional boost.  On the contrary, it may even trigger a quiet emotional drop, when the "reachers" will sigh and utter these words "Is this it?  What a bummer!"

Or, in my case:  "Is this it?  Whew!  Hallelujah!!"

Not because of a specific number on an investment statement.  Because of the massive relief when I realized I didn't need to work, ever again -- that I could walk any time I wanted to; that DH's job could implode, and I could still walk, and we wouldn't need to sell the house and uproot our lives and chase jobs across the country.  Because we've done all of that, more than once, and it was scary, and it sucked, and there's still part of me that can't believe my luck that all that worry and pressure is really gone for good.

IMO, the biggest luxury in life -- the biggest privilege -- is being able to figure out who you want to be without even considering how to support yourself doing it.  It is a privilege I never had growing up; heck, if you'd asked me back then, I'd have told you that kind of freedom existed only in the world of trust funds and silver spoons. 

I still don't know the answer, btw.  But the weight that has been lifted from my shoulders while I'm figuring it out is immense.  And the funny thing is that I didn't even know there was a giant weight on my chest until it was gone and I could suddenly breathe.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on December 11, 2017, 07:07:55 PM
I think FiveSigmas coined it, if you read what I originally quoted that TallTexan was replying to. TT just changed the hyphen to an apostrophe, that's what he meant by combining it.
Got it. I love the term, whoever's mustachian mind it came from.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: simonsez on December 12, 2017, 08:06:13 AM
I enjoyed Mr. Green's story in Share Your Badassity about helping his mother set up a Simple IRA and HSA at her place of employment to finagle the health insurance costs.  Bravo!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Raj on December 15, 2017, 08:19:03 PM
First of all I think this is an amazing thread, thanks for creating it OP.

I'll have to check out Mr. Green's post later simonsez, I have to wonder how he convinced his mom to let him set up the accounts for her.  I'd love to do something similar for my father in the future.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bicycle_B on December 16, 2017, 04:49:09 PM
Simonsez, I feel the same way and came here to tag the very same post.

For those who don't want to click, here it is (from the General Discussion area's Share Your Badassity section; thread title "Saving my mom over $10,000 in 2018 - a forum thank you!")

My mom is 61 years old. The small employer she's been with for 20 years doesn't provide heath insurance so she gets it through the ACA. In 2017, her insurance premium went up to $590 a month and it was about all she could do to afford it. She makes a few thousand dollars more than the ACA subsidy cliff threshold so she doesn't get any help, even though her insurance premiums are unaffordable, by definition in the ACA. At her age she is very hesitant to go without insurance since she's had a couple major problems from a car accident a few years back. CareFirst is raising her premium by 40% for 2018, up to almost $900 a month, and there's no chance that she can afford to pay it.

Thanks to all the knowledge I've learned from this forum and other early retirement bloggers, I investigated how easy it would be for her small employer (about 8 people) to set up a Vanguard SIMPLE IRA for her, which the IRS considers a retirement plan and would allow her to contribute pre-tax dollars to, thereby reducing her modified adjusted gross income. I asked her if the owner would be willing to offer a SIMPLE IRA to employees of the business. She thought he might go for it so I created a short PowerPoint presentation highlighting the benefits of the plan and what it would cost the business and she gave it to him to review. She explained to him how it would make a tremendous difference to the cost of her health insurance so he went for it, and has created a plan through Vanguard.

Now that she can reduce her modified adjusted gross income via pre-tax retirement contributions, I sat down with her and we reviewed her income to show how she can shift IRA contributions she had been making on her own, how she can open an HSA to reduce her MAGI even further, and how everything will work and still leave her with the money she needs to cover her living expenses. She called the state insurance exchange to report a change of income and she will now receive over $600 a month in premium subsidies, bringing the cost of insurance down to about $230 a month. The end result between the small employer contribution she'll get on her SIMPLE IRA, the tax savings she'll receive on the HSA she's opening, additional tax savings on any retirement contributions she'll make above the $6,500 she was limited to with a self-directed IRA, and the premium subsidy is that she'll save over $10,000 in 2018 and she'll get to keep her insurance. Even better is the fact that she doesn't expect her income to rise in the next few years so she now has a viable path to keeping health insurance affordable until she's 65 and can start Medicare.

So I just wanted to say THANK YOU to all the folks here that I've learned from over the past couple years because without the knowledge I've learned here this wouldn't have been possible. My mom is over-the-moon happy.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Loren Ver on December 16, 2017, 05:17:09 PM
That is one of the best things I have read in a long time.  Thank you for posting it here.

Using the knowledge to FIRE is great, using it to help others is breath taking.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on December 16, 2017, 07:18:40 PM
Wow that's incredible Mr. Green. Thanks for posting that Bicycle.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Raj on December 17, 2017, 03:14:00 AM
I was planning to go looking afterwards, thank you Bicycle_B for making it easier, it's inspiring to see that we can use the financial knowledge we gain to not only make a difference in our own lives but also our family and friends.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bicycle_B on December 22, 2017, 02:00:46 PM
If it is permitted to post again so quickly - "The Twelve Days of FI Christmas", by Budget Epicurean, My Sons Father, I Dream of Fire, and Musical Drewby; linked by FrugalZony:

I am so cracking up over this right now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rOS6ZENyX4

friggin hilarious!!!

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Cheddar Stacker on December 23, 2017, 08:17:09 AM
If it is permitted to post again so quickly - "The Twelve Days of FI Christmas", by Budget Epicurean, My Sons Father, I Dream of Fire, and Musical Drewby; linked by FrugalZony:

I am so cracking up over this right now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rOS6ZENyX4

friggin hilarious!!!

Bravo! Very well done, particularly all the captions.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Money Badger on December 24, 2017, 07:08:47 AM
If it is permitted to post again so quickly - "The Twelve Days of FI Christmas", by Budget Epicurean, My Sons Father, I Dream of Fire, and Musical Drewby; linked by FrugalZony:

I am so cracking up over this right now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rOS6ZENyX4

friggin hilarious!!!
Loved this!!    The captions were brilliant (particularly Dave's head exploding at the end on financing a car)

Bravo! Very well done, particularly all the captions.

Loved this!!    The captions were brilliant (particularly Dave's head exploding at the end on financing a car)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on December 25, 2017, 10:04:13 AM
This post is awesome. It applies to the OP's original query about buying an expensive car because they can "afford" it now, but B_B's thought provoking and wise response quoted below reaches far beyond the question asked.


You feel your body breaking down and want to buy some joy before you're too old to enjoy it?

My advice as someone who's been there and done that:  don't buy the car.

I meant to take advantage of post-financial crash automaker desperation by purchasing a once-in-a-lifetime new car on the cheap.  I did it.  I bought a 35k-ish car that looked like 40k and felt like 40k and cost me 29k.   The same money left in the markets would be 55k now, but that's not what you're concerned about.  Here's what counts:

It didn't make a lot happier.  It only made me a little happier, and that wasn't worth it.

I did get some admiring glances every so often.  At three glances a month for three years, then two a month, then one, now none, I got probably 200+ admiring glances at a cost of $250 each.  I noticed maybe half of them, so $500 per ego stroke.  At 30 seconds per glow, maybe $1000 per minute ($60,000 per hour).  Not efficient, not sustaining.  Plus it got old after a bit.  And then, after a few years passed, other people didn't respect my car as much as I did, so even that was gone.

That's not the hard part.  The hard part is that the aches and pains happened anyway.  Some exercise and physical therapy helped, but I'm still an ex-marathoner, not a marathoner.  My hair turned gray.  I dye my beard.  I tell myself there's a bit of salt in the pepper after a week.  My honest friend just tells me my beard is gray.  Car or no, the 20something babes don't flip their hair at me any more, only the 45 to 55 year olds do.  My parent and my best friend and my other best friend died. I grieved and cleaned up some of their junk and learned to be happy that I knew them.  I realized that all my life, old people had learned that these things were coming and left me in peace to learn on my own sweet time because like all young people, hearing about age just turned me off and made me scorn them. 

The car solved none of this, stopped none of this, was irrelevant.  The brief joy was too little.  I would have been better off renting a Lambo for $2000 one weekend, spending $1000 on race track lessons and a rented stock car, and putting a bike rack on top of a cheap sedan to look outdoorsy if I wanted a second glance from someone.  I would have been better off joining a bike club or a hike club, not a car club, or joining a cooking club for that matter to increase the company in my life.

Yes, there's a place for joy if your time is short.  But a new car if you're not even at FI isn't the place. 

I get the feeling of anticipation that you're confident, basically, that you have enough.  I get that now you're approaching enough, now that you feel it emotionally, you're saying "Can I spend for happiness now?"  I get that as the cold wind blows, you shiver and say "What about me?  What about now?  What can I have?" 

You can have anything you want, but a new car isn't a good way to get much of it.  In and of itself, it's a pretty inefficient purchase.  In fact, it's pretty much guaranteed to distract you from the important things that you can and should and must and will find right on the other side of the questions that you're asking.  You will find friends and joy and wisdom and peace, you will savor the years that remain, be they five or fifty. 

But you will not find these things efficiently in a car club. 

Ok, you might.  You're you.  But I didn't.   And most people won't.  Blessings and best wishes regardless.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Eckhart on December 25, 2017, 10:23:09 AM
If it is permitted to post again so quickly - "The Twelve Days of FI Christmas", by Budget Epicurean, My Sons Father, I Dream of Fire, and Musical Drewby; linked by FrugalZony:

I am so cracking up over this right now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rOS6ZENyX4

friggin hilarious!!!

Loved it!  Merry Christmas Festivus everyone!

The Story of Festivus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX55AzGku5Y)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CanuckExpat on December 26, 2017, 10:52:27 AM
@Jsn revived an old "this time is different" thread to update on what the OP's result would have been if they did nothing and didn't sell (ie stayed the course)

I'm reviving this old thread to illustrate the power of staying the course.

This fellow invested in the market in January of 2015. By early 2016 he was convinced he'd "missed the entire ride up" and that "this market now seems intent on going straight to hell". To him, it was obvious that "I f'ed myself over on waiting until the peak to buy in...I'm literally watching my hard work and hopes and dreams vanish with each day."

Today's total S&P return since January 2015, dividends reinvested? 36.984%.


I get the whole "eventually the market always goes up" argument and trying to time it can result in losses. However, I'm in a situation here that is tearing me to shreds:

1. I had planned on early retiring at some point this year.
2. I missed the entire ride up. At the start of last year, I piled my entire net worth into investments, despite understanding we were at historically high valuations (foolish, in retrospect).
3. I've held tight since, despite the downturns. But this market now seems intent on going straight to hell with crazy overreactions to stupid shit (China is less than 1% of all U.S. exports!!!!!! WTF?!!?!). There is zero good news that has any sustained impact and the downturn has "seemingly" just started - we're still at a high valuation level.
4. My only hope for saving my retirement this year (and potentially years ahead) is to sell today and buy back in at a lower level that could get me back to par. I'd be happy to just recoup my losses and then play it smarter in the future by finding ways to protect the downside.
5. I don't think I have 2, 3, 4+ more years of work left in me to get back to the point I was at last year.

I realized I f'ed myself over on waiting until the peak to buy in and then planning to retire shortly after. Rare scenario, but shit happens. I'm literally watching my hard work and hopes and dreams vanish with each day. My plan is falling apart. Talk to me, please.

The entire thread (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/about-to-sell-everything-talk-me-off-the-ledge-(or-push-me-off)-please!) is worth a read
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Raj on December 27, 2017, 06:21:24 AM
The entire thread (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/about-to-sell-everything-talk-me-off-the-ledge-(or-push-me-off)-please!) is worth a read
Seeing stuff like this really shows that it's easy to intellectually understand that once you invest you don't take large chunks out, but downturns can really hit you emotionally.

The ideal situation is to start auto investing several years before you retire, that way by the time you do retire your used to completely ignoring your investments and are fine letting it go on auto pilot.

Of course it all changes when you do retire but statistically speaking your best off just getting your monthly paycheck and continuing to ignore your investments.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: former player on December 27, 2017, 08:32:37 AM
Frankies Girl in the Ask a Mustachian thread "What to do with inheritance?"

Been there, done that. Inherited a life changing amount, knew nothing about investing (great saver, frugal, planning on a possible early-ish retirement in my 50s before this happened). I am now completely confident in what I'm doing and feel fantastic about it. And I barely spend an hour or two a month even thinking about all of this stuff - other than for pure entertainment. :)


First thing: I am so sorry for your family's loss. If you've received an inheritance, it means someone close to you is gone. Take some time to mourn. Do not do anything in haste or without sufficient time and research. Which means it is perfectly okay to just get things switched over into your name, and leave them to sit for a few months to work through your grief, and figure out what moves you'd like to make and educate yourself on how to go about it.

All stocks/bonds should be subject to "stepped up cost" meaning that no matter how long your dearly departed held the funds, the capital gains are now wiped clean and set to zero once you take possession. Under normal circumstances, you'd have to worry about cap gains, but it likely won't be much (if any since it could drop in value - but likely not enough to worry over) for a few months as you figure out what to do (sell them off most likely and then buy the funds that fit your own AA).

In the case of something like an IRA/401k or the like, you have two options and it is important to get this right within the next year. You can either take the full amount out within the next 5 years. This is usually not a good idea since you'll pay taxes on the amount and if the account(s) are large, it will likely force you into a very high tax bracket since it counts towards your yearly reported income, and if you're working on top of that, it could be a mess not even counting the large amounts you'd lose to taxes. If you don't set up your RMD (see below) you will be forced into this option, so this is the one thing that needs prompt attention before year end of the following year.

The other (best IMO) option is to turn it into a "stretch" IRA, which means they will need to open a new account for you with it titled something like "for the beneficiary of deceased name" or similar - it should be something that the rep is familiar with. They will assess the full amount at the end of the year, then based off your own life expectancy, calculate a required minimum distribution (RMD) based on the number of years you have left (morbid, but logical). It will be recalulated each year based off of how much is left in the account, and can usually be set up to automatically sell off funds to generate the cash needed for the RMD and whatever date you'd like it done by. You can also designate federal and state withholding of taxes usually. You can take more than the RMD without penalty at any time, but keep in mind that money withdrawn is always going to count towards your generated income and is reportable for your yearly taxes. Please do confirm with your reps, but my understanding is that the first required withdrawal after you receive the account must be made by Dec. 31 of the year after the original owner's death.


For the rest of it, take some time and deal with the emotional stuff and paperwork and such. I personally took about 3 months before I could really deal with looking at what to do going forward, and then it took me about 3 months to learn how the stock market works, how to invest, index investing, what I wanted to do and how to do it.

I found this place and lots of help from many much smarter folks than myself.

I read Jim Collins' stock series and it was like night and day - I literally went from scared and ignorant to excited and confident. Check out his site or get his book (based on the site). It is absolutely one of the best, easy to understand guides I've ever read.
http://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/

Check out Bogleheads (https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page) site, but the following are the steps I took:

1. Wrote up an investment policy statement to figure out my goals and plans. This is my blueprint for what goes where, why I do A or B if this or that happens, where I want to go in the future, and how I'm going to get there.
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investment_policy_statement

2. Figured out my asset allocation (AA). This is based off of how much risk/volatility I felt comfortable with and set up my portfolio to reflect my AA (which would also include any real estate).
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Asset_allocation

3. I then took a look at what I held where, sold off everything that didn't match up with my goals in my IPS (I decided I was going to be an index investor holding only 2-4 total mutual funds across my entire portfolio, and was not interested in holding actual physical real estate but that's easy to include in your own IPS and AA). I built a lazy portfolio and I am quite pleased with the ease and elegance of it all. https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/How_to_build_a_lazy_portfolio



In your situation, you need to figure out 1-3 first, and then figure out whether holding RE debt is better for you - which would mean you'd need to weigh how much your RE loans are costing you versus investing the inherited money (which is why the interest rates and amounts you currently owe are vital to even giving any advice).

Say you owed $500K but the rate was 3% or so and you have at least that much to pay off all of the loans. You'd still likely earn WAY more than 3% investing in a basic index portfolio, so holding that debt makes sense and just continue to pay the minimums would be a decent choice. The argument for not paying them off is once the properties were paid off, that money is locked into a non-liquid asset that would require you to take out another loan or sell in order to get the money back out. If you are running a rental enterprise, that is slightly different as they should always provide enough money to support the debts owed and hopefully a nice chunk of change to make repairs and still line your pockets well. But in general it isn't the best move to pay off low interest rate loans when you can invest for better returns.

Again, my personal experience: I received enough money to make paying off my mortgage a small drop in the bucket. But my interest rate is 3.5% on a traditional 30 year loan, and I owe less than 50K total. It made no logical sense to pay that off other than for psychological reasons of not owing anything on my house, but as I still have to pay property taxes and insurance, there will always be a house payment as far as I'm concerned so the psychological comfort of knowing I paid off my house is meaningless to me. I can make way more keeping that money invested and just paying the monthly payments as structured.

If you have other debts that are over 5%, then likely I would say pay them off. But my personal opinion is that debt below 5% should be paid as scheduled and any extra money invested.

And for the rest of that: cash out? NO. Sitting on a big pile of money is money that isn't working for you, and inflation will eat away at the value of that money over time. Keep it in the market, based off of your IPS/AA and get that cash working hard for you for the rest of your life.

Call a financial adviser? NO. Read the links I mentioned above, do some other research and ask questions here if you run into anything you need help with. You are completely capable of managing your own money and investments. You are going to care WAY more than anyone else about it, and most FAs out there are not going to have your best interests at heart. Self managing really is easy to do (index investing anyway) and it is worth the month or two getting up to speed. Fear and uncertainty and wanting to have the "experts" handle things for you are all based on lack of knowledge - educate yourself and you'll be confident and clear on the what and why and how.

Definitely consider discussing your real estate holdings on this forum as well, so you know whether they are a good fit for your portfolio and making you a decent return. I personally don't like physical real estate myself but it definitely can be a great asset in your holdings.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mustachepungoeshere on December 28, 2017, 01:22:23 PM
Malkynn on stealth wealth. The last paragraph is everything.

We can’t really pull off Stealth Wealth because based on our jobs, everyone has a pretty good idea of what our income is: I’m a dentist, he works for the government, and we don’t have kids.

However, that doesn’t stop everyone from making off base and sometimes idiotic assumptions, lol.

An entry-level admin at DH’s work (basically a receptionist), recently made a comment about how DH always had a hard boiled egg at work and doesn’t drive in, so she assumed he was broke. His general income is public record, she knows full well that he makes more than triple what she does, but she felt really bad for him that he couldn’t afford to buy lunch and that he had to eat so many hard boiled eggs and couldn’t afford to drive in.
He frequently gets “isn’t your wife a dentist?”

Most people assume that I’m only frugal because I’m still early in my career as a dentist and I have debt to pay off. I get a lot of “reassurance” that I’ll be driving a BMW and living in an expensive neighbourhood in no time, which always makes me snort laugh.

People also assume that because I don’t own the clinic I work at, that I must be making a lot less money than the owner...um...I work half the hours she does and I take home twice as much right now. (Her profits go to business equity, so they’re there, just not as cash flow yet).

People assume that because I only work 3 days a week that I make much less money.
Well, yes, I make less money than I used to working nearly twice as much, but I still make more than many other people in my field who work far more hours because I’m better positioned to be more profitable day to day and hour to hour. I’m actually working the optimal amount to generate enough income to get the max benefit from tax deferral. Anything more and I can’t offset the high taxes, so it’s not actually worth it for me to work more and make more money.
Additionally, that leaves me enough free time to work on side hustles, which will likely end up more profitable than my day job in the end.

People assume I’m miserable and waiting to live until I reach some arbitrary financial goal and that I’ll snap and start spending like crazy as soon as I loosen the reigns a bit and give myself some financial breathing room. They think the used Corolla with the roll-up windows is a hardship that will drive me insane and that I’ll end up with a Porsche in my heated garage attached to my posh mini mansion in the ‘burbs (AKA my version of hell).
Lol, I moved *from* the poshest neighbourhood to the sketchiest in the city because I preferred it, and that’s *before* I found MMM.

People assumed we had a tiny 6 guest wedding to save money.
Nope. I just dislike big weddings and wasn’t willing to serve insanely expensive wine/champagne to more than a few very loved friends and family.

I see my life as filled with luxury, and I don’t hesitate for even a second to spend money on things I consider worthwhile. I paid $1000 for a kitten for fuck’s sake. I don’t live deprived at all, I’m just picky and don’t find most things worth the price tag. I’m not cheap, I’m just a snob about spending.
[kitten was totally worth it]

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Astatine on December 28, 2017, 05:52:56 PM
Kyle Schuant on privilege. He nailed it.

Glass half empty or half full, we all can agree that not everyone's glasses are the same size.
Correct. Many of us here are privileged and don't realise it. This is usually responded to with indignant howls of "but I work so hard!" But "privilege" or lack of it doesn't mean you don't work hard or do, it simply affects how much you'll get out of your hard work.


Anyone involved with sports knows that there exist "natural athletes" - the person with a big vertical jump and who can simply watch a movement and reproduce it well. This is why in my gym we'll get women who after 3 months of training squat 60kg, and others who squat 100kg. All of them show up every time and lift, but some simply get more out of their 39 sessions in 13 weeks than do others. They have talent.


Likewise people with a degree of privilege. The other day in the paper there was a young guy, son of a very wealthy family, talking about the apps he'd made and sold, and he proudly said "my parents never gave me a cent." He'd gone to Geelong Grammar, a school which costs about $37k a year - so his parents had spent the equivalent of a full-time minimum wage before tax on his education every year. What a cleaner or waitress working full-time (few do) earns in 13 years had gone on his education (there was no mention of if he'd gone to university). Not on;y this excellent education, but of course places like that have a lot of other privileged kids who can introduce you to people to invest in your work; this is why so many of the leading CEOs, high court judges and so on come from just a few schools.


"My parents never gave me a cent." They didn't have to. The kid worked hard - but because he had that start with an excellent education and knowing the right people to help him make things happen, he got a lot more out of his work than would a son of a single-mum part-time casual cleaner, the son who'd gone to a state school in Woop Woop.


Yes, if you're earning $40k you can save half of it. But then you're missing out on a lot of things, and not the things you miss out on when you're getting $100k and save half of it, more vital things. And you're relying on nothing going wrong for 20 years or so - no hospital visits, no sudden evictions, no deadbeat brothers-in-law who need a loan but will never pay it back, no periods of unemployment, and so on.


A lower income does allow saving, but a lower income is more fragile. And lower-income jobs tend to be less secure. People with lower incomes have more frequent and longer periods of unemployment than do those with higher incomes. This was a point missed by Geelong Grammar App Boy - sure, his parents didn't invest in his apps. But if it all failed miserably he wouldn't end up on the street. He had the freedom to take the risk of a big fuckup, a freedom that his Woop Woop State School son of a part-time casual cleaner peer wouldn't have.


I am acutely aware of these issues because I grew up poor, but am now doing well. I was able to do a career change and start a small business because of my wife doing a full-time professional job; she gave me the security, the fallback in case the risk turned out bad. I could have done it without her, but it would have been much harder, and the risks of failure would have been much greater. As someone who has literally slept on the street at one point, I am acutely aware of what "risk of failure" means for some people. The change and the business worked and now we're doing well.


This is why MMM speaks of giving to charity. Those of us who have more have a responsibility to give so that others may have opportunities like ours. Part of this is accomplished by taxation, which pays for public schools and so on, but whatever your politics, most can agree this is less efficient and effective than it might be, and so we should give to charities.


Originally the definition of "middle class" was "well-off to hire servants." In the Third World it's considered a social obligation (as well as a sign of status), so this is why you'll get a single professional in Beijing, Manila or Nairobi with a tiny apartment - but they have a maid. You have a lot, now you should pass it on. In the West few people have full-time servants, but some of us have businesses and we can hire people for them, and all of us have all sorts of jobs we can hire people for occasionally. In Judaism as in many faiths, charity is a duty, and the best charity is giving someone a job.


Quote from: SwordGuy
it's just plain evil to teach people they can't possibly succeed when it's been proven that people can.
Saying that some people will find success more difficult and requiring more luck than others is not saying that success is impossible for some people.


Americans are terrible at nuance and degree.
"I'm against the death penalty."
"What?! So we should just let them all go?!"
"I'm in favour of the death penalty."
"What?! So we should execute people for jaywalking?!"


Nuance. Subtlety. Degrees of this and that. Set aside this lazy black & white thinking and contend with what people have actually said: nothing is impossible, but some things are harder than others. "Well, just work harder." Yes, that works. But some people still need to be lucky.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Turkey Leg on December 30, 2017, 04:11:37 AM
From a couple of days ago. While the responses are mostly idiotic, the post itself is spot on. There is a very large group of MMMers who have no understanding of the “notify” function.

So I found an interesting thread with thousands of responses AND ALMOST EVERY RESPONSE IS "FOLLOWING" OR "PTF"!!!

What the actual fuck, people?

If you want to follow the post, simply click Notify. The poor etiquette in this forum makes it unusable.

I don't understand this. I am 47 years old and have been using the internet since it was a thing. I am a member of several other online communities. Nobody else does this!

If one of the moderators would go gangster and kick out everyone who doesn't know how to use the interwebs, that would be great.

I will check back in a week to see if the situation is rectified. That is all.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Fresh Bread on December 30, 2017, 04:38:51 AM
Oh my.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Astatine on December 30, 2017, 05:41:02 AM
Oh my.

IKR. The irony.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Astatine on December 30, 2017, 05:41:37 AM
Oh my.

IKR. The irony.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Eckhart on December 30, 2017, 07:40:37 AM
Couldn't resist getting in on the excitement! Do you suppose the OP has actually turned on email notifications for this thread? Because if not, they ought to in order experience first hand why PTF is far superior to notify in terms of forum usability.

I’ll keep repeating: many of you complain about the notify function without understanding it. Very unmustachian...MMMers are into optimization, after all.
Which means that the mustachian, optimised way to respond might be to not just keep repeating that people are doing something the wrong way but actually letting them know what they are doing wrong so that they can fix it, no?

I'm not sure exactly what macoconut is referring to but they might mean that it is possible to change your notification setting to only send an email the first time someone responds. After that you don't get another email until you have gone back to the thread. Or there is a daily or weekly notification optoin. Instantly but only first response is a bit less annoying than just instantly but has its issues as well as you have to be logged in for the forum to recognise you have read the new responses and are now waiting again for a new notification.

Mustachians are DIYers and should figure stuff out on their own. However, here are the instructions:

On any page of the forums, there is a menu at the top with these options: Home, Help, Search, Profile, My Messages, Member, Logout.

Click the word Profile. (Yes, it's a drop-down menu, but it's also a button. Click it.)

You'll be taken to a page with a set of sub-menus: Profile Info, Modify Profile.

Hover over Modify Profile, and choose Notifications.

BOOKMARK/FAVORITE the Notifications page!

NOTE: I have a favorite called "MMM-N" (N for notifications) in my bookmarks/favorites bar. That's the favorite I use almost all the time. (I occasionally look at "Unread posts since last visit", too, as well as new posts in the Post-Fire forum. I almost never look at "New replies to your posts" because if I want to keep track of a thread I posted in, I used the Notify button on that thread, and then it shows up on my Notifications page.)

All you email complainers should probably choose these settings on the Notifications page at the top: 1) uncheck all the checkboxes, and 2) for this setting "For topics and boards I've requested notification on, notify me:" choose Weekly. (Then just delete the weekly email that shows up, or set up a rule to auto-delete it.)

On the Notifications page, just as on the "unread posts" and "new replies to your posts" pages, there is an orange NEW button next to threads that you should be clicking to see what's new on the threads you're following.

And of course, click the Notify button (near the Reply button) on any thread you want to appear on your notifications page. If you lose interest in a thread, click the Unnotify button.

When you want to visit the MMM forums, use the Notifications page as your starting point.

How to use the notify button
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: tralfamadorian on December 30, 2017, 11:13:00 AM
From a couple of days ago. While the responses are mostly idiotic, the post itself is spot on. There is a very large group of MMMers who have no understanding of the “notify” function.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/iJxHzcuNcCJXi/giphy.gif)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Turkey Leg on December 30, 2017, 12:05:14 PM
From a couple of days ago. While the responses are mostly idiotic, the post itself is spot on. There is a very large group of MMMers who have no understanding of the “notify” function.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/iJxHzcuNcCJXi/giphy.gif)
You've got to own your ignorance. But don't turn it into stupidity. :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Eckhart on January 01, 2018, 02:31:18 PM
How to use the notify button

How do you set up your notify threads so that you click to the last read message of the thread?

I do not think this is possible as far as I can tell.

Notify function vs PTF (show new replies to your posts) both have pros and cons.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Turkey Leg on January 01, 2018, 03:17:15 PM
How to use the notify button

How do you set up your notify threads so that you click to the last read message of the thread?

I do not think this is possible as far as I can tell.

Notify function vs PTF (show new replies to your posts) both have pros and cons.

The only advantage to PTF is that many people use it, and it has become somewhat of a de facto standard on the MMM forums. There is no other advantage.

Click the orange NEW button on a thread to be taken to the first unread post of a thread. The orange new button is present on every page (notifications, unread posts since last visit, new replies to your posts, etc).

The orange NEW button IS a button, and is clickable. It’s not just a flag.

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: techwiz on January 02, 2018, 08:00:10 AM
Here is a great post from Retire Canada

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9c/05/36/9c05368f8e052516bed70b5f37cbbd21.jpg)

Recording numbers in a spreadsheet and comparing to my goals is simple. For many of us the saving for retirement is the easy part of the equation. Dealing with the mental aspects are far harder and also more challenging to evaluate progress. One thing I have tried very hard to do is to not turn money...particularly spending of money into a fetish. Both in the sense of blowing lots of it in a consumer orgy or worrying about spending every dollar in a frugal orgy. I don't think either relationship with money is healthy.

Clearly if I spend like a drunken sailor I'll never get to retire, but I also don't want to be a millionaire sitting at a pub with my friends and worrying about spending $5 for a second pint. Money is a tool. I want to use it to achieve my life goals. I want to own it not have it own me.

This is why I don't budget in detail and I don't track my spending in detail. I do have annual estimates for savings, spending and I can roughly tell how I am doing since I know how much I earned, how much taxes I paid and how much I saved...so the delta is how much I spent. That allows me to verify I am on track without bringing money control into my everyday spending transactions. That's also why I focus on my savings. Not only is that a once monthly task, but it's an accumulation phase task so when I retire it vanishes.

Being successful without budgeting requires that I set reasonable financial targets and that my values/personal goals are aligned with those targets. When this happens the choices I make line up with the money that's available and I don't have to think about what's going too much to make it all work. It would be easy to set a spending target that was too tight and always be living in the failure zone. That would put a lot of stress and unnecessary negativity around money in my head as I have to think about each purchase to avoid going over budget. Since I am on track to be a millionaire shortly that seems crazy to feel stressed about money when it's so abundant in my life. So I set goals that are not going to require that level of attention on each spending transaction. The difference in spending is zero, but the difference in mental health is huge.

Sounds great, but if things are always comfortable you can't improve. I don't think that's true. I have reduced my spending dramatically since I started getting serious about FIRE. I'm spending ~50% of what I used to. That's a massive reduction. Instead of trying to control spending at the budget level I dug down to my underlying values and personal goals to align them with my financial goals. From time to time I optimized my regular spending items [internet, cell phone, Netflix, etc..]...those are easy since once "fixed" they stay fixed. For other items like buying bikes and outdoors gear I worked on the desire end of things to resolve the problem. It's not too hard to see that what I really desire is to have lots of free time to ride my bikes and that buying lots of fancy bikes would lead to more work not more freedom. I could have decided no fancy bikes ever again and set myself up for a bunch of unhappiness. Instead I decided to limit the new bikes/gear to a level that makes retirement possible in a timeframe I am happy with. Short circuiting the desire to buy with the desire to retire makes not spending pretty simple since It's not often that the desire to buy trumps the desire to save....and when it does it's okay because I have allotted enough money to that in my annual budget I don't have to think/worry about it or control it tightly.

If I felt something was out of whack I would work on it for a time....maybe even run a detailed budget, but it would be temporary and my aim would be to fix the underlying issues so I could dispense with that approach. Back in 2016 I did a No Buying [new stuff] new year's resolution. That helped to kill a bunch of my retail therapy societal programming. It was a finite timeframe and it was not something that infected my everyday spending thoughts since most of what I buy was excluded from the resolution.  Before that I paid attention to my grocery shopping costs for a few months until I got things on track. Now I don't think about groceries in much detail or track their costs because I know my automatic choices will be reasonable ones.

What I love most about this approach is that when everything is in balance it feels effortless. There is no budgeting struggle or frugal burnout to deal with. I don't think much about money and spending. I have a shit ton of money and it always feels like I am rich, but at the same time I am not spending that money in ways that are harmful to my financial plan. Because I spend so little time thinking about spending I save lots of energy that can be redirected to more beneficial areas of my life....and if I ever did have a real financial crisis [lost my contract tomorrow] I would be fresh and full of energy to deal with it.

To be clear I'm not suggesting this is the right approach for everyone. If you have a negative net worth and a mountain of debt relative to your income strict budgeting and considering every dollar in and out might be completely reasonable...although I would still suggest aiming a lot of energy at the deeper values/desire level vs. just a 100% control spending approach. On the other hand it's easy for folks on this site to throw face punches at the spendy consumer orgy type people out there, but I think that overlooks that you can also turn money into a fetish on the frugal side of the coin not just the spendy side....and I don't think it's any healthier for you mentally than it is to derive satisfaction/pleasure from spending.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Eckhart on January 02, 2018, 09:29:17 AM
How to use the notify button

How do you set up your notify threads so that you click to the last read message of the thread?

I do not think this is possible as far as I can tell.

Notify function vs PTF (show new replies to your posts) both have pros and cons.

The only advantage to PTF is that many people use it, and it has become somewhat of a de facto standard on the MMM forums. There is no other advantage.

Click the orange NEW button on a thread to be taken to the first unread post of a thread. The orange new button is present on every page (notifications, unread posts since last visit, new replies to your posts, etc).

The orange NEW button IS a button, and is clickable. It’s not just a flag.

I stand corrected.  While there is no last post button, a new button will appear when new posts are available to you.  I could not see this in my testing as I was all caught up on my threads.  Thank you Macoconut.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Eckhart on January 02, 2018, 09:51:22 AM
I stand corrected.  While there is no last post button, a new button will appear when new posts are available to you.  I could not see this in my testing as I was all caught up on my threads.  Thank you Macoconut.

Ditto - I also have not seen the "NEW" yet, but if that shows up, I can convert to using Notifications, as there are some definite advantages. Also, the information from @macoconut on how to use the post... sure it's good. The post that said "replies are idiotic" or the initial thread basically mocking people for how they're using this form - that's reprehensible, in my opinion. Use your discretion in interacting with other humans. The UI is half-decent at best. The way everyone gravitated to using the software is a result of the UI more than anything else. Educate freely, but criticize sparingly. (Especially in a "best of" thread. This off-topic tangent is very nearly the "worst-of".)

I agree, we are taking this thread off topic.  Let's move the discussion here:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/what-is-the-deal-with-all-of-the-ptf-responses/ (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/what-is-the-deal-with-all-of-the-ptf-responses/)

I may not agree with the way @macoconut worded his responses/comments, but when dealing with people I find it's best to take the best, leave the rest.  You cannot change other people, only your reaction and response to them.
Title: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on January 14, 2018, 11:04:11 AM
On whether you should make a downside bet to protect yourself from a market correction you feel is coming:
SPY trades for $278.

$278*0.75 (25% down move) = $208.5.

June 29 2018 expiry $208 SPY options cost about $0.74. That's 0.26% of your investment for 6 month's of protection, which seems like pocket change. BUT that insurance has a high long term cost. Annualized it comes out to about 0.5%, which compounds over time to take away a good bit of your upside. Over 20 years, 0.5% gives away about 10% (assuming a 6% return). Over 30 it takes away 14%.

Note that if the market drops 30% (278*0.7=$194) then the puts would be worth about $14 or 18.5x your cost, not quite the 100x you're looking for. If you go shorter term you'd increase the payout, but it will be even less likely.

I call this "sacrifices to the hedging gods". Rarely does it pay off. It's basically a form of insurance. If you put 1% in this type of thing every six month's for 30 years you'll sacrifice 45% to the hedging gods (assuming there is no drawdown that allows them to pay off). I'll get you a better estimate of % of 6 month rolling periods with a drawdown of 25% or more at another time when I have the data. 

Additionally, you have "roll risk" which means the puts may only cost 0.2% of your investment for this 6 month period, but that may not necessarily be true 1 year from now or 2 years from now or 3 months from now. It can and likely will cost more (vol is historically low therefore it's historically cheap to hedge).

My point is your asking about "tail risk hedging/protection against a severe market drawdown". That exists in pure form: out of the money options on indices. But it's quite expensive over time and going overboard can be hazardous to your long term wealth.

Like the thread on "how to invest in oil futures", I can answer it directly and literally, but it's kind of like telling you the cheapest/best place to buy cigarettes. I may be factually correct in telling you how/where to buy them, but that doesn't mean they are good for you.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mustachepungoeshere on January 15, 2018, 10:42:40 PM
@marty998 on paying off mortgages.

...you cannot put a price on the freedom that comes from not owing anything to anyone.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: APowers on January 17, 2018, 09:50:51 AM
This post by Dollar Slice on how to make friends.

Lots of good advice here... I moved to a new city/state in 2014 and I've made a ton of friends/acquaintances. When I was younger (even in university) I had a terrible time making friends, I was shy and had social anxiety. I really had to consciously try to be a different person - more outgoing, more friendly, less self-centered, etc. It helps a lot to come up with a specific, social hobby that you genuinely love - not something generic like going to the gym or being at work, but something that helps you find "your people," whether it's a science fiction book club or Alpine climbing. If you have no non-generic interests, now would be a great time to explore :-)  And it helps to be the person with a plan. When everyone else is sitting around wishing they had something to do this weekend besides watching TV, you can be the person with an interesting thing to suggest. That's what happens in my office - someone says "what's everyone doing this weekend" on Friday or "what did everyone do this weekend" on Monday and everyone's like "eh, not much" until I rattle off a great story about something cool I did. People will want to hang with you if you're always up to something interesting and not just another drone.

Talk to everyone. Be friendly and ask questions. You don't have to be brilliant, just ask them about their weekend or the weather or their dog or their shoes. Don't limit age or gender or "type" of person. You don't have to be best friends with everyone. But just practice talking to people and you never know when you'll click with someone. I literally have made friends from age 20-something to 70-something since I moved here. Men and women. Rich and poor and in between. Bartenders, scientists, artists, laborers, CEOs. It's nice having a big range of friends, I have someone to go to bars with and someone to go to the symphony with, someone who will go to just about anything if it's free, etc.. I talk to people at the bus stop, I talk to cashiers at the store, I talk to the person next to me in line, I talk to the person sitting next to me at an event, etc. etc. It doesn't always spark a long conversation, but it still is nice to have a friendly exchange with someone. Maybe only 1 in 25 turns into a long-term friend/acquaintance, but if you talk to people every chance you get, that's a pretty good number.

I try to bring value to other people's lives. Give people a reason to want to be your friend! If you manage to make an acquaintance, do little nice things - give them tips about fun things happening or a great sale at the grocery store or warn them about a traffic problem or whatever is relevant to your lives. Be proactive about being friendly. Organize things - hey, I'm going to the movies, does anyone want to join me? Hey, I'm going shopping at [store], does anyone want a ride? Hey, I'm going for a hike, does anyone want to come? Hey, I'm going to see this great band, does anyone want to join me? Hey, I read this amazing book, would you like to borrow it? Be the person that makes other people's lives a little better, in whatever ways make sense for you. Unsurprisingly, more people want to be friends with someone who makes their life interesting/better/easier/more fun. When they are bored and want to do something, they will think of you instead of that friend they already have who doesn't do anything except talk about their toddler and watch football on TV.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Double Yu on January 17, 2018, 05:30:26 PM
In the thread on how to end up in a career that pays over $100k,  Greenback Reproduction Specialist had some advice that is clear-eyed and level-headed. Makes me regret (even more) my non-career trajectory and generalist tendencies.

I did it without a college degree or trades training, so basically no out of pocket cost, here is how.

-Get an unpaid internship (foot in the door to the industry, did this in highschool)
-Ask to get hired on part time after 3 months of kicking butt and working hard
-Ask for a raise every 6 mo to a year
-Ask what you can do to get a bigger better raise next time(set goals)
-Deliver and get the raise
-Look for positions that offer high pay in your industry
-Figure out the skills required to get those jobs
-Use your current employment to train and build skills for those jobs, if not available switch jobs to where they are.(resume build)
-Move out of state if required but only for big increases in pay or to increase skills.
-Ask for raises, or seek out another position that comes with pay increase
-etc

Don't ever take a job just for the money, make sure you are learning skills that make you more valuable. Always have an eye on 5 years out and learn skills that increase your worth to an employer.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FireLane on January 24, 2018, 08:24:53 PM
A beautiful metaphor by @lhamo, in the journals section, about the "firehose of cash" of full-time work:

The firehose analogy is apt, because you expend a LOT of energy trying to keep a firehose pointed in the right direction and not blowing the shingles off your roof, etc.  Unless you have a hair on fire house of debt, a firehose is really overkill.   Much preferred in my book is the babbling brook of FIREd stash money, that just kind of keeps floating by.  You scoop out a bucket of cash when you feel the urge to refresh yourself or top up the rain barrel.  Otherwise you can just enjoy its murmur as it flows through your peaceful, relaxed life.

Come sit by the babbling brook of FIREdom, Trudie.  It is so much more pleasant that wrestling with that damn firehose....
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on February 01, 2018, 07:18:01 AM
If anyone needs a master class on how to manage, follow @Axecleaver.

In this, he explains how meetings can get derailed when participants do not have a clear idea of the goal.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/cleaving-to-fi/msg1880248/#msg1880248
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Greenback Reproduction Specialist on February 01, 2018, 11:38:57 AM
In the thread on how to end up in a career that pays over $100k,  Greenback Reproduction Specialist had some advice that is clear-eyed and level-headed. Makes me regret (even more) my non-career trajectory and generalist tendencies.

Thank you, knowing someone appreciated the post really made my day : )

Its never to late to plan for a better tomorrow, I believe what I laid out could be applied to any situation, it just takes time and focused intentional choices. I came across an article awhile back(It might have been in this forum) that interviewed some of the wealthiest people in the country, many of them made a change late in life that attributed to their success. I wish you the best and thanks again : )
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Greenback Reproduction Specialist on February 01, 2018, 11:41:58 AM
@marty998 on paying off mortgages.

...you cannot put a price on the freedom that comes from not owing anything to anyone.

+1.... I know this causes a lot of grief around here, but my oh my not owing a thing is so empowering you almost cant put a price on it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Vertical Mode on February 02, 2018, 07:50:39 AM
@marty998 on paying off mortgages.

...you cannot put a price on the freedom that comes from not owing anything to anyone.

+1.... I know this causes a lot of grief around here, but my oh my not owing a thing is so empowering you almost cant put a price on it.

GF and I have been talking a lot about this topic lately, since we've been kicking around the (definitely still half-baked) idea of buying a place. Being in a HCOL area, we'd likely be talking about a big mortgage and all of the psychology that comes with assuming a mountain of debt. I have definitely come to appreciate marty998's statement there much more than I would have in the past.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: rockstache on February 08, 2018, 07:41:16 AM
This post from Classical_Liberal regarding sabbaticals.

@kmcanoeist Great post and insights! I also took a two year work break and found that my experiences mirrored yours in a lot of ways except I didn't want to "go home" (or back to work) and really liked the life. I did go back to work and even got my old job back but my break really reaffirmed my desire to take longer breaks in the future.

Agreed about the insights.  I have read a shit-ton of the older journals here, but more so on ERE as its been around longer.  I've also read other blogs and peoples stories, ect.  This was mainly for vicarious entertainment initially, but after awhile I noted significant trends.  Most (to the point of almost everyone) who achieved FU for a long term sabbatical or FI in 20's-40's had some type of itch to scratch.  The three most popular seem to be travel, child rearing young kids, or some form of hobby self-employment for pleasure.

Once those goals were achieved, people tended to move on and got plugged back into the economy in some way (whether they planned to or not at the time of re/sabbatical).  Basically this means that if these folks were FI before the sabbatical, they just end up filthy rich. If they were FU, they end up FI later. This is important because some itches are best scratched at certain earlier points in life. 

I would argue based on what I have read of others experiences; its better to take the sabbatical and do what you need to do.  IOW don't let FU only finances (say 10X expenses) stop a person from following their path to meaning.  The financial seems to naturally work out just fine in the end for people with enough discipline to reach FU at a young age.

An important note; the closer someone is to traditional retirement age, the more this model seems to break down.  I'm not sure if it's because someone in his/her 50's has already reached career goals, or has more peers away from work, or has simply had enough of the BS.  It just seems to be a trend.  So if one is planning a two year sabbatical at, say 52, its much more likely this person will not want to reenter the economy afterwards and should make financial plans reflecting this likely reality.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on February 20, 2018, 09:15:31 AM
This articles brings to mind this quote:


I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
John Adams
US diplomat & politician (1735 - 1826)

I've always loved the quote, had to bump it when I saw it here.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bicycle_B on February 20, 2018, 05:36:29 PM
From rdaneel0, in Share Your Badassity.  Direct personal testimony on going from nothing to 100k,
 despite low income most of the time and lack of math skills.  Inspirational, especially for anyone without big earning power at the moment.

I want to half brag and half thank everyone here for all the incredible information and support I've gotten over the years. I've popped in and out on different accounts but I've never stopped lurking, reading, and learning from all of you.

My husband and I started with nothing and while I was always frugal I can honestly say we would not be where we are today without this forum. Our net worth just hit $126k and I can hardly believe it. To go from a place where an unexpected expense of $75 felt like a crisis, to being early 30s and having no debt and this much in investments feels absolutely phenomenal.

I also just want to encourage anyone out there who is really young or really low income or in a ton of debt OR who doesn't understand math (I can only do basic arithmetic). You can do it too. No, you won't retire at 25 like some of these crazy smart high earners here (good for you guys too, btw!) but don't you dare believe for a second that this stuff won't work for you, because it will. It requires a tighter budget when you're lower income and more time, but it can be done. Live cheap, rent if it makes sense, have roommates way after your friends have stopped, don't eat out, go without a car if at all possible, skip vacations until you can legitimately afford them, find ways to increase your income, do whatever it takes and it will pay off.

Anyway, thanks again to all of you. I'm a wee bit emotional so I'm tearing up a bit, but this community has just given me so much and I hope that I can give back in some way. I can't really offer investing advice or that type of thing, but if any low income folks or really young people starting out need support or advice on basic budget slashing, I'm here! Feel free to PM me.

Gotta go polish my crown, cuz I'm a hundred thousandaire now ;)

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mustachepungoeshere on February 20, 2018, 09:58:41 PM
The inimitable @Dicey on life, career, and family, and how it all works out in the end.


Dear woolgather,
What I love about this forum is that I know others will jump into the math and offer great suggestions.

I have a lot to say, but I'll focus mainly on the topic in your case study that hits home the most. Background: I am from SoCal and lived in LA from '80-'92. I am the oldest of six children. When I grew up, I had no interest in marrying young or having a family. Then I had a rare form of cancer. I realized what matters in life is the quality of the relationships you build. Not job status, not money. Well, not quite. Money was what was going to protect me from a recurrence of cancer, or at least make any future treatment decisions easier. So I set out to make myself financially independent before FI was a "thing", and to find myself a spouse and then have four children. Yup, four.

I worked at this for decades. I dated tons of men of every stripe. Eventually, I decided to step out of my career position and work at Nordstrom in the Men's Department, just to meet more men! I took a huge pay cut, but damn, it worked! It was great meeting new people of the male persuasion every single day. I met tons of guys with great careers and a wide variety of interests. It was fun, and several became long term relationships, but none of them was "the one". The older I got, the more it bothered me. I knew I was not a candidate for single motherhood, primarily because it costs so damn much to live in LA and my income wasn't high enough to go it alone.

Finally, as I got a little too old for childbearing, I said "Fuck this, I need to earn more money." I got the hell out of retail and never looked back. I still dated, but since they weren't coming to me every day any more, I tried online dating, word of mouth, community activities, everything I could thing of. I really, really thought the lesson of cancer was to slow me down and re-focus me in time to be able to find a great partner, build a strong marriage and have a family. Apparently God was busy laughing at my plans.

I was sad, but determined not to be Debbie Downer about what I didn't have. I traveled, did fun stuff, and enjoyed what I could do without dwelling on my dreams that clearly were not coming to fruition. Pretty soon my friends, single and married, were saying that they wanted to have my life. Huh.

Fast forward to 2012. I was 54 and all hopes of children were long gone. Thoughts of marriage were pretty dim, too. However, FI was finally on the very near horizon. I had everything figured out but health insurance (this was pre-Obamacare + pre-existing conditions). I had a chat with a guy I'd known for years. (I let his family use my address to get their kids into a better school district years before, after their house sale in the district fell through.) He was a recent widower. I asked him if he'd consider letting me be his imagionary domestic partner so I could quit my job, buy a motorhome and travel the country.

He readily agreed and then shocked the hell out of me by saying he'd even marry me on paper if that would help, because of what I'd done for his kids. He then said his healthcare plan covered his whole family for the same (almost zero) cost. Plus, he had a motorhome! What the hell??? We went out to dinner to discuss what a crazy-ass idea it was. One dinner led to another, and then dinners somewhere became dates, then we fell in love. We eloped a few months later.

Fast forward five years. We are happy beyond our wildest imagination. His daughter got married and had a baby, making us grandparents! Remember that line, "If we'd known how much fun grandkids are, we'd have had them first"? It's completely true! I was never a mom, but now I get to be a grandmother. I'm here to tell you, it is awesome. I never dreamed any of this, but I am ridiculously glad it turned out this way. I am actually completely comfortable now that I did not have kids of my own, because I don't think I would have been a great mother, much as I was sure it was my destiny.

So that's the short version of my story. Here is my advice: The kid thing is going to sort itself out one way or another and either result will be something you can live with. For now, take care of the relationship that appears to be ending. Figure out your new housing arrangements. Decide if your job pays enough for what you give up. Fix your credit. (Can you become an Authorized User on someone's credit long enough to shape up your own credit?) Work on being the best "YOU" you can possibly be. Everything will fall into place in its own time. And it will be good, even if it is nothing like anything you ever imagined.
Best wishes,
Dicey
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on February 21, 2018, 05:05:56 AM
Damn. Powerful stuff!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Nickyd£g on February 21, 2018, 06:39:38 AM
Wow! I am sitting here with tears in my eyes, powerful stuff indeed. And it gives me hope, so thanks.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Caroline PF on February 24, 2018, 12:18:13 PM
@Scortius responding to the concept 'what if you die early and regret your frugal living?' I especially love his 'death insurance' comparison. (bolding is mine)

People seem to love to bring up the 'what if you die?' argument anytime the idea of saving and living frugally comes up. Ignoring the fact that a frugal (but not cheap) existence generally leads to greater happiness, I always figure the first question should be followed with a 'what if you live?' response. As noted above, if you die, you're dead. There's not going to be a whole lot of regret or suffering involved past that end point. On the other hand, if you don't die early, you may be around for quite a while to reap the fruits of your labors, for better or worse.

Consider it this way. Many of us purchase life insurance, which paradoxically is to provide for our families in the case of an early death. It's a way of ensuring that people who depend on our future earnings will be able to get by in our absence.

In that vein, I consider Mustachianism a form of 'death insurance', essentially covering our lives in oh so likely case that we live. By saving and investing early, you ensure that you will have provisions to live a truly wonderful and free life if you happen to not die. For me, that's a great insurance policy to have.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Primm on February 25, 2018, 12:07:34 AM
The inimitable @Dicey on life, career, and family, and how it all works out in the end.


Dear woolgather,
What I love about this forum is that I know others will jump into the math and offer great suggestions.
<whole bunch of stuff that may or may not have brought tears to my eyes>
Best wishes,
Dicey

Wow. Powerful indeed.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on February 25, 2018, 10:28:16 AM
Thank you Classical_Liberal, rdaneel0, Dicey, Scortius
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: marty998 on February 25, 2018, 01:22:43 PM
Lichen - on teaching teens "how to adult"

All basic transportation skills: Changing a tire, setting up emergency flares, checking fluids, taking a car to get the "codes" read at a parts store if it throws a check engine light, calling for a tow/roadside assistance.

Basic personal finance: Balancing a checkbook, understanding the different ways interest can be figured, understanding what a minimum payment is (and why it's bad to only make the minimum), understanding retirement account options. (As soon as she's 18, if she gets a job, she could be eligible for retirement plans).

Handling bureaucracy: Renewing car tags/driver's license/similar, dealing with the college offices (my son is doing a similar college in high school program. He must handle all issues on campus and registration on his own, although we are available for advice), and any other basic bureaucratic needs you may foresee. 

Researching basic things: This is a life skill many adults lack, the simple ability to Google. Show how to research insurance rates, travel deals, and anything else. We've really drilled it into DS to research everything before committing.

Cooking AND shopping: A few basic recipes and how to read a cookbook are essential life skills. Also, how to navigate a grocery store wisely. It's not as intuitive as many experienced adults think.

Personal info security: Online and in real life.

Medical needs: The above poster nailed it. We encourage DS to attend his checkups alone and to handle everything from scheduling to getting there and then doing any followup. We coach before appointment to come up with a question list for him to ask his doctor. Our pediatrician actually has a program to move teens into being self advocates and proactive for their own health. So many adults skip health visits or fail to get the most out the visits, simply because they either have white coat syndrome or don't know how to navigate doctor visits effectively.

Escalation skills: Sometimes we have to complain in life. Teaching how to properly escalate, whether it's due to poor customer service or someone at work/skill behaving in an out of bounds manner, is vital. I think this is especially true for women, whom don't always absorb this skill organically due to some vestiges of old fashioned sexism.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DreamFIRE on February 26, 2018, 06:13:45 PM
TempusFugit regarding government retiree pensions and health care benftis:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/do-you-think-the-working-public-resents-us-'early-retirees'/msg1912832/#msg1912832

I think that the source of resentment is more about the perception that public service unions get sweetheart deals because they are in effect negotiating with themselves, in that the politicians are highly motivated to make the public service unions happy. 

The foundation for fair negotiations is that both parties should be motivated to protect their own interests. It should be adversarial. In the model of public service union negotiations, the politicians arent really the ones who are on the hook for the expense, so they aren't really negotiating on behalf of the taxpayers, leaving the taxpayer to pay the bill when they had no voice in the negotiation. 

This disconnect in the context of public sector unions was obvious even to Franklin Roosevelt who said:  “The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.”

The costs are usually far down the road, so the politicians who negotiate the deal arent going to pay the political price later when it all falls apart.  Look at the tremendous unfunded / underfunded state and municipal pension / healthcare issue that the country faces. 

So in the case of public servants, i think the fact is that people understand that they have to pay fr that largesse in the form of higher taxes and fees, etc.   Contrast that with someone who may have a fantastic private sector job/pension.  Folks might be envious, but at least they arent the ones paying the bill, or at least they arent forced to pay the bill. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: solon on March 09, 2018, 09:57:11 AM
I multiply all my expenses by 25x and then say to myself - am I willing to have to save up this much to have this as part of my long term lifestyle?

For example - new iPhone X (or whatever) - $1000 x 25 = $25,000 needs to be saved if I want a new one every year.  Or, if that's not realistic, then lets churn it every 3 years instead, so $1000/3 = $334.  $334 x 25 = $8350.  Am I willing to save up an additional $8350 in order to afford a new iPhone every 3 years?  Since I'm trying to FIRE asap, the answer is generally... no.

The basics. I need the reminder now and then.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dougules on March 14, 2018, 11:05:28 AM
FIREd at 26 as a result of starting a small business, living frugally, and rolling all the profit into income producing real estate.  Currently 34 yrs old.  Having major issues with what to do with all the free time.  Don't really feel like doing anything, but miserably bored not doing anything.  I love to teach on the subject of FI, but paradoxically, having attained it, it's not all it's cracked up to be in terms of fulfillment.  So, what do y'all do with your time?  What's your reason to bother with getting out of bed every day? 

As an aside, this isn't a complainypants post.  I'm aware how richly blessed I am and am very grateful to be in this position.  Just struggling with "Now What?".  Anyone else have these feelings?

Thanks much. 😉

I argue with random people on the internet, it is SO FULFILLING. :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: koshtra on March 14, 2018, 11:27:53 AM
FIREd at 26 as a result of starting a small business, living frugally, and rolling all the profit into income producing real estate.  Currently 34 yrs old.  Having major issues with what to do with all the free time.  Don't really feel like doing anything, but miserably bored not doing anything.  I love to teach on the subject of FI, but paradoxically, having attained it, it's not all it's cracked up to be in terms of fulfillment.  So, what do y'all do with your time?  What's your reason to bother with getting out of bed every day? 

As an aside, this isn't a complainypants post.  I'm aware how richly blessed I am and am very grateful to be in this position.  Just struggling with "Now What?".  Anyone else have these feelings?

Thanks much. 😉

I argue with random people on the internet, it is SO FULFILLING. :)

Heh. FI just makes you free, it don't make you happy.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on March 14, 2018, 11:40:37 AM
someone on here once suggested writing a list of all the ways you wanted to spend your time post FI. The underlying idea is that working towards FI ironically doesn't prepare you for why you are trying to RE in the first place.
Like koshtra said - it makes you free to do what you want, but it not necessarily happy.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: poppydog on March 15, 2018, 10:32:38 AM
The inimitable @Dicey on life, career, and family, and how it all works out in the end.


Dear woolgather,
What I love about this forum is that I know others will jump into the math and offer great suggestions.

I have a lot to say, but I'll focus mainly on the topic in your case study that hits home the most. Background: I am from SoCal and lived in LA from '80-'92. I am the oldest of six children. When I grew up, I had no interest in marrying young or having a family. Then I had a rare form of cancer. I realized what matters in life is the quality of the relationships you build. Not job status, not money. Well, not quite. Money was what was going to protect me from a recurrence of cancer, or at least make any future treatment decisions easier. So I set out to make myself financially independent before FI was a "thing", and to find myself a spouse and then have four children. Yup, four.

I worked at this for decades. I dated tons of men of every stripe. Eventually, I decided to step out of my career position and work at Nordstrom in the Men's Department, just to meet more men! I took a huge pay cut, but damn, it worked! It was great meeting new people of the male persuasion every single day. I met tons of guys with great careers and a wide variety of interests. It was fun, and several became long term relationships, but none of them was "the one". The older I got, the more it bothered me. I knew I was not a candidate for single motherhood, primarily because it costs so damn much to live in LA and my income wasn't high enough to go it alone.

Finally, as I got a little too old for childbearing, I said "Fuck this, I need to earn more money." I got the hell out of retail and never looked back. I still dated, but since they weren't coming to me every day any more, I tried online dating, word of mouth, community activities, everything I could thing of. I really, really thought the lesson of cancer was to slow me down and re-focus me in time to be able to find a great partner, build a strong marriage and have a family. Apparently God was busy laughing at my plans.

I was sad, but determined not to be Debbie Downer about what I didn't have. I traveled, did fun stuff, and enjoyed what I could do without dwelling on my dreams that clearly were not coming to fruition. Pretty soon my friends, single and married, were saying that they wanted to have my life. Huh.

Fast forward to 2012. I was 54 and all hopes of children were long gone. Thoughts of marriage were pretty dim, too. However, FI was finally on the very near horizon. I had everything figured out but health insurance (this was pre-Obamacare + pre-existing conditions). I had a chat with a guy I'd known for years. (I let his family use my address to get their kids into a better school district years before, after their house sale in the district fell through.) He was a recent widower. I asked him if he'd consider letting me be his imagionary domestic partner so I could quit my job, buy a motorhome and travel the country.

He readily agreed and then shocked the hell out of me by saying he'd even marry me on paper if that would help, because of what I'd done for his kids. He then said his healthcare plan covered his whole family for the same (almost zero) cost. Plus, he had a motorhome! What the hell??? We went out to dinner to discuss what a crazy-ass idea it was. One dinner led to another, and then dinners somewhere became dates, then we fell in love. We eloped a few months later.

Fast forward five years. We are happy beyond our wildest imagination. His daughter got married and had a baby, making us grandparents! Remember that line, "If we'd known how much fun grandkids are, we'd have had them first"? It's completely true! I was never a mom, but now I get to be a grandmother. I'm here to tell you, it is awesome. I never dreamed any of this, but I am ridiculously glad it turned out this way. I am actually completely comfortable now that I did not have kids of my own, because I don't think I would have been a great mother, much as I was sure it was my destiny.

So that's the short version of my story. Here is my advice: The kid thing is going to sort itself out one way or another and either result will be something you can live with. For now, take care of the relationship that appears to be ending. Figure out your new housing arrangements. Decide if your job pays enough for what you give up. Fix your credit. (Can you become an Authorized User on someone's credit long enough to shape up your own credit?) Work on being the best "YOU" you can possibly be. Everything will fall into place in its own time. And it will be good, even if it is nothing like anything you ever imagined.
Best wishes,
Dicey

I've just read this.  Wow, just wow. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: 4alpacas on March 16, 2018, 10:15:14 AM
@Laura33 makes me a better spouse.
OK, I am laughing here.  First:  I feel you.  22 years married to Mr. Spendypants.  It was sort of thrilling at first, in that "breaking the rules" way, but the enticement fades, and over time it starts to grate.

So my advice:  give up the battle, focus on winning the war.  IME, people who make a shit-ton of money through their own hard work are very, very averse to having others tell them how they are allowed to spend said money.  Even better:  suggesting that they are stupid, illogical, or wrong for wanting to spend that money is the best way to force them to double down on their position.  I think you get this logically but don't know how to approach it in any other way.*  So here are some initial thoughts.**

1.  Most important:  give up any concept that you are "right"/"smart"/"logical" -- because when you say things that imply that, what she hears is "you, DW, are wrong/stupid/illogical."  There is no conversation in the history of the world that has ever gone well after that kind of opener.  Do not tell her what she "should" do; treat her like an equal, fully-fledged human being whose needs and wants and goals and dreams are just as important as your own.  The woman works hard and makes almost six figures; she can buy a damn SUV if she wants one.***  The thing is, Mustachianism is a pretty extreme concept in our current society.  Not everyone is willing to give up certain luxuries to retire in 10 years, or even 20 or 30.  Those people are not "wrong."  They just have different dreams and goals than you do.  And when you happen to be married to those people, you need to figure out a path that serves both of you.  FIRE is a lonely place if you wind up there all alone because your DW had a different dream that you expected her to give up so you could chase yours.

2.  So, once you start from the standpoint of assuming that she has the right to make her own decision here, no matter how stupid you think it is, your next step is to speak her language.  You speak spreadsheet; she speaks feelings.  Ok, that's fine.  But which one of you is trying to persuade the other to do or change something?  That would be you.  Therefore, it's your job to learn to talk feelings.  You do this by, first and foremost, listening.  Why does she want the SUV?  She has given you a lot of reasons, and you have responded by telling her that those reasons are stupid or are less important than your concerns.  Again:  not going to go well.  You need to hear and validate her feelings, even if you do not agree with the solution that she has chosen to satisfy those concerns.  And frankly, she has given you some pretty reasonable reasons for wanting a larger car -- the ability to carry more stuff, thinking ahead to having kids, not feeling so vulnerable on the highway.  Those are legitimate issues to be concerned about, and you need to let her know that you get that and you want her to get a car that suits her needs.  [It just doesn't need to be a giant SUV]

3.  Only after you have done this can you move to the art of subtle persuasion.  But again, you do this with questions and suggestions that let her find out for herself.  E.g., "Yes, your safety is my very top concern, I worry about you on the road, I want you in a vehicle that is going to keep you safe from those crazy drivers and be completely reliable.  Why don't we do some research into which vehicles are the safest out there right now?" [Hint:  it's usually not giant SUVs).  And then you guys do the research and she finds out for herself what the facts really are.  And -- here's the thing -- you approach the conversation based solely on how the results satisfy her stated goals, e.g., "gee, I'm a little worried about this giant SUV, its crash ratings aren't as good as the Civic -- and look, these cars over here all have "+" ratings -- oh, it's the crash-avoidance systems, boy, now that seems like a really safe thing to have, right?"  Etc. 

4.  Only after you have done all of the above can you then mention your concerns -- by this point, you will have identified a pretty wide swath of vehicles that will satisfy her concerns, and so you can subtly push to choose between them based on cost of ownership -- e.g., "wow, you know, those prices have really gone up since we got our last car!  I'm worried that spending that amount of money will interfere with our plans to [insert something she likes -- vacation, eating out whatever].  Why don't we look for one that is a couple of years used that still has all those great features?"  Important note:  you need to phrase your own concerns in her language, too -- you are "afraid," or "worried," or whatever other emotion fits.  Again:  your goal is to translate everything you are thinking into language she can understand.  Because she loves you, and she wants you to be happy too, and if she understands that your concerns are founded in fear and worry for your joint future (and not just "I'm right and you're dumb"), she will absolutely meet you halfway.  So at this point you can sit down with the budget with her and talk about where you are going to take the extra money from to pay for X or Y car, and let her choose what the tradeoff is -- fewer dinners out?  Staycation?  Etc.

So that is the car conversation (or more accurately, series of conversations).  But the bigger-picture is if you want to avoid ongoing money disputes, you need to work to bring her onboard with that goal.  Start with the "50 ways to convert your SO" sticky for a ton of ideas.  But even beyond that, crack open a bottle of wine and talk about your hopes and dreams.  What is her vision of your future life together?  What does she want?  Does she love her job and never wants to leave it?  Or will she or you want the option to kick back to part-time or SAH if and when you have kids?  Or is she willing to put the nose to the grindstone for the next 10 years if she knows that will allow her to not work ever again?  You need to know what her dreams and goals are, and why -- why does she want to do what she wants to do?  What does that mean to her?  And you need to talk openly about your own as well -- why do you want to FIRE?  Is it just freedom from a miserable job?  Do you have the dream of running your own business?  Do you want to stay home with kids?  What is the dream you are working towards?  Once you guys understand each other's dreams, then you are in a position to develop a plan that gets both of you as much of what you want as you can.  And yeah, it will be a compromise.  But keep talking, keep using the 50 steps; if you make her life with you both frugal and fun, she will start to understand over time that you don't need to throw money at things to enjoy yourself.

Like I said above, I am 22 years into this, and it has been a struggle.  My DH makes a lot of money, we have always maxed out retirement and saved some in addition, and he just sees absolutely no reason why he shouldn't blow the rest.  Just one example of oh-so-many:  he eats out for lunch.  Every day.  Always has.  And worse:  he likes to treat his friends -- and the more money he made, the more he likes to treat them.  And then one day he finally told me:  he likes to eat out because it is a physical break from his day to walk out of the office and go somewhere completely different.  And he likes to treat his friends because it makes him feel successful that he can afford to do that -- just like he likes to go to the mall and get name-brand sunglasses, because it makes him feel powerful and successful knowing he has the money to do that.  Oh.  OK.  So then I had a choice:  do I continue to argue over something that he has just told me is very important to him because it satisfies a pretty important emotional need?  Or do I accept that that is important to him, even though I personally think it's a stupid waste of money, and figure out a way to meet him in the middle?  I did the latter, which is probably why we are still married.

But I kept working on it.  Every year, I would redirect any raise directly into Vanguard.  We get a lot of our pay at the end of the year, so I set up monthly withdrawals so our bank account balance went down over the course of the year, so we "felt" poorer than we really were and then needed to put more of the end-of-year money in the bank instead of blowing it somewhere else.  I talked to him about maybe retiring at 55 or so, and we'd go out to dinner and dream about traveling the world (we do both love our jobs, so immediate FIRE was never a goal for either of us, but we both liked the idea of calling it quits before 65-70) -- and then when he'd say something like "we can do that at 55," I'd laugh and show him the numbers of how much more we'd actually need to save to do that.  And of course over time, he also got a little more dissatisfied with working all the time. 

I'm not going to give you some happy ending where he was converted and we're on a sailboat now -- in the end, we are both still working, and our target FIRE date is closer to @58-59 than 55.  I think we could FIRE now if we trim the lifestyle, he thinks we need a lot more, so we have met in the middle -- and now Mr. Spreadsheet is spending a LOT of time going over the spreadsheets and figuring out alternatives and dates and such (I already got him down from 13 to 8, and I'm hoping to knock another year or so off that, we'll see).  Meanwhile, he has given me the ok to go part-time or take a lower-paying job any time I want to; I haven't yet (I'd rather work more now and go zero-time sooner, because I want to travel), but I feel a lot happier with the job knowing I have the freedom to if I decide I want to.  And the important thing is that we are both happy with the solution -- he is forsaking some of the luxury he would otherwise have gone for, I am working longer, but both of us are getting enough of what we need out of the deal that we're content with it.

But none of that would have happened if he hadn't gotten over his idea that I was "stupid" for wanting to save a lot and come in under budget every month.****  ;-)

*As an aside, emotions are logical, too -- it is pretty easy to predict how people will react to certain situations if you know the rules of "people management."  You just don't know those rules.  I would encourage you to try.  Start with thinking of animal training -- specifically, people, like animals, are motivated more by praise and rewards than by punishment.

**Many, many, many initial thoughts.  22 years of them.  Sorry.

***To clarify:  I completely agree with you that that choice is massively stupid.  But you have to approach her with this understanding as a fundamental underpinning to every conversation.

****And FWIW, he thinks he's the logical, non-emotional one in our relationship.
Title: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on March 16, 2018, 11:35:01 AM
Damn, that's a lot of wisdom in not very many words! @Laura33, you rule!

I think of myself as a fundamentally selfish person who tries very hard not to act like one (maybe that's how everyone is?), so this is some really good advice to take away into my life.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on March 16, 2018, 06:43:28 PM
Damn, that's a lot of wisdom in not very many words! @Laura33, you rule!

I think of myself as a fundamentally selfish person who tries very hard not to at like one (maybe that's how everyone is?), so this is some really good advice to take away into my life.

Aww, thanks @4alpacas and @grantmeaname - and FWIW, your description is exactly how I view myself, too.  So I guess maybe making the effort works.  😉👍😄
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on March 17, 2018, 01:19:09 PM
Wow Laura33 you could write an advice column for mustachians !
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: meerkat on March 17, 2018, 04:36:31 PM
I already used Laura33's message this weekend instead of getting frustrated with my spouse. +1, would do again.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MrThatsDifferent on March 17, 2018, 05:03:26 PM
Wow Laura33 you could write an advice column for mustachians !

She is definitely, hands down, the best advice giver on this forum consistently.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: shelivesthedream on March 18, 2018, 02:35:04 AM
Wow, what a stunner! Best bit:

Quote
You speak spreadsheet; she speaks feelings.  Ok, that's fine.  But which one of you is trying to persuade the other to do or change something?  That would be you.  Therefore, it's your job to learn to talk feelings.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: change_seeker on March 27, 2018, 08:29:20 PM
Context: We were talking about a YubeTube channel where the guy switched from an RV to backpack around the world to a van to a house over the space of a few months.

I found this reply insightful for more than that one person's situation.

Yeah, his behavior does seem to indicate a certain level of desperation. I think people who are "living the dream" (and I certainly am among those people) can get a bit despondent when it doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would. I can understand his urge to make rapid-fire, half-hearted attempts to try new things when he got sick of #vanlife or whatever.

It can be hard sometimes when you live a life that everyone constantly tells you is amazing, but you're sick of it.

Whoa!  This really resonates from me.  I took 6 months at age 36 to travel the country in an RV with my wife and four kids.  Not. the. experience. that. I. expected.  Still recovering.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: okits on April 01, 2018, 10:11:28 PM
From the consistently inspiring and insightful @Malkynn :

I felt that way.

I had a classic “mid life crisis” a few years after graduating from my doctorate in my 30s. I had spent my entire 20s working so hard to “accomplish something” and I did. I was very successful, I had a great job, I was making a ton of money, I was working long hours, but not crazy long hours and always had my weekends free. I was miserable.

After all of the blood, sweat and tears to get where I had always wanted to be, I felt listless and constantly wondering “what is the fucking goddamn point?”

Then I quit my supposedly amazing and prestigious job, took a pay cut and a form of demotion to work a job that in ways that actually matter to me was a huge step up. I cut my hours drastically and started focusing on my life and learning what I actually needed to be happy and feel satisfied with my life.

I think most mid life crises are made up of people feeling trapped by the life choices they made without fully understanding the long term consequences and the angst that goes along with the perceived loss of opportunity and potential.

Meanwhile, mid life is actually a time that’s ideal to live life to the fullest and do your best work. You have education, experience, money, and connections: things that are very hard to come by when you are young.


Personally, I’m kind of starting from scratch. I am steadily building side hustles that will eventually overtake my day job, and I’m finding it so much easier to make things happen as a professional than I did as a young student with minimal professional network. The advantage I have is that although I’m a working professional, I have free time because I don’t work full time at my day job.

I now basically have no clue where my life is going, but total faith that it’s going in the right direction and that I’ll never feel listless and again.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: neo von retorch on April 02, 2018, 11:23:15 AM
By @diapasoun (with minor edits to make it less specific, link to journal entry removed)

Quote from: diapasoun
...what helped me when I decided to ditch the academy and promptly freaked out about my life purpose?

-List your values. Important because it helps you know what to focus on -- can be difficult because sometimes your values can contradict themselves, not be reflected in your life, etc.

-List things that are essential for your self-care and baseline happiness. For me, that's: exercise; healthy food; plenty of interaction with other people, especially good friends; time for reading and making stuff. Yours may vary. Important because these are things that have to be built into your life -- if they're not, you will be suffering.

-List people/activities/things you love and desperately want time for. This may include your [work], if you love it! This list may overlap with the things necessary for your self care. Important because these are the things that take you from a healthy baseline and make your life rich and overflowing.

-Describe a couple of Really Good Days to yourself -- what are they like? Not one perfect day, but just the kind of day where at the end you feel deeply satisfied. You want to build a life where you have a lot of these Really Good Days. Important because it's easier to build that life when you have a goal and know how to get there. :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: diapasoun on April 02, 2018, 11:38:15 AM
I made it onto my favorite thread.

Feel like I just won forum life.

(Also, really happy that resonated with you, neo!)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Just Joe on April 02, 2018, 11:53:21 AM
Context: We were talking about a YubeTube channel where the guy switched from an RV to backpack around the world to a van to a house over the space of a few months.

I found this reply insightful for more than that one person's situation.

Yeah, his behavior does seem to indicate a certain level of desperation. I think people who are "living the dream" (and I certainly am among those people) can get a bit despondent when it doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would. I can understand his urge to make rapid-fire, half-hearted attempts to try new things when he got sick of #vanlife or whatever.

It can be hard sometimes when you live a life that everyone constantly tells you is amazing, but you're sick of it.

Whoa!  This really resonates from me.  I took 6 months at age 36 to travel the country in an RV with my wife and four kids.  Not. the. experience. that. I. expected.  Still recovering.

I think I saw your documentary. Called it simply "RV"? ;)  (still love that red and white bus)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Basenji on April 04, 2018, 06:54:54 AM
I wandered over to the "Top Is In" thread and I have to recommend the entire 54 pages (and growing) as a hilarious collection of sarcastic comments on market timing from some of my favorite Mustachians. Where else can you watch @dragoncar , @sol , @GuitarStv , @Eric , @Exflyboy , @solon , @UnleashHell , and so many more just let it rip? Top is in!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: techwiz on April 04, 2018, 08:03:38 AM
A post from Retire Canada on cutting back on forum posting.

(https://www.insidesource.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/UnpluggingA_t618.jpg)

It's been about 6 weeks since I decided to change my relationship with the MMM Forums. I figured it was time for an update. This all got started when I was reading a thread about frequent MMM posters who had gone MIA. Folks who knew them explained why they stopped participating and as I was reading I realised I had a lot in common with the folks who were MIA. I had already gone FB-lite/blogging-lite and not missed anything about participating on those sites less so I decided it was time to give myself a break from the MMM Forums and see how I felt about it.

Two things I believe are true:

1. Obsessing about budgets and saving money is the same mental illness as spending money foolishly to feel better.
2. Distracting yourself with anything to avoid having time alone with your real self and facing your issues is poor way to live.


The MMM Blog and the the Forums were awesome to help me learn some key tools that allowed me to formulate a plan for my financial freedom. I can't say enough good things about both aspects of the MMM World. That said after a while I had gained all the knowledge I could from those sources and was not learning much new. Instead I was spending a lot of time thinking and talking about money without need. I don't think spending a lot of thought on money is healthy and I don't think spending a lot of time doing something that's not beneficial for my life is a good idea. So I stopped hanging out on the forums, reading posts and posting myself. With the exception of the Meet Up Thread and my recent post about 2018 Q1 Dividends. That's a huge reduction of MMM-centric time compared to my past-self.

Overall it's been great. I've saved a ton of time from my week I can spend doing other things. I also have not thought about money even 25% as much as I did when I was a daily MMMer. That's allowed me to focus my energy on other things in my life that are more important. Money is a tool. When I want to drive a nail into the wall to hang a picture I go to the garage and grab my hammer, pound the nail in, return the hammer to the garage and then forget about it until the next time I need it. I don't want to be thinking about hammers day in and day out, going to the garage frequently to gaze fondly at my hammer and fondle it lovingly. Same goes with money. It's only there to facilitate stuff I want to do in my life.  My financial plans don't require constant attention. I can walk away from my investments for 5yrs and they'd be just fine. My spending doesn't need special controls or monitoring to hit my targets because I have dealt with my underlying spending motivations and set realistic goals.

Specifically in terms of my own self-actualisation I feel like having lots of unscheduled time to be with myself and think is key to making progress on becoming the person I want to be and developing in ways that make me happier. One of the sins of modern life is to fill every moment with activity in an effort to not have to be alone with oneself and deal with our own shit. The ways we distract our self are myriad like TV, work, shopping, drugs, alcohol, dating/relationships,  etc... I'd include in that list obsessing about saving money and participating excessively on the MMM Forums.  That said the process of being alone with yourself can be uncomfortable....especially if you don't do it a lot. So there have definitely been moments where I have been tempted to jump back on the forums as a distraction, but like most personal improvement processes there are hard parts that need some dedication and motivation to work through so we can come out the other side as a better person.

On the flip side there are three things about not participating on the MMM Forums I do miss/regret:

1. staying in touch with some of the folks who I only know via this one channel in my life
2. not paying back the learning I've benefited from by participating in the forums
3. my journals represent my best record of my FIRE journey and not maintaining them to some degree means I'll lose part of the "story"

So I feel like daily participation on the forums is not healthy, but zero participation is not ideal either. I haven't figured out what my plan is for the forums, but I've got time to figure it out and then make it happen. In the meantime I will log on to update key progress items on my journal and to facilitate the Meet Ups. Where possible I'll maintain MMM-spawned relationships in real life.

Anyways that's where things are at for me! I hope everyone reading this is doing well. :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: tralfamadorian on April 04, 2018, 08:07:26 AM
A post from Retire Canada on cutting back on forum posting.

...

Wonderful post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: change_seeker on April 04, 2018, 11:36:46 AM
Context: We were talking about a YubeTube channel where the guy switched from an RV to backpack around the world to a van to a house over the space of a few months.

I found this reply insightful for more than that one person's situation.

Yeah, his behavior does seem to indicate a certain level of desperation. I think people who are "living the dream" (and I certainly am among those people) can get a bit despondent when it doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would. I can understand his urge to make rapid-fire, half-hearted attempts to try new things when he got sick of #vanlife or whatever.

It can be hard sometimes when you live a life that everyone constantly tells you is amazing, but you're sick of it.

Whoa!  This really resonates from me.  I took 6 months at age 36 to travel the country in an RV with my wife and four kids.  Not. the. experience. that. I. expected.  Still recovering.

I think I saw your documentary. Called it simply "RV"? ;)  (still love that red and white bus)

That was a pretty sweet bus.  Just to clarify, I can't play guitar but I do love Jesus.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RWD on April 13, 2018, 01:47:40 PM
@Laura33 practically needs her own thread of awesome posts.

Specific Question(s):   
Are we doing even remotely good @ life!?!?  We both come from paycheck to paycheck families, and don't share our financial information with anyone, so why not strangers on the internet?

The primary reason I typed all this up, was to force myself to look at the numbers, and try to assess how we are doing.  We absolutely have to get a handle on our spending if we ever want to retire, be able to afford vehicles for kids, college, weddings and anything else life sends our way.  After my wife finishes school, and we have our basement work completed, I don’t anticipate any more large expenditures besides family vacations.  I don’t feel like we are living an extremely lavish lifestyle, but we aren’t saving a whole lot either, but we have been able to pay cash for some rather large purchases over the past 18 months, so I feel good about that, but also feel like we aren’t making progress.

There are a bunch of things at play here, but let me focus on two of them.

1.  You need to readjust your expectations of what a "lavish lifestyle" really is.  The reality is that, for every single salary level you list -- even when you guys first started out -- there are people here who FIRE'd on that income (and they sure don't think they're deprived).  Think about that: you could be FIRE'd now if you had avoided lifestyle inflation since graduation.  Read MMM front to back -- he is particularly powerful on this topic.  The fact is, having food and shelter and clothing and reliable power and accessible medical care and all of the other things we get from living in the first world, and the mental ease that comes from not having to worry where your next meal comes from, means that you already had a lavish lifestyle.  All the stuff you piled on top of that was just trimmings. 

Not that this makes you wrong -- it just makes you normal.  That's how we are all raised.  And it is especially true when you come from more humble beginnings:  when you grow up with not a lot, things like six-figure salaries seem like massive amounts of money.  And so when you get there, you just assume that now you can have the house and the cars and the vacations and the snowblowers and the patios and everything else.  And then you wonder where the heck did all the money go, right?  [Ask me how I know]  When you are in that cycle, it can be rather depressing, because you make so much more than you ever expected, and yet you are still not getting ahead.  It feels like everyone else is in on some secret, and you just didn't get the memo.

But there is no secret.  No matter how much money you have, it only goes so far.  So the people who seem like they have everything either are financing with debt, or are much older than you and have much more saved/have higher salaries, or have some other form of income.  And the folks who are really wealthy around you probably don't look like it -- read "The Millionaire Next Door" if you haven't already.

2.  All of which brings me to my second point:  I think your paycheck-to-paycheck background has imprinted certain habits and thought patterns about money that are hurting you now.  People who are struggling tend to see money as a fleeting thing; there is no guarantee that it will be around tomorrow, so better spend it on something now so you can at least get the enjoyment of it.  Read everything White Trash Can has written on this topic.  I read about a reboot of the infamous marshmallow study that concluded that poor kids are actually acting rationally by taking the first marshmallow rather than waiting for the second -- because they have learned that the second marshmallow doesn't always appear, and if you wait too long, the first one goes away, too. 

And then along with that, you probably developed a list in your mind of all of the stuff that you'd have once you got money -- that picture of what your future life would be with money.  And now that you have money, you are busily working to create that picture.  Honestly, from looking at all the stuff you have thrown money at in the last year or two, it seems almost as if you are a little frantic, running around throwing money every which way in an almost desperate attempt to grab All The Stuff that your head says is necessary and that you deserve at this point in your life. 

Again, not that this makes you bad or wrong -- it's completely normal.  But those mental habits are completely antithetical to FIRE.  You need to get to the point where you understand that your happiness and success in life does not revolve around having a patio, and a snowblower, and a cruise, and all that.  And most important:  you need to stop thinking that as soon as you get past X, you won't have any other big things to spend money on.  That is just bullshitting yourself.  The reality is that no matter how big and "final" X seems, there is always a Y, and then a Z, A, B, C, and so on.  Not because all those things are necessary -- because, again, this is how your brain works.  When you view happiness and success as tied to the trappings you surround yourself with, you will always find more trappings that you need just as much as the old ones.  Look at your own history for the proof.  Something always comes up.

The way you break the cycle is to realize, as you seem to be doing, that adding more stuff doesn't make life better; it just makes the hamster wheel turn faster.  And then make a conscious choice to step off it.  I say conscious choice because it will require retraining your brain -- you have been thinking one way your whole life, and so it is natural and comfortable to want more.  In fact, it probably gives you a great (momentary) feeling to buy All The Things, because doing so reminds you of how far you have come.  You need to tell yourself that stuff does not equal happiness, that you are better and stronger than that, that Future You is just as important as Current You -- and you need to keep saying it until you see that it works and you finally believe it. 

So for now, start with those future spending plans, recognize they are all optional, and realign your spending with your real priorities.  The fact is, your values are what you do, not what you say.  As of now, today, you are choosing a finished basement over funding your kids' college, and over your own retirement.  Is that really where your priorities are?  If not, make a different choice.  You have a very healthy income that has more than ample room for both your long-term priorities and your current wants; you just can't do everything all at once.  So cut back on the things that don't matter to make room for those that do.  You can do this.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on April 13, 2018, 02:01:20 PM
@Laura33 practically needs her own thread of awesome posts.

Aww, thanks.  The side benefit of having lived long enough to screw up many, many times.  You know what they say, if you can't be a good example, at least be a horrible warning.  ;-)

And rear-wheel drive is totally awesome and worth pursuing.  :-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RWD on April 13, 2018, 02:42:09 PM
@Laura33 practically needs her own thread of awesome posts.

Aww, thanks.  The side benefit of having lived long enough to screw up many, many times.  You know what they say, if you can't be a good example, at least be a horrible warning.  ;-)

And rear-wheel drive is totally awesome and worth pursuing.  :-)

Haha, but don't sell yourself short. Anyone can make a multitude of life mistakes but it's a rare talent to be able to consistently articulate that into useful (and not condescending) advice for others.

:)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RetiredAt63 on May 14, 2018, 07:16:19 AM
I think this wins best post of the day today:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/just-some-ended-relationship-venting/50/

Besides, if you think men are going to stop being pigs anytime soon. . . well come on lets be realistic here. We are who we are.
Okay, so you are sexist against both men and women. I think that's a pretty bad thing to be! Lots of men aren't pigs, and lots of women aren't emotional crazyheads. Why not just... stop making bad generalities that offend people? There's plenty of room to give good advice without insulting entire swaths of the population.

Also, I want to address one of your early posts, and I hope that at least if this doesn't convince you to stop, it may help some fencesitters with their mindset. This:
Quote
Want to spend a few minutes being critical of men?
is not a good way of dealing with sexism. Not just because it's stupid to tear down whole genders, but because of the fact that overt and covert misogynism in our history has led to power dynamics that disadvantage women in numerous ways. As an analogy (albeit an extreme one), imagine that you say "black people are n*ggers" and then go on to post "hey, want to call me a cracker? I can take it!" The reason you don't care that people hate on men is specifically because you don't have to deal with that shit impacting your life in important ways the same way that women do. You can take it, not because you're this wonderful rational thick-skinned person, but because it really doesn't matter to you in a very essential way. Same thing with men who say that they can handle being catcalled (or worse, they would LOVE to be catcalled), why can't women handle it? Can you see the difference here? Can you see why this attitude is problematic?

If someone posted shit like "black people act so savage and ghetto" and then argued that most of their experiences with black people (and all of their friends' experiences) led them to this attitude, would you accept that as okay? Hopefully the answer is "hell no, that's racist as shit." Well, sorry, but your whole "women are predictable and irrational" thing is sexist as shit, no matter how you got there.

I just was reading an askreddit thread where transgendered people post how people treat them differently. Time and time again, you read that they are treated more seriously as males - FTM or MTF, doesn't matter, presenting as male gets you taken seriously in day to day encounters.  Your attitude in this thread is part of the problem that wears down at women day in and day out, in small and big ways, in our careers and personal encounters. You can brush this off, claim that we're all being too sensitive, whatever. I used to have a similar attitude. I grew out of it over time as I learned more compassion and I hope that you do too and stop insulting women with your generalizations. Even if you don't, I hope somebody reading this finds it useful.


Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: solon on May 20, 2018, 06:28:16 AM
In a discussion of the best way to spend your last six months in the office before FI, how to get revenge on annoying boss/coworkers, the best way to cause just a little bit of trouble on the way out:

1) You're already FI.
2) You're thinking about spending wasting up to the next half-year of your finite life getting some kind of payback that is theorized - not yet proven - to deliver emotional satisfaction.*
3) You are considering NOT doing any of the following options during the next few wonderful months of your life, because you will be hanging out an an office playing a game:

     -visit Yellowstone
     -restore an antique motorcycle
     -whip yourself into shape well enough to run a half-marathon
     -help a nonprofit organization that needs your skillset
     -go on a journey to reconnect with old friends and family members you've unfortunately lost touch with
     -give a few guest presentations at local high schools in struggling areas
     -scuba dive the Florida keys
     -learn Spanish by immersing yourself in Barcelona for 5 months
     -start writing your book
     -start a backyard beehive
     -finally see a classic play or movie you've never had the time for
     -put together your family's history
     -learn to sail
     -camp in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico and see how many stars there are
     -raise $10k for your favorite charity, become a rock start to a narrow group of people
     -raft the Arkansas river at the Royal Gorge, Colorado.

To me, the only answer is to burn down your vacation time to extract the fun money and then never work again. The whole point of being FI is to not be owned by a job you hate, and to even bother with getting payback means this job still means more to you than it necessarily has to. If you've nailed the Financial part, the next step is becoming truly Independent (i.e. not having your behavior affected by dipshit bosses in any way). OMY is just one manifestation. Still caring about office politics or score-keeping is another.

Think about it this way, if you had only the next six months to live, would you rather accomplish pissing off your manager until they ask HR to give you their standard termination speech or do one of the things on the list above (or your own thing)?

As for me, I'd be lying on my back under a new moon in the desert, contemplating the vastness of the galaxy with a campfire crackling nearby. The thought might cross my mind that my old company's managers, with their leased SUVs and their jealousies of executives who get to park closer to the door, will never get to experience such a moment as this. Even if they arranged a "vacation" at this exact spot (which they would never be capable of thinking they should do), their cell phones would be buzzing and work would be on their mind and the emails would be piling up and they would be pushing the experience to be completed and be over with because their time and attention to this moment is finite and going from meeting to meeting is inescapably habitual. Only you get peace. They don't. And then the thought would cross my mind that this is a petty thing to think as I'm partially encircled by clouds of tens of thousands of stars - as a tiny life on a tiny planet, present for a tiny sliver of time.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on May 20, 2018, 07:51:06 AM
Wow.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Loren Ver on May 20, 2018, 04:06:06 PM
In a discussion of the best way to spend your last six months in the office before FI, how to get revenge on annoying boss/coworkers, the best way to cause just a little bit of trouble on the way out:

1) You're already FI.
2) You're thinking about spending wasting up to the next half-year of your finite life getting some kind of payback that is theorized - not yet proven - to deliver emotional satisfaction.*
3) You are considering NOT doing any of the following options during the next few wonderful months of your life, because you will be hanging out an an office playing a game:

     -visit Yellowstone
     -restore an antique motorcycle
     -whip yourself into shape well enough to run a half-marathon
     -help a nonprofit organization that needs your skillset
     -go on a journey to reconnect with old friends and family members you've unfortunately lost touch with
     -give a few guest presentations at local high schools in struggling areas
     -scuba dive the Florida keys
     -learn Spanish by immersing yourself in Barcelona for 5 months
     -start writing your book
     -start a backyard beehive
     -finally see a classic play or movie you've never had the time for
     -put together your family's history
     -learn to sail
     -camp in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico and see how many stars there are
     -raise $10k for your favorite charity, become a rock start to a narrow group of people
     -raft the Arkansas river at the Royal Gorge, Colorado.

To me, the only answer is to burn down your vacation time to extract the fun money and then never work again. The whole point of being FI is to not be owned by a job you hate, and to even bother with getting payback means this job still means more to you than it necessarily has to. If you've nailed the Financial part, the next step is becoming truly Independent (i.e. not having your behavior affected by dipshit bosses in any way). OMY is just one manifestation. Still caring about office politics or score-keeping is another.

Think about it this way, if you had only the next six months to live, would you rather accomplish pissing off your manager until they ask HR to give you their standard termination speech or do one of the things on the list above (or your own thing)?

As for me, I'd be lying on my back under a new moon in the desert, contemplating the vastness of the galaxy with a campfire crackling nearby. The thought might cross my mind that my old company's managers, with their leased SUVs and their jealousies of executives who get to park closer to the door, will never get to experience such a moment as this. Even if they arranged a "vacation" at this exact spot (which they would never be capable of thinking they should do), their cell phones would be buzzing and work would be on their mind and the emails would be piling up and they would be pushing the experience to be completed and be over with because their time and attention to this moment is finite and going from meeting to meeting is inescapably habitual. Only you get peace. They don't. And then the thought would cross my mind that this is a petty thing to think as I'm partially encircled by clouds of tens of thousands of stars - as a tiny life on a tiny planet, present for a tiny sliver of time.

I love this request to think bigger.  Sometimes we get so caught up in what is in our face that we lose sight of everything else.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: rab-bit on May 25, 2018, 09:50:28 AM
Great summary of how we reached our current level of inequality in the U.S. by @Mikenost12:

A modest proposal…

  Capital in the Twenty First Century by Piketty, I believe discusses the problem being that income from capital gains/ownership have grown and multiplied faster than wages. The problem isn’t egregious CEO salaries, specialists or highly paid experts, the real issues is investment income turning society more into a system of haves and have nots, many into serfs or wage slaves. People generating much more wealth based on what they own rather then actual work, and getting tax breaks on this kind of income. While wanting us to take back democracy and have a more equitable system, I agree with what most everyone else said it also scares me to do my best to get to and maintain personal economic security.

 It isn’t necessary to especially incentivize investments, with low Capital Gain taxes, it’s already extremely rewarding and with interest rates near zero and companies flush with cash they have nothing to do with (buy competitors or stock buybacks). Low capital gains taxes, efforts to eliminate estate taxes on 12 million plus inheritences, loopholes for pass-through income, and other ways they system gets set up are just a giveaway to people that need it the least but wield the most political and economic power, exacerbating the situation.

 Solutions might include taxing capital gains at the same rate as regular income, raising rates of top income brackets back to levels of say Reagan at least, and getting the money out of politics. The idea that not allowing the ultra wealthy/corporations to contribute tens of millions of dollars regularly to politicians somehow infringes on their free speech is insane.

  Of course the government doesn't make decisions that make sense, are good for most Americans, our planet, future generations or our County strength in the future, logic or scientific fact (global warming anyone). The government's actions only make sense when view through the lens of the people paying for it, the very very very rich, not us squabling 15% or top 5%'s online feeling hurt because we worked hard and feel the article doesn't give us enough credit.

  Erosion of tax basis, declaring war on government for the past 40+ years, taking away laws protecting workers, prohibiting monopolies, priviatizing utilities, etc  have taken their toll, with targeted legislation benefiting corporations and special interests. For all the Constitutional Originalists mental gymnastics, I can’t see the Framers thinking legal bribery (Citizens United) was good for our democracy, and endorsing the current plutocracy/oligarchy.

  We can hope more of the rich are like Buffet, who says he will be giving away 99% of his wealth, Andrew Carnegie and the notion of Noblesse Oblige,  building us librarys, parks, and whatnot, that your duty as ultra wealthy is to help the serfs. I wouldn't hold my breath as it is more likely for the .001 of a percent to not be philanthropists giving away most of their dynastic wealth but instead feel extra super duper better than everyone else, like the Walton family or Koch Brothers, paying people as little as possible, influencing legistlation to further enrich themselves, with a kinda of cynical cruelty that belies a contempt for their fellow human beings,

in short, I'm gonna be smart, save, invest, work hard, help others, and well, their must be a punk band with a better way to say it but
It
 
  The system is fixable, our society was far more equitable before, just undo the policies of the past 40+ years that the elites lobbied for. Reverse engineer what they did, I fear it has to get much more unequal, with alot more suffering before people realize government can be a force for good and we get New Deal 2.0
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on May 31, 2018, 07:21:32 PM
This brilliant post from MMM resident city planner Prospector articulates quite nicely what makes a place livable for human beings. I've removed the links because this was snipped out of a journal.

Quote from: Prospector
JRA64 I am finally starting on your reply after letting questions stew for a while.

I could have stolen the title here from the Sex Pistols: "Give me convenience or give me death." An ethos which has become increasingly apparent in our cities and lifestyle in North America. And I believe it is giving us death. Between our fat and idle lifestyles, cities that operate on the model of a warehousing business (I am honestly confounded whether people are the client or the consumable in our cities - we can talk about that later), and the notion that low bid, cost-first urban designs are our MO in municipal governance, we have built places that store lives which aren't worth experiencing. In my current role I keep repeating the mantra that whatever we build, we have to put the user first, the experience second, and then build the infrastructure that supports the individuals in having experiences.

A 10-lane freeway, or "the world's longest road" is not the experience to build. The experience to build is "the worlds most beautiful drive/walk/bike ride". The experience to build is great shopping districts and sidewalk cafes and life at low speed. High speed is for trains and ferries... not for people and cities. We build freeways to facilitate commuter lifestyles which kill community and families at the expense of local jobs, a working wage, and meaningful life - regardless of the career. What is the point of the world's longest road if the road is an endless parade of noise walls (I know this is not the case, but in parts of Toulouse (https://goo.gl/maps/ZY22waDGFQK2) - and here in Toronto (https://goo.gl/maps/6ik9yv3WiBv), all the scenery you will see from the freeway is Concrete walls).

My opinion is that we need widescale downsizing of things that we are proud to call big. Not just our "Supersized" restaurant portions, but our lives. Smaller homes, smaller vehicles, smaller careers, smaller streets, smaller stress." The precipitate of this is greater intensity of experience and greater meaning of life.

If you walk into a boulangerie in France, you will find a proprietor  who has dedicated their life to bread. There might be pizza or quiche in the display case, but not much else. You will not find milk or cheese or freezer meals. There will be a few sandwiches and some desserts, but mostly there will be bread. A huge basket of baguettes, a dozen types of fresh loafs, croissants and dinner rolls. The proprietor will talk with you in detail about the bread. How it was made, why this bread goes well with this cheese, whether it is a sandwich bread or a bread for dipping or a bread for slicing. You will leave the shop having spent 3 euros, and with an experience. This is different from running into a Loblaws, grabbing a loaf of Texas toast, and getting out as fast as you can. It is similar with cheese at the Fromagerie, with meats at the charcuterie, and so on. This is treaditional french shopping. Each of these stores would fit into a single-car garage, each supports a family 3 euros at a time, and each is a community builder. I have not seen dedicated parking for any of these shops. Most of their clients are walk-ups or are in and out so fast that the customer turnover means parking demand is limited to about 3 vehicles.

In France you can also do your shopping at "Super U (https://www.magasins-u.com/accueil)" or any other "North American Style" grocery store. I thought Super U was funny because it combined a Canadian Tire with a grocery store - cooking is a gender neutral experience in France, so a grocery store that sells traditionally male toys is a thing there. (Buy a new fishing pole with your groceries!) The experience of a big store though carries forward the tradition of people serving people. There are fish and meat counters, bread still baked in-store. etc. The thing is that when all these shopping experiences are combined in one location for convenience rather than sprinkled over a block, the combined time is onerous, parking demands grow, the need for carts and buggies and juggling loads grows. Shopping becomes a chore rather than an experience. Dragging two kids and momma from section to section is painful compared to standing at a counter and asking for a croissant for J1, a baguette for the family, and that miniquiche for Momma. It all falls apart.

FWIW, there are minisupermarchees in town, but for the most part, stores like Super-U are suburban experiences... and in that space they are doing well. But the suburban experience in France isn't much different that the warehousing of families we do here. You can find the Prospy Family on Street F, house 117. Also light bulbs are in aisle K, shelf 12. One will need a car to reach, the other a shopping cart. Enroute to one you will experience noise walls. To reach the other, you will be walled in by shelfs of cans. Have I mentioned that I'm not a fan of large format retail? And yet our lives and our cities are looking more and more like a box store.

Enter the traditional old town...

Here is the street (https://goo.gl/maps/hcR85rD53YB2) between Gare Lille Europe - the main train station of Lille - and the Lille Opera house - the main entertainment space in Lille. Can you see how wide that street is? Forget the gorgeous buildings on either side for now, lets just talk street space and priority. Note the position of the bollards.

Leave street view and measure the width of that road. I get something in the order of 25m. Now let's measure the space where cars go between the bollards. The auto realm is only 6m of that 25m cross section. one quarter of the road is allocated to cars. 75% is dedicated to "experience" other than driving. You can see that the human realm has different colours of asphalt. There is cycling space and walking space. On the edges of the road is a mingling zone where cafes and storefronts encourage pedestrians to slow even below a walking pace - greet people, browse, and live. Bikes have an option to operate as pedestrians or in the travelled lanes. This is massively different than a typical Canadian (American) downtown where the objective is throughput - for both autos and pedestrians and bikes. Here the narrow driving space is further slowed by cycling lanes. Its about experiencing the space, not about passing through it.

Now get outside the right of way and look at the footprint of the shops. Most are less than 20m across. There is massive diversity in the uses. You can sit at a cafe sipping your morning espresso and within eyesight is everything you need for your day - banks, law offices, clothing stores, etc. all within this dense, pedestrian oriented downtown. The french are in less of a rush than Americans because they don't need to rush. There is no "lost time" to driving between work and home, or from town hall to the lawyer's or from the bar to home. All the uses are combined the fabric of the city in a walkable utopia where people are prioritized above machines. But wait... that's not all.

This is the space in front of one of Lille's cathedrals. (https://goo.gl/maps/mSrcc1Emd6Q2) See how skinny the road is again? Same idea about cars getting 25% of the space while people get gobs of room. But the streetview shows trucks (big delivery trucks) parked in the square where the umbrellas and cafe tables are in the aerial imagery. What sorcery is this? What's even more bizarre are the time of day restrictions on the space in the street signs (Pedestrian Zone - road closed except for authorized vehicles and deliveries from 07h00-11h00). Here's an amazing use of space.

Early in the morning the delivery trucks rumble up to the square, park and begin running supplies to the shops using dollies and hand carts. This is incredible to see because around here with our mega-stores, every time we try to dedicate space to people the cry goes out of "how will deliveries be made?" I'll tell you how - when your shop is only 20' X 40', and you live above it, you can stock it quickly by hand. Similarly, when your blocks are only 100' long, you can drag your trash can a block to the square where the truck will come pick it up.

Once the morning deliveries are done, the trucks rumble away and the square becomes littered with market stalls. People pop up selling bread and flowers and milk. Traditionally in France you get these supplies daily (even the Super-U only sells 1 litre bottles of milk, although you can buy a 6-pack of them). The market stalls evaporate around 10:00, and the square sits quiet until lunch time when the market stalls all get replaced by patio sets from the restaurants surrounding the square. At this point, for the rest of the day the whole of the square turns into a massive food court with the  restaurants surrounding it serving customers. You can buy your lunch at any business and sit at any table and mingle. And the French love to mingle in this setting, sipping wine, smoking, and talking. The space was vibrant and full no matter when we passed by. After about 7:00 PM, there were no tables available and people were sitting on the steps of the cathedral to eat. This was tourists meeting locals. Neighbours checking in on each other. Shopkeepers taking a break. This was different from "Big Box Neighbourhoods" where people are stored in their little 50X100' lots, bragging about the size of their Irises. (What is the plural of iris?)

<Incidentally, apparently the cathedral steps in Lille are an excellent makeout spot, and you don't even need to worry about being discreet about boinking on them. Also, the steps do not discriminate based on race or sexual orientation.On top of the many amorous couples, we saw no less than three different couples engaged in copulation on three different occasions, although to be fair, the two dudes who waved and smiled as we passed by were tucked away in an alcove as opposed to the straight couples who just went for it out in the open.>

And the cars passing through the square - well the loiterers couldn't be assed to have them there. You are stupid to own a car in Lille. Once a loud car slammed to the ground sat at the edge of the square holding up traffic so it could show off. After much revving of engine and booming of music, its driver decided to pop the clutch and show what an amazing acceleration his vehicle had. Dozens of people rose from their seats to take photos of the car as it sped through the narrow street-space. Afterwards they compared photos to see who had the best shot... of the license plate. A handful of photos and accompanying video were sent immediate to les gendarmes. Everyone in the square gave the driver the stinkeye.

Those who do bring cars to town are not only faced with impossibly tight streets to drive, they also have a dearth of parking, and are forced to pay for it. Remember that space allocated to pedestrians? Well it is protected in the already narrow alleyways too. This is the street our AirBnb (https://goo.gl/maps/NvMBrQcsg5J2) was on. It is a single lane, 1-way street. See the parking and protected space? yeah, we didn't even bother trying to drive there. And we never needed to. Everything could be walked in under 10 minutes. Now I'm back home facing a 10-minute DRIVE to get groceries. Is my life more rushed for it? You bet. Every minute spent driving takes 3 minutes to support - between maintenance, fuels and financing the habit you spend you life supporting the car you use to buy time in your life.

Anyway, I've neglected the kids too long. I need to go get groceries and feed them. I'll write more later. Maybe a book. This got long.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: englishteacheralex on May 31, 2018, 11:25:40 PM
Wow, reminds me of James Kunstler's books about city planning. Some Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan thrown in there, too. As a person who spent a year in France 20 years ago, I salute that post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on June 04, 2018, 06:45:48 AM
Okay.... here goes

You seem to be missing the most important point of this whole thing...
This is about living your best life.

When you are high income, it’s very easy to fall into a logical trap that your best life includes expensive luxuries because you “can afford them”. Except that what you “can afford” is completely predicated on how much you want to work, not what you can earn in a given year.

It all depends on what your yard-sticks of value are.
What matters most to you? And what does that cost?
Money isn’t anything in and of itself, it’s a representation of time and energy whose values change as you age.

To put it simply: everything is a trade off.
Mustachianism is about negotiating every trade off to get the best deal for your particular circumstances. For every single cent you spend, you need to evaluate the time/energy/money exchange and decide if the trade is worthwhile.

For high income earners, this is a very big question because the possibilities are tremendous.
If your household income is over 200K, you can afford almost any luxury you want short of mega-rich territory stuff like private planes.
You *could* afford a huge luxurious 1M+ house, an Astin Martin, luxury travel, high fashion, expensive restaurants, wine collections, private school for your kids, a country home, a huge retirement nest egg, or an extremely early retirement, or fund some amazing projects, or buy a seat on an important committee, etc, etc...you just can’t afford them all. You have to choose.

Okay, so you like expensive activities and expensive travel. That’s cool.
Do you like it more than every other single thing that that money could buy you? Is it more satisfying than any alternative including more free time? Earlier retirement? Literally everything else in the world?

The statement “I can afford it” directly translates to “I’m happy to work more for it” not “oh well, I’m working super hard and generating this income anyway, so I might as well spend some of it to make the whole thing worthwhile”
See how insane the second one is when you actually look at it???

This is where you need to know yourself.
You need to know your own needs and values to be able to use your big incomes to craft your best life because if you piss away your money, you are pissing away your time, your energy, and all of the incredible opportunities that go along with your situation.
The opportunity cost of your current lifestyle is astronomical, and you don’t even feel like you live a rich or spendy life! Do you see how crazy that is?

It’s not about not spending.
It’s not about adjusting to depriving yourself of things.
It’s not about learning to live on less.
It’s about learning to live more, learning what truly makes you happy, and using the time/energy/money balance to generate the best life possible.
You have every resource at your disposal to live amazingly well and you are wasting it.

One of the most valuable messages that MMM has shared is that your best life probably doesn’t cost nearly as much as your mediocre life.

Personally, I make more money than you do, but it takes something pretty fucking spectacular to get me to part with my cash. I’m not cheap, I’m just a snob about spending. My bar for spending is very high. I’m not at all the most frugal person, I spend on plenty of things that others wouldn’t, but they are things that matter to me. They have value disproportionate to their cost in terms of time/energy/money/opportunity cost for me personally. I feel very good about everything I spend on. If it doesn’t feel like I’m getting an amazing deal on the trade-off, I don’t make the trade.

Hold your life to a higher standard and you won’t find it a struggle to spend less.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: koshtra on June 04, 2018, 09:13:28 AM
@Malkynn has been on a roll lately. The shitstorm post:

"Just because most people choose to spend their lives miserable and trodding through shit doesn’t mean that those who choose not to have life figured out, they just don’t have shit in their shoes."

The word “retirement” has actually lost a lot of utility.
It made a lot of sense when it was common for people to have a single, pensioned, full time job with a predictable end date where they just stopped working forever.

However, times have changed, careers are infinitely more variable and lifestyle-sustaining pensions are less and less common.
That’s why so many people here focus on FI instead, except that FI is largely arbitrary and self-defined.

For someone working a full time day job that they don’t love for Megacorp, there may still be a clear line in the sand between what they consider their “working years” vs their “retirement years” even if their “retirement” involves paid work. That’s the MMM trajectory. However, there are plenty of people who don’t have Megacorp day jobs and don’t have a clear delineation.

Some of us have multiple jobs, varied side hustles, flexible careers that adapt to our lives and can be customized along the way. I have no idea when I will be considered “retired” or which of my projects will be considered a “side hustle” or even when I’ll reach FI, because my projected retirement spending is actually going to be based on how much money I manage to save +whatever my projects continue to generate, and not the other way around.

The “X number of years on the hamster wheel to generate Y dollars in savings until Z% withdrawal rate can support my projected annual expenses in perpetuity and then I’ll quit” model definitely makes sense for A LOT of career trajectories, but it’s not a universal model, it’s a career CHOICE.
It’s not a given, it’s an option.

Early retirement sure as shit won’t answer any of life’s problems. Money provides security, low expenses provide flexibility, and healthy psychological relationship with finance is simply a good idea, but that’s not answering life’s problems, it’s just being responsible, proactive, and avoiding stepping in shit that can easily be avoided. Just because most people choose to spend their lives miserable and trodding through shit doesn’t mean that those who choose not to have life figured out, they just don’t have shit in their shoes.

Make no mistake though. Life will rain a monsoon of shit down on you that you can barely handle no matter what your financial situation. Life.is.fucking.hard. It just fucking is. Early retirement is just one of many many strategies that people can choose to manage the shitstorm. However, that doesn’t fundamentally make it the best choice for everyone either.

I read A LOT of posts here from miserable, stressed out people who talk about how they’re desperate to reach FIRE and *then* they’ll start taking more care of their health, *then* they’ll start focusing on their personal development and happiness. They may relearn how to be healthy and happy once they reach FIRE or they may have done irreparable damage to their health, psyche, relationships, and wasted their prime opportunities for building their fullest life. Is ER better than their miserable working years? You bet! But is their net lifestime happiness higher than if they had chosen a different path? Hard to say...maybe, maybe not.

I’m actually an optimist, but it is a universal truth that life will throw shit at you, and your precious ‘stache can’t protect you. It can make you more resilient, more confident, more flexible, but it’s an umbrella in the storm, not a bunker. You’re not “safe” and you’re not guaranteed any damn happiness.

So what’s the “truth” about early retirement?
It’s whatever you decide it to be. Like anything else, it’s just part of the decisions that you have to make in order to build your life.

One thing I know is absolutely, incontrovertibly, and terrifyingly true: living for tomorrow wastes today, and today is literally all you have.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Brother Esau on June 04, 2018, 09:30:33 AM
Malkynn 2020!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: haflander on June 04, 2018, 10:10:09 AM
Sorry to be That Guy and merely PTF without contributing anything right now, but this thread is too good to miss any one post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on June 04, 2018, 03:30:23 PM
This is a thing of beauty from @SwordGuy:

I don't get people that take politics super-seriously or choose their friends based on politics.

I understand people who take police brutality seriously because they are far more likely to be shot by police for doing nothing at all.

Maybe your demographic doesn't have that problem.

I understand people who take oppression seriously because they can end up going to jail (or being shot by police) simply for waiting for a friend at a Starbucks, or cooking at the grill in a public park, or doing their job at their place of work, or asking directions from someone, or just opening their front door.

Maybe your demographic doesn't have that problem.

I understand people who take oppression seriously because they can't get promoted because of their gender, or get sexually harassed because, as Trump Jr put it so very clearly, if you can't stand being sexually harassed in the workplace, you should stay at home.  Or they have to learn at age 10 to go to the bathroom in groups so they won't get groped by some guy while they are away from their friends.  (You did know that's why girls do that?)   As one coworker put it, again so very clearly, when I brought up Trump's video self-confession to being a serial sexual assaulter, "Why should I care?  It's not like it's bad for the economy!"

Maybe your demographic doesn't have that problem.

What I can't get is people who have no damn empathy for folks in that situation and can't be bothered to give a damn about the injustice of it.  Because, after all, it's not affecting them, so why should they care?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Hirondelle on June 05, 2018, 10:58:19 PM
This brilliant post from MMM resident city planner Prospector articulates quite nicely what makes a place livable for human beings. I've removed the links because this was snipped out of a journal.

Quote from: Prospector
[snipped] Prospector's post about life in France/Lille and how walkable it all is.

LOVED this one. This is one of the things I love the most about Europe and what I miss the most when living abroad. Being able to walk/bike everywhere, get outside and see your neighbours, run into other friends/acquintances and see that as a regular part of your day/life that's enjoyable and not just a chore.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on June 26, 2018, 06:57:21 PM
Placeholder. Found this thread again, now off to find the thing I want to put here. Be back soon!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on June 26, 2018, 08:14:03 PM
Here it is:

I love this! I think it's too good to limit it to either gender, so I've taken the liberty of making it neutral. I hope the author does not mind. I truly believe this will help people make better partnering decisions. Thank you for this excellent post, @rdaneel0!

What characteristics do you look for in a person you want to date? I think you need to adjust your list because I'm guessing you are missing some seriously important traits and focusing on superficial things. Weed out the unqualified with these questions:

1. Is s/he hard working?
Not just at work (that's important too) but in general? Does s/he pitch in and help people without being asked or wait to be served and taken care of? Does s/he complain about and hate any form of work or does s/he feel gratified doing a good job at something?

2. Does s/he have integrity? Is their word good? If s/he says she'll do something will s/he do it? Does s/he have personal morals and values s/he holds themself to or is s/he only concerned with their own gratification? People who use other people have no integrity.

3. Is s/he appreciative? Is there ever enough you can do to please them or is there a constantly shifting goalpost? Is s/he gracious and vocally appreciative when you do something nice?

4. Is s/he generous? How generous is s/he not only with you but with friends and family? How generous is s/he with time and focus? Does s/he go out of their way to do kind things for others? People who are generous generally do not take advantage of others.

This is the really important stuff that goes deep into the heart of who a person really is. In my opinion this is far more important than having common hobbies or liking the same movies.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Hirondelle on June 27, 2018, 01:33:40 AM
That one was wonderful. Honestly, I think it's not even useful just for making partner decisions, but also very applicible to oneself. Just change s/he to I and that's the person I'd like to be!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on June 27, 2018, 02:31:50 AM
Here it is:

I love this! I think it's too good to limit it to either gender, so I've taken the liberty of making it neutral. I hope the author does not mind. I truly believe this will help people make better partnering decisions. Thank you for this excellent post, @rdaneel0!

What characteristics do you look for in a person you want to date? I think you need to adjust your list because I'm guessing you are missing some seriously important traits and focusing on superficial things. Weed out the unqualified with these questions:

1. Is s/he hard working?
Not just at work (that's important too) but in general? Does s/he pitch in and help people without being asked or wait to be served and taken care of? Does s/he complain about and hate any form of work or does s/he feel gratified doing a good job at something?

2. Does s/he have integrity? Is their word good? If s/he says she'll do something will s/he do it? Does s/he have personal morals and values s/he holds themself to or is s/he only concerned with their own gratification? People who use other people have no integrity.

3. Is s/he appreciative? Is there ever enough you can do to please them or is there a constantly shifting goalpost? Is s/he gracious and vocally appreciative when you do something nice?

4. Is s/he generous? How generous is s/he not only with you but with friends and family? How generous is s/he with time and focus? Does s/he go out of their way to do kind things for others? People who are generous generally do not take advantage of others.

This is the really important stuff that goes deep into the heart of who a person really is. In my opinion this is far more important than having common hobbies or liking the same movies.

This morning I just listened to a podcast from Dear Sugars about otherwise good relationships where there was just this one issue. So 2 other things I learned this morning were:

Can you talk with him/her about the issues and concerns that are most important to you? Is he/she willing to listen and trying to understand?

If one aspect of your life differs from your partner, for example you have different beliefs, are both parties willing to meet each other halfway by learning more about the other partner's life and motivations? Are you fully respected for making your choice?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Hula Hoop on July 03, 2018, 02:21:22 AM
Here it is:

I love this! I think it's too good to limit it to either gender, so I've taken the liberty of making it neutral. I hope the author does not mind. I truly believe this will help people make better partnering decisions. Thank you for this excellent post, @rdaneel0!

What characteristics do you look for in a person you want to date? I think you need to adjust your list because I'm guessing you are missing some seriously important traits and focusing on superficial things. Weed out the unqualified with these questions:

1. Is s/he hard working?
Not just at work (that's important too) but in general? Does s/he pitch in and help people without being asked or wait to be served and taken care of? Does s/he complain about and hate any form of work or does s/he feel gratified doing a good job at something?

2. Does s/he have integrity? Is their word good? If s/he says she'll do something will s/he do it? Does s/he have personal morals and values s/he holds themself to or is s/he only concerned with their own gratification? People who use other people have no integrity.

3. Is s/he appreciative? Is there ever enough you can do to please them or is there a constantly shifting goalpost? Is s/he gracious and vocally appreciative when you do something nice?

4. Is s/he generous? How generous is s/he not only with you but with friends and family? How generous is s/he with time and focus? Does s/he go out of their way to do kind things for others? People who are generous generally do not take advantage of others.

This is the really important stuff that goes deep into the heart of who a person really is. In my opinion this is far more important than having common hobbies or liking the same movies.

This morning I just listened to a podcast from Dear Sugars about otherwise good relationships where there was just this one issue. So 2 other things I learned this morning were:

Can you talk with him/her about the issues and concerns that are most important to you? Is he/she willing to listen and trying to understand?

If one aspect of your life differs from your partner, for example you have different beliefs, are both parties willing to meet each other halfway by learning more about the other partner's life and motivations? Are you fully respected for making your choice?

This is all such great advice.  My parents had a horrible marriage and I've been extremely surprised to find myself in a happy stable marriage.  Due to my experiences as a child, I saw marriage as a horrible, miserable affair and didn't realize that it could also be a supportive refuge from the difficulties of life.

IMO inevitably you'll have differences from your partner in some respect - my husband and I have the added difficulty of cultural and class differences- but Linda makes a great point about having respect for your partner's beliefs and being willing to meet half way.  It's a work in progress but that's something that we strive for.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Trifle on July 04, 2018, 06:27:31 AM
From @Malkynn on "What motivates you other than money?"

Health and happiness.

I bought into the whole concept of frugality as a means to a happier and healthier life, and so far, it works out quite well.
The more I focus on living a frugal life, the more I enjoy my life. I go through phases where I've taken on too much work and I get a bit burnt out and lazy and resort to spendy entertainment like going out to restaurants, and buying things, and in those phases life just doesn't feel as satisfying or enjoyable.

The more I stay focused on frugality and using money more meaningfully, the more dynamic, challenging, healthy, and interesting my life gets. It's not that spending is necessarily bad, it's that frugality pushes me to be more active in evaluating the actual value of the things I choose to spend on and do. When I pay attention to filling my life with the richest experiences, I hold my spending to a very high standard and therefore get a lot more out of it.

Also, having to be creative in engaging life with minimal spending tends to result in a lot of amazing opportunities: learning new things, networking with other creative and productive people, and finding new ways to be useful.
Overall, I find a spendier life to be more boring, less engaging, less physically active, and doesn't produce the kind of amazing outcomes that a frugal life does.

Lastly, frugality equals flexibility, which equals freedom.
My DH too has a huge pension that would cover more than we need; however, we don't actually need his full pension.
Sure, he *may* decide to keep working into his 60s, but because our spending is so low, he could easily decide to leave within the next 5 years. He gets a lot of satisfaction with his work, but he works a lot on international dossiers and at any point could be recruited by an overseas NGO, and we have the flexibility to say "why not try it?"
Who knows what he'll end up doing, but the point is that he can do whatever he wants. He doesn't *have to* stay at his job until he reaches full pension.

The more we live this frugal life, the more we see the secret network of unexpected doors opening up to us as we broaden our perception of what options are available to us as we become less and less attached to a life that requires us to spend a certain amount.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: oneday on July 26, 2018, 04:46:17 PM
Not finance related, but it made my day.

DH and I believe there should be more whimsy in the world, what we can't find we had better make!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RyanAtTanagra on July 26, 2018, 05:11:40 PM
Not finance related, but it made my day.

DH and I believe there should be more whimsy in the world, what we can't find we had better make!

Totally finance related, it was in reference to plans after FIRE!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Loren Ver on July 27, 2018, 04:48:51 AM
Not finance related, but it made my day.

DH and I believe there should be more whimsy in the world, what we can't find we had better make!

Thank you oneday.  I'm glad others appreciate whimsy!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dances With Fire on July 27, 2018, 06:52:47 AM
From @Malkynn on "What motivates you other than money?"

Health and happiness.

I bought into the whole concept of frugality as a means to a happier and healthier life, and so far, it works out quite well.
The more I focus on living a frugal life, the more I enjoy my life. I go through phases where I've taken on too much work and I get a bit burnt out and lazy and resort to spendy entertainment like going out to restaurants, and buying things, and in those phases life just doesn't feel as satisfying or enjoyable.

The more I stay focused on frugality and using money more meaningfully, the more dynamic, challenging, healthy, and interesting my life gets. It's not that spending is necessarily bad, it's that frugality pushes me to be more active in evaluating the actual value of the things I choose to spend on and do. When I pay attention to filling my life with the richest experiences, I hold my spending to a very high standard and therefore get a lot more out of it.

Also, having to be creative in engaging life with minimal spending tends to result in a lot of amazing opportunities: learning new things, networking with other creative and productive people, and finding new ways to be useful.
Overall, I find a spendier life to be more boring, less engaging, less physically active, and doesn't produce the kind of amazing outcomes that a frugal life does.

Lastly, frugality equals flexibility, which equals freedom.
My DH too has a huge pension that would cover more than we need; however, we don't actually need his full pension.
Sure, he *may* decide to keep working into his 60s, but because our spending is so low, he could easily decide to leave within the next 5 years. He gets a lot of satisfaction with his work, but he works a lot on international dossiers and at any point could be recruited by an overseas NGO, and we have the flexibility to say "why not try it?"
Who knows what he'll end up doing, but the point is that he can do whatever he wants. He doesn't *have to* stay at his job until he reaches full pension.

The more we live this frugal life, the more we see the secret network of unexpected doors opening up to us as we broaden our perception of what options are available to us as we become less and less attached to a life that requires us to spend a certain amount.

^^^ This is excellent. Thanks for sharing.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MrThatsDifferent on August 22, 2018, 01:10:04 PM
A LOT can happen in 4-6 years.

...snip...

So yeah, look at the math. Know what’s realistic, and then focus on getting the most out of your life regardless of what happens to your plans along the way.
My DH always says: “never let a good plan fuck up a great life”

All good points. Any FIRE plan that is supposed to span decades needs to have a flexible foundation. Both for how FIRE starts and how it progresses. You can't plan it all out in advance and you can't know what it will be like 100% once you retire. That said generating some sort of plan/vision is smart, but don't get too attached to it.

Where I see people go wrong with this ^^^ is they lock in on "flexibility" as being lots more money, which equals years more work. When you look at all the failure modes for FIRE running out of cash isn't the one that concerns me a ton. Formulate a reasonable budget. Save/invest a conservative amount [ie. 4%WR]. Be a tad flexible in your spending in response to market events and you'll be golden. On the other hand work too much sacrificing your physical or mental health or your primary relationships and you'll be a very rich miserable person who dies young or lives a long time feeling like life ripped them off.

You need to get to FIRE with money, but far more importantly you need to get there with your health, with solid personal relationships and with the mental framework to be able to be happy. Accumulating the money is the easy part if you are a white collar professional...it's the other items that will take a lot of attention, effort and commitment.  Assuming you'll reconnect with your SO, family and friends after FIRE having put them on the back burner for work is a dangerous assumption. The same goes for sacrificing your health at a stressful sedentary desk job and thinking you'll fix all the damage once you are retired. You might....but you might not get the chance as well.

All this to say be flexible and don't just focus on money. It's a tool that's useful to build a great life, but it's not the goal itself.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Sailor Sam on September 13, 2018, 12:08:20 PM
From Janet Jackson, on poverty.

I've tried to remain silent and let it roll off my back, but this thread is really upsetting.

I don't think that some of the commenters realize how much easier it is to make small "stupid" mistakes when you have a buffer or a support system.
I am no longer under the poverty line, but I spent the majority of my life there... and the smallest mistake or choice can keep you from getting ahead... It is SO IMPERATIVE to make consistent proper choices in succession for YEARS to get even a little bit ahead... while those who have more of a cash buffer or a solid support system based on even minor wealth can get away with certain choices or mistakes.

On a personal note/one very minor example in a full history of MANY choices like this:
How many times have I needed stitches in my life?  TWICE.  Once as a child, and once as an adult.
How many times have I gotten stitches? ZERO.  My dad superglued my leg and butterfly bandaged it when I was a kid, and it's the only time I think I remember ever having seen him close to tears. 
He was making a CHOICE that it wasn't quite bad enough for stitches... and that stitches would be cosmetic, but not medically necessary... so, in order to keep us moving in an upward trajectory, he fixed it himself. 
I was fine, it was "the right choice," but still a really shitty choice to have to make. 
The need for stitches was cosmetic... it healed 'fine' with the glue and butterfly bandages... but I wouldn't even have a scar today if I'd gotten stitches... but... instead I have a scar that covers about 1/2 of my knee.

I made the same choice for myself about 7 years ago when cutting homemade soap to sell at the farmers market (trying to get ahead, for me, has meant always having 2+ jobs). 
I'd already lost the whole batch since it had my blood on it, which means I'd already lost money.  This time, I was lucky enough to have a very close friend who is a nurse and gifted me surgical glue and this stuff called 'stitch floss tape' (or something like that) for the prior x-mas (she knows me). 
I decided to fix it myself, which was awful (I almost fainted, ha).. but since I'd already lost a HUGE batch of soap, I didn't want to ALSO pay for an ER or Urgent Care bill.  So, again, I made a shitty choice.

So, personal experiences aside...
It's little shitty awful choices in succession like this that help poor people get ahead.... $20, $40, $70 at a time.
It's also not making ANY or VERY FEW mistakes and/or expensive choices....

People choose not to have children, people choose not to pursue any of their passions, people choose not to have even one drink, because poor folks are perceived as alcoholics when they have a drink after a hard day, but somehow upper-class white women CONSTANTLY make jokes about "needing" wine to get through an event or a day... (these are not examples of my life, just examples)…
And if poor people make "mistakes" like falling in love or entering the workforce without further education at a minimum, they might be able to get ahead.

Yet people with access to wealth can make small non-optimal choices and even small mistakes and recover.  Do these people go to work when they have a fever?  Most likely not.  Do poor folks?  Generally, yes... even though they know it's the wrong thing to do for the public, for coworkers, etc.... if they make the wrong choice for themselves (vs the wrong choice for the public good), they'll get behind...
I, and many others, can't afford to make "the wrong choice".

Don't have children with multiple partners?  Look at Donald Trump (politics aside {seriously, leave them aside}). 
He sure did it, and did it send him into a tailspin or a life of paying retribution for those "wrong" choices?  No.
That's just one example... there are so many more.
Don't do drugs, even the mildest non-habit-forming ones that might help you with stress reduction (again, not advocating for this or speaking from experience, just an example).  Look at Bill Clinton.
He sure did it, and did that admission send him into a tailspin and set him up for spending the rest of his life paying retribution for that "wrong" choice?  No.


So it's especially hard to listen to folks in this thread berating people for their imperfect choices... as if being born into poverty was a choice. 

When people offer progressive solutions, instead of engaging positively (even if they think the idea won't work... at least TALK about some solutions), it seems like all too many people are ready to pass out the "well that's the way the cookie crumbles" summary of things... and/or suggest that the cash poor just "work harder"....


It really doesn't seem like some people have any idea how many small, tiny, ITTY BITTY choices poor people make every single day to get ahead... stuff that the higher class, or those born into relative security, don't even think about/don't even have to think about.

it is as if only the wealthy are permitted to have the full range of human experiences... passion, love, experiences, whatever....
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on September 13, 2018, 05:13:44 PM
Dang. Great post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: KCalla on September 15, 2018, 08:14:21 PM
And when, day after day, so many decisions are "high stakes" and a small wrong move can have significant impact, the ongoing stress affects so much.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: JanetJackson on September 16, 2018, 06:46:26 AM
Thanks for the shout out @Sailor Sam!  Also, now I have to reckon with my typos twice.  HA.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BTDretire on September 16, 2018, 07:05:57 AM
Great summary of how we reached our current level of inequality in the U.S. by @Mikenost12:

A modest proposal…

  Capital in the Twenty First Century by Piketty, I believe discusses the problem being that income from capital gains/ownership have grown and multiplied faster than wages. The problem isn’t egregious CEO salaries, specialists or highly paid experts, the real issues is investment income turning society more into a system of haves and have nots, many into serfs or wage slaves. People generating much more wealth based on what they own rather then actual work, and getting tax breaks on this kind of income. While wanting us to take back democracy and have a more equitable system, I agree with what most everyone else said it also scares me to do my best to get to and maintain personal economic security.

 It isn’t necessary to especially incentivize investments, with low Capital Gain taxes, it’s already extremely rewarding and with interest rates near zero and companies flush with cash they have nothing to do with (buy competitors or stock buybacks). Low capital gains taxes, efforts to eliminate estate taxes on 12 million plus inheritences, loopholes for pass-through income, and other ways they system gets set up are just a giveaway to people that need it the least but wield the most political and economic power, exacerbating the situation.

 Solutions might include taxing capital gains at the same rate as regular income, raising rates of top income brackets back to levels of say Reagan at least, and getting the money out of politics. The idea that not allowing the ultra wealthy/corporations to contribute tens of millions of dollars regularly to politicians somehow infringes on their free speech is insane.

  Of course the government doesn't make decisions that make sense, are good for most Americans, our planet, future generations or our County strength in the future, logic or scientific fact (global warming anyone). The government's actions only make sense when view through the lens of the people paying for it, the very very very rich, not us squabling 15% or top 5%'s online feeling hurt because we worked hard and feel the article doesn't give us enough credit.

  Erosion of tax basis, declaring war on government for the past 40+ years, taking away laws protecting workers, prohibiting monopolies, priviatizing utilities, etc  have taken their toll, with targeted legislation benefiting corporations and special interests. For all the Constitutional Originalists mental gymnastics, I can’t see the Framers thinking legal bribery (Citizens United) was good for our democracy, and endorsing the current plutocracy/oligarchy.

  We can hope more of the rich are like Buffet, who says he will be giving away 99% of his wealth, Andrew Carnegie and the notion of Noblesse Oblige,  building us librarys, parks, and whatnot, that your duty as ultra wealthy is to help the serfs. I wouldn't hold my breath as it is more likely for the .001 of a percent to not be philanthropists giving away most of their dynastic wealth but instead feel extra super duper better than everyone else, like the Walton family or Koch Brothers, paying people as little as possible, influencing legistlation to further enrich themselves, with a kinda of cynical cruelty that belies a contempt for their fellow human beings,

in short, I'm gonna be smart, save, invest, work hard, help others, and well, their must be a punk band with a better way to say it but
It
 
  The system is fixable, our society was far more equitable before, just undo the policies of the past 40+ years that the elites lobbied for. Reverse engineer what they did, I fear it has to get much more unequal, with alot more suffering before people realize government can be a force for good and we get New Deal 2.0

 And all this time I thought special tax treatment of capital gains was the best way to help the little man that
had the ability to save a little of his paycheck to have a sizable nestegg when he retired.
 Glad I was born and took advantage before those changes can take that away!
  And add to that, inflation reduces your real gains, but you pay taxes on that loss.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on September 17, 2018, 04:49:15 PM
Thanks for the shout out @Sailor Sam!  Also, now I have to reckon with my typos twice.  HA.

Wow great post JanetJackson.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Glenstache on September 17, 2018, 05:59:49 PM
Thanks for the shout out @Sailor Sam!  Also, now I have to reckon with my typos twice.  HA.

Wow great post JanetJackson.
+1. A thing worth reading, and remembering for sure. It is good to get a view out of the FI bubble.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: pbkmaine on September 17, 2018, 06:38:18 PM
Thanks for the shout out @Sailor Sam!  Also, now I have to reckon with my typos twice.  HA.

Wow great post JanetJackson.
+1. A thing worth reading, and remembering for sure. It is good to get a view out of the FI bubble.

I loved this.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Kay-Ell on September 18, 2018, 09:17:18 AM
And when, day after day, so many decisions are "high stakes" and a small wrong move can have significant impact, the ongoing stress affects so much.

I think this is an important point to understand in terms of how it effects hope and optimism too (one of MMM's self proclaimed essential mustatian traits).  When day after day, year after year, generation after generation, any small bad decisioins can have significant, lasting neative impacts, not only does that cause stress it creates hopelessness and a defeatest mentality.  Why save $5 or $10 or $20 bucks here or there if your generational expectation is that life will just find another way to screw you.  Sure, we all know that saving $15, 2X per week by cooking economically at home instead of taking yourself and your kids to McDonalds will compound over 10 years to over 20k.  And that saving another $50/month on cable TV will bring the combined number up to almost 30k.  Then factor in the health benefits and subsiquent earning potential of eating better food and sitting in front of the TV less and you suddenly have life changing money.  But with the compounded effects of stress, poverty, constant setbacks and a generational consensus of defeat and hopelessness denying ones self and children the momentary pleasures of McDonalds and TV feels utterly pointless.  Finding and maintaining the necessary optimism to believe that the tiny incrimental improvements that are under one's personal control could add up to create real, meaningful improvements is nearly impossible when you and everyone you know is stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: letsdoit on September 18, 2018, 09:43:10 AM
to follow
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: matchewed on September 18, 2018, 02:25:24 PM
Just stepped in to remind that if you want to continue any sort of discussion from another thread the best place to do it is in said thread, not in this thread, as this thread is meant to share posts, not necessarily discuss them.

:)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: JanetJackson on September 18, 2018, 02:47:56 PM
Just stepped in to remind that if you want to continue any sort of discussion from another thread the best place to do it is in said thread, not in this thread, as this thread is meant to share posts, not necessarily discuss them.

:)
You're very right.  Deleted :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: letsdoit on September 19, 2018, 08:58:53 AM
Topic: How do you deal with "The Grind"?

When I had more free time during the day, I would take long walks at lunch. Now I generally take my walks straight from work and spend lunch with friends.
I always take lunch.
I refuse to stay late or work on the weekends.
I disengage emotionally. I'm here to do a job, and the outcome of any particular project or meeting doesn't affect me.
I don't get involved in office politics.
I take advantage of meetings to make work friends.
I focus on my core job functions and do those. I don't volunteer for extra work.
I don't stress out (anymore) about getting excellent performance reviews. It's not nearly worth the hours and stress required to possibly be in contention for a slightly higher bonus.
When I leave the office, I'm done with it. I don't talk about work, I don't think about work, I don't complain about work. If I do talk or write about it, I can forget all about it immediately after. I was only able to make this change once I left a super-stressful job. It was almost besides the point that the new job also had a higher salary.

+1
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: letsdoit on September 19, 2018, 03:30:37 PM
Advice for a 17 year old from Cyaphas

Here we GO:

Don't have children until you're at least 25.

Don't mix family/friends and money. Don't rent a house to family or friends. Don't start a small business with family/friends.

Find a career where you can comfortably save over $40k per year. Always take into account geographic cost of living, including taxes, relative to income in the areas you're looking.

Don't take on debt unless you can clearly present a net profit to you from said debt.

Try to save at least 1/2 of your paycheck. At your age you should probably just drop it into VTSAX. IRA, 401k preferably. Then FORGET about it. Don't listen to market news.

Do not buy a house until you're sure you're going to be in an area for more than 10 years. This will most likely be after you're 25. NEVER buy a house without putting a lot of thought into it. Even though you may be, try to have someone who is financially practical and competent with you through the whole process. Make sure that person has your best interests in mind.

Don't be afraid to look at craftsmen jobs, electricians, machine operators, trade unions. A lot of them are paid very well and they're not stuck in an office all day. They also don't require near as much money in schooling/qualification.

Make sure you live within short biking distance to work and the grocery store. Automobiles are expensive and the less you use/own/maintain one the quicker you can reach FI.

Think of payments in decade format not monthly. $10 per month doesn't seem like much. $1200 seems like a lot. Is Pandora worth $600 over 10 years? Is Netflix worth $1200 over 10 years? $100/month phone bill is $12,000 dollars over 10 years.

Avoid consumerism at all costs. Before you buy something, consider, do I really NEED this. There's nothing wrong with buying luxuries for yourself, but you need to know they're luxuries. Never buy anything over $40 that you haven't been considering purchasing for at least a couple of days. Did you need it yesterday? Than why must you have it today?

Eating out, try to limit yourself to once a week. Find a happy hour places that serve cheap appetizers. Split them with friends.

Create little challenges for yourself. 1 month of not eating out. $30 weekly meal plan challenge. Walk to work/school every Monday for a month. Things of that nature. Create the challenge and track it. Hold yourself accountable.

Have fun. Don't burn yourself out. Go on trips. See the world. It's not as expensive as a lot of people make it out to be. NEVER travel on debt. Save up and THEN go on the trip.

I think of debt as a form of modern slavery. Other than education and a home purchase, there aren't a lot of other good reasons to take on debt.

Rent to own, avoid it at all costs. I've never come across a financial transaction where rent to own wasn't a complete rip off.

Be thrifty, thrift stores can be a great place to find casual clothing or even business dress for a very low cost.

Try to have a few hobbies and stick to them. Collecting hobbies gets expensive.
 
If a family member asks you for financial assistance give it to them as a gift, not a loan. If it's too much to give as a gift, than you sure don't want to give it to them as a loan. Make sure you're not giving drugs to a drug addict.

Don't get discouraged when everyone else tells you you're crazy. You can do this. This can be your reality. Study your finances. Make a plan. Stick to the plan. You'll be just fine.

Insurance companies usually are a rip off. They play on your fears. Only take on insurance when you absolutely have to. They aren't in the business of losing money.

Don't be afraid to try new things. Engines aren't really that complicated. Home construction is a lot more simple than most people think. Things don't work through magic, odds are if it's broke YOU can fix it. Is it worth your time? That's for you to determine. Don't start with the premise of it being impossible for you to do. Youtube is a beautiful thing.

If something in your life is collecting dust and it isn't sentimental to you. Get rid of it. Staying stuff free is extremely liberating.

If you want to see where you're going in life, take a look at the people you spend time with. This is very important. Some people are emotionally toxic, stay the hell away from them. Learn what a manipulator is and how they work. Don't just avoid them, stay the hell away with prejudice.

Make sure you spend time in some kind of social setting on a regular basis. Ball room dancing, swing dancing, toastmasters club... Aim for a more wealthy class of individuals, they can become invaluable to you with the knowledge they have and sway they hold in the community.

If you ever wind up in a situation with the law that isn't a traffic violation or you're clearly the victim, REMAIN SILENT. If you ever wind up in a police station being questioned, ASK FOR A LAWYER and then REMAIN SILENT. The law isn't known for being kind to the young. I've seen many a persons dreams dashed early against the rocks of our legal system over something stupid and trivial.

Fall in love. Date often. Don't think that the first one is the only one or the right one. Date someone for at least a year before you even consider marrying them. Then, wait at least 8 months before the wedding. Don't ever rush into anything when it comes to relationships. Make sure your significant other is frugal and on board with staying that way.

If I missed something, I'm sure MMM has an article to cover it.

You're already way ahead of the pack. Good luck. Don't take life for granted it goes by fast.

wow
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Trifle on September 20, 2018, 05:04:02 AM
Damn that is a fine post by @Cyaphas.   
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: letsdoit on September 20, 2018, 03:08:27 PM
If you run the fastest in a race, you get a medal.  The medal doesn't change anything about you.  If another person happens to come to the next race, and you run as fast as before, but he runs faster, he gets the medal.  Nothing about your runnning is changed by the medal.  It's not really the important thing.  Running has made you stronger, healthier, and etc.  If you push yourself too far in an effort to get the medal and get hurt, then did you still really win?  The medal is a fancy decoration made up by some other people.  The process and not the outcomes is what life is!

The whole quote is great, then the culmination in that last sentence... <3

this reminds me of the guy who was running the 400(?) at the atlanta olympics and tweaked his hamstring.  and he was hopping on one leg to the finish line and his dad ran out of the stands and ran up to him on the track and they walked arm and arm to the finish, crying
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: letsdoit on September 20, 2018, 03:13:50 PM
i learned from here to use only the interest payment (plus condo fees if there are )  as the cost of your mortgage. 
eliminating the principle payment is illuminating for me when comparing my mortgage to renting elsewhere
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on September 21, 2018, 01:15:50 PM
Letsdoit-

I'm glad you're thinking in these terms! But I would add property taxes/insurance.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ketchup on September 21, 2018, 01:18:15 PM
Letsdoit-

I'm glad you're thinking in these terms! But I would add property taxes/insurance.
And opportunity cost.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: letsdoit on September 26, 2018, 08:41:10 AM
this board motivated me to use NYT rent vs buy calculator to do the post-mortem of my decision to buy house; i.e. the calculus of whether or not we have saved money vs renting
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DeepEllumStache on September 26, 2018, 12:20:56 PM
Link removed since I took this from a journal, but it was a reminder that I would prefer to learn to deal with the uncertainty versus just accepting the safer alternative.

Quote from: Retire-Canada
Quote from: maizeman
I've wondered about exactly this. Would/will I actually be sacrificing some of the stress-free feelings I have now with both a stash and a paycheck once I FIRE? Or will I be able to convince myself at an emotional/gut level that there is still going to be plenty of money even when unexpected expenses pop up?

One of the beautiful things about continuing to work beyond FI and dying alone at your desk, say late on a Friday evening, is that as you are taking your last gasp of breath and your head is falling towards the keyboard with the last image you will ever see in this life being "QWERTY" getting bigger and bigger...you can let go of this mortal coil thinking triumphantly "I never ran out of money! I win!"  ;-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: merula on October 05, 2018, 06:48:57 AM
@Villanelle had a wonderful take on mistakes, forgiveness and moving on:

This is a similar question to the one faced by many addicts in recovery.  They know in their heart they are done drinking (gmabling, shooting up, whatever-ing) and often grow frustrated that those around them, especially those most hurt by the addiction and resulting behaviors, are still cautious, skeptical, or even downright mistrusting.

The thing is, when you do the Bad Thing, you don't get to decide how others feel about it. They forgive and move on in their own time, in their own way.  Or maybe even not at all.

And part of doing Bad Stuff is living with the consequences.  Sometimes those consequences are irreversible, and that's not something the Bad-Doer can control.  So some people may never trust you again. Some people may never hire (or vote to confirm ;)) you.  Some people may never trust you with their car or in their house alone or with their kids or to keep a secret.  And so what?  You still have to move forward the same way.  if we are talking about addition, that means you still move forward in sobriety.  If people don't forgive you past Bad Acts, are you going to just throw up your hands and start drinking again, committing more Bad Acts because the first round can't just be erased?  If so, then you clearly don't deserve real forgiveness anyway because you haven't changed much or grown much or understood much about the implications of what you did.  And if you aren't, then you have to tolerate the fact that maybe some things you destroyed can't be undestroyed and while that's sad, once you've atoned and apologized and fixed yourself, you just have to live in this new world in which walks people who don't forgive you. 

And if we aren't talking about an addict, the same thing pretty much applies.  Many audiences no longer will pay to see your movies, and maybe that never changes.  Does that mean you go back to assaulting women or going on racist rants?  Because if you can't have your life back exactly as it was and exactly as you wanted it, then screw it--you might as well continue to be an assaulter or a rapist?  if so, then you don't deserve forgiveness or a restoration of anything. And if not, then you find a way to move forward in your new reality where you are no longer a working actor, comic, SCOTUS justice, politician, Youtube star, Instagram influencer.  You find a way to live--decently and respectfully and not-begrudingly--in the new world into which your own actions cast you. 

So, when is an apology enough?  It depends, but more importantly, it doesn't matter.   Do better, be better, and people will forgive and move on, or not.  But either way, you still need to do better and be better.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ministashy on October 05, 2018, 10:17:30 AM
I was going to post this up too--it's a great reply!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: letsdoit on October 05, 2018, 10:37:27 AM
Kyle Schuant on privilege. He nailed it.

Glass half empty or half full, we all can agree that not everyone's glasses are the same size.
Correct. Many of us here are privileged and don't realise it. This is usually responded to with indignant howls of "but I work so hard!" But "privilege" or lack of it doesn't mean you don't work hard or do, it simply affects how much you'll get out of your hard work.


Anyone involved with sports knows that there exist "natural athletes" - the person with a big vertical jump and who can simply watch a movement and reproduce it well. This is why in my gym we'll get women who after 3 months of training squat 60kg, and others who squat 100kg. All of them show up every time and lift, but some simply get more out of their 39 sessions in 13 weeks than do others. They have talent.


Likewise people with a degree of privilege. The other day in the paper there was a young guy, son of a very wealthy family, talking about the apps he'd made and sold, and he proudly said "my parents never gave me a cent." He'd gone to Geelong Grammar, a school which costs about $37k a year - so his parents had spent the equivalent of a full-time minimum wage before tax on his education every year. What a cleaner or waitress working full-time (few do) earns in 13 years had gone on his education (there was no mention of if he'd gone to university). Not on;y this excellent education, but of course places like that have a lot of other privileged kids who can introduce you to people to invest in your work; this is why so many of the leading CEOs, high court judges and so on come from just a few schools.


"My parents never gave me a cent." They didn't have to. The kid worked hard - but because he had that start with an excellent education and knowing the right people to help him make things happen, he got a lot more out of his work than would a son of a single-mum part-time casual cleaner, the son who'd gone to a state school in Woop Woop.


Yes, if you're earning $40k you can save half of it. But then you're missing out on a lot of things, and not the things you miss out on when you're getting $100k and save half of it, more vital things. And you're relying on nothing going wrong for 20 years or so - no hospital visits, no sudden evictions, no deadbeat brothers-in-law who need a loan but will never pay it back, no periods of unemployment, and so on.


A lower income does allow saving, but a lower income is more fragile. And lower-income jobs tend to be less secure. People with lower incomes have more frequent and longer periods of unemployment than do those with higher incomes. This was a point missed by Geelong Grammar App Boy - sure, his parents didn't invest in his apps. But if it all failed miserably he wouldn't end up on the street. He had the freedom to take the risk of a big fuckup, a freedom that his Woop Woop State School son of a part-time casual cleaner peer wouldn't have.


I am acutely aware of these issues because I grew up poor, but am now doing well. I was able to do a career change and start a small business because of my wife doing a full-time professional job; she gave me the security, the fallback in case the risk turned out bad. I could have done it without her, but it would have been much harder, and the risks of failure would have been much greater. As someone who has literally slept on the street at one point, I am acutely aware of what "risk of failure" means for some people. The change and the business worked and now we're doing well.


This is why MMM speaks of giving to charity. Those of us who have more have a responsibility to give so that others may have opportunities like ours. Part of this is accomplished by taxation, which pays for public schools and so on, but whatever your politics, most can agree this is less efficient and effective than it might be, and so we should give to charities.


Originally the definition of "middle class" was "well-off to hire servants." In the Third World it's considered a social obligation (as well as a sign of status), so this is why you'll get a single professional in Beijing, Manila or Nairobi with a tiny apartment - but they have a maid. You have a lot, now you should pass it on. In the West few people have full-time servants, but some of us have businesses and we can hire people for them, and all of us have all sorts of jobs we can hire people for occasionally. In Judaism as in many faiths, charity is a duty, and the best charity is giving someone a job.


Quote from: SwordGuy
it's just plain evil to teach people they can't possibly succeed when it's been proven that people can.
Saying that some people will find success more difficult and requiring more luck than others is not saying that success is impossible for some people.


Americans are terrible at nuance and degree.
"I'm against the death penalty."
"What?! So we should just let them all go?!"
"I'm in favour of the death penalty."
"What?! So we should execute people for jaywalking?!"


Nuance. Subtlety. Degrees of this and that. Set aside this lazy black & white thinking and contend with what people have actually said: nothing is impossible, but some things are harder than others. "Well, just work harder." Yes, that works. But some people still need to be lucky.

it is an example of black and white thinking that you are saying Americans exhibit lazy black/white thinking.

granted, it may be true that many of us (because of intentionally bad education system, maybe) would fail to find the nuances in some things. 
 we were never taught that the majority of of casualties in WWII were on the Eastern Front, bc it was easier to teach, 'yeah we saved the world from Hitler, so good job to us.'

but many cultures have their blind spots (Japan comes to mind)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: tralfamadorian on October 05, 2018, 11:04:36 AM
An older but amazingly well researched and thought out post by @gerardc that I read for the first time today about how to make informed decisions regarding the success and failure rate of the 4% rule in different points in the market cycle and how your savings rate changes how likely it would be for the market cycle to impact your SWR decisions.

Below is a clearer graph of success rate in function of savings rate instead of contribution rate. At typical 4% SWR and 50% savings rate, cFIREsim predicts 94.6% success, which goes down to 91.6% when considering the effect of market fluctuations on FIRE start year.

(http://i.imgur.com/pH9DyOS.png)

My hunch is this: the shorter your investing timeline, the more likely you are to be prone to sequence of returns risk, and vice-versa. But even then, you aren't necessarily more likely to be at the top of the market, as there's no way to predict that. I agree that you're less likely to retire in a bear market, but that doesn't mean the opposite is true.

Below is a plot of the FIRE year distribution for accumulation phases starting at random years for different savings rates. At 90% savings rate, FIRE density is roughly uniform; at 10% savings rate, FIRE density is almost all concentrated around market peaks right before crashes; in between (50%), FIRE density is surprisingly also at the mercy of market fluctuations, which explains the correction above.

(http://i.imgur.com/T8PfBuv.png)


Thanks, I'd be fascinated to take a look at it.

Here you go. I wrote this quickly so there might be bugs.

Code: [Select]
import json
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

START_YEAR = 1871
END_YEAR = 2015
PERIOD = 50
STOCK_FRACTION = 0.9
BONDS_FRACTION = 0.1

# From https://github.com/boknows/cFIREsim-open/blob/master/js/marketData.js
market_data = json.load(file('market.json'))
market_data = {int(year): properties for year, properties in market_data.iteritems()}

def Simulate(start_value, start_year, end_year, accumulation, target):
  value = start_value
  die = None
  reached = None
  for year in xrange(start_year, end_year):
    properties = market_data[year]
    next_properties = market_data[year + 1]

    value += accumulation
    if value > 0:
      stock_gains = (1. + properties['dividends']) * (1. + properties['growth'])
      bonds_gains = 1. + properties['fixed_income']
      value *= STOCK_FRACTION * stock_gains + BONDS_FRACTION * bonds_gains
    value *= float(properties['cpi']) / next_properties['cpi']

    if value <= 0 and die is None:
      die = year
    if target is not None and value >= target and reached is None:
      reached = year + 1
    #print year, value
  return {'end_value': value, 'die': die, 'reached': reached}

def SuccessRate(period, accumulation, withdrawal):
  successes = []
  durations = []
  fire_years = []
  for start_year in xrange(START_YEAR, END_YEAR - period):
    accumulation_results = Simulate(0.0, start_year, END_YEAR, accumulation, 1.0)
    if accumulation_results['reached'] is None:
      continue
    reached_year = accumulation_results['reached']
    fire_years.append(reached_year)
    if reached_year + period > END_YEAR:
      continue

    drawdown_results = Simulate(1.0, reached_year, reached_year + period, -withdrawal, target=None)
    die_year = drawdown_results['die']
    success = die_year is None
    duration = period if die_year is None else die_year - reached_year
    successes.append(success)
    durations.append(duration)
  return {'success_rate': np.mean(successes), 'mean_duration': np.mean(durations), 'fire_years': fire_years}

def Accumulation(savings_rate, withdrawal):
  # Assuming expenses (as fraction of target) = withdrawal rate
  # savings_rate = accumulation / (accumulation + withdrawal)
  return withdrawal / (1. / savings_rate - 1.)

def PlotSuccessRate():
  savings_rates = np.arange(0.1, 1., .05)
  withdrawals = [0.03, 0.04, 0.05, 0.06, 0.07]

  legend = []
  for withdrawal in withdrawals:
    success_rates = [100. * SuccessRate(PERIOD,
                                        Accumulation(savings_rate, withdrawal),
                                        withdrawal)['success_rate']
                     for savings_rate in savings_rates]
    plt.plot(100. * savings_rates, success_rates)
    legend.append('%i%% WR' % (100. * withdrawal))
    print '%i%% WR:' % (100. * withdrawal),
    print ' '.join('(%i,%.1f)' % t for t in zip(100. * savings_rates, success_rates))

  plt.xlabel('accumulation phase savings rate (%)')
  plt.ylabel('success rate (%)')
  plt.legend(legend)
  plt.title('Historical success rates over %i years after accumulation phase\n(%i%% stock / %i%% bonds portfolio)' %
            (PERIOD, STOCK_FRACTION * 100, BONDS_FRACTION * 100))
  plt.grid(True)
  plt.show()

def PlotFireYearDensity():
  savings_rates = [0.1, 0.5, 0.9]
  withdrawal = 0.04

  years = np.arange(START_YEAR, END_YEAR, 0.1)
  smoothing_years = 2.
  def kernel(fire_year):
    return np.exp(-0.5 * ((years - fire_year) / smoothing_years) ** 2)

  legend = []
  for savings_rate in savings_rates:
    fire_years = SuccessRate(0, Accumulation(savings_rate, withdrawal), withdrawal)['fire_years']
    distribution = np.sum([kernel(fire_year) for fire_year in fire_years], axis=0)
    plt.plot(years, distribution, linewidth=1.0)
    legend.append('%i%% SR' % (100. * savings_rate))

  plt.xlabel('year')
  plt.ylabel('FIRE density')
  plt.legend(legend)
  plt.title('FIRE year distribution under targeted accumulation phase\n(%i%% stock / %i%% bonds portfolio)' %
       (STOCK_FRACTION * 100, BONDS_FRACTION * 100))
  plt.grid(True)
  plt.show()
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: PizzaSteve on October 06, 2018, 10:56:21 AM
What are you hoping to gain from this thread? Nobody here uses or would consider this method.
Responses like the one from @Systems101 are excellent. He had a very good, well-formed criticism. I hope for more of that.

Yet your response is to:
  • Put words in my mouth (I neither called you stupid, nor did I accuse you of thinking the world is flat)
  • Set up a 100% strawman to then tear it down?

Unfortunately, I need to do one more post to support this concern:

My motivation for posting here is to offer new impressionable investors, who might be silently reading along, a counter argument to a market-timing methodology that could be hazardous to their portfolio's health and performance.

My example about the world being flat is that all the logic in the world can't help you if the starting assumptions are wrong.  I believe good research involves challenging your own assumptions, which means looking for contrary information.  Most of what the OP is doing is looking for information that validates that the methodology reduces volatility.  This is a very narrow perspective.  The graph the OP posted (which I also produced but didn't post - if you convert the return values to absolute values and then fit a line you will get the R-squared I talked about), as well as various articles will show the implied volatility of the VIX, to a limited degree, predicts realized volatility.  The OP is therefore declaring success. 

Unfortunately, I will maintain my point that the OP has not done enough research... It is this leap of "Since the VIX predicts volatility, my investment process works!" that I think is deeply flawed.

“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.” – W. Edwards Deming

Simply put, the OP is asking the wrong questions.

Let's start here:

But this is exactly what I'm hoping to achieve. Less start-date sensitively, less liquidation/draw timing sensitivity, less worry.

There are a ton of questions here that are important to ask.
  • What is the best methodology of lowering volatility and maintaining as much return as possible?

The problem is you are running a test that says "Is my methodology better than 100% pure investment?"  You have set it up as a False Dilemma.  If we assume MPT is valid, the proper question is: "For the lowering of volatility, did I take an appropriate lowering of return to stay on the efficient frontier?"  If we do an alternative test, we can formulate the question to show what I believe @ILikeDividends was getting at: "Does having a variable rate of investment in the market to reduce volatility outperform having a fixed rate of investment (at some value that provides the desired volatility)?".  Since you have provided NO data on other methodologies to reduce volatility, you didn't answer this critical question.

  • Why are you sensitive to draw timing? or perhaps... Why are you concerned about a future risk in the present?  or perhaps... Why are you assuming you have one investment methodology before, approaching, and after retirement?

Let's be clear: You are raising a real risk (volatility risk) - this is good.  But volatility is a meaningful risk only when you are forced to liquidate.  This becomes important below.

Secondly, you are attempting to use a measure of that risk factor (VIX, which measures implied volatility) to alter your investments.  I will address this below, but need to make one other point first.

You never asked "Am I sensitive to volatility risk?".  It's like the Hurricane in Idaho example earlier: Can you imagine State Farm representative's response if you asked to get a hurricane addendum on insurance in Idaho?  The risk is real while you are in the draw-down phase.  It is also real right now, but you basically aren't exposed to it.  It's why in corporate risk management, there are two columns: Impact and Probability. In both cases, the probability of a volatility event could be high, but in the accumulation phase, the impact (the probability of it being a problem) is almost precisely zero.  Because we shouldn't assume we have to have one methodology, this then compounds onto the first question.  You are paying for insurance (lower return) on a risk factor (volatility) that you may experience - but basically won't impact you - while you are in the accumulation phase.  Why are you setting an investment methodology now when the probability of it being a problem is high mainly in the first 10 years after retirement?  There is no reason to take on that opportunity cost of lower returns now.*

*This assumes your investment horizon is, in fact, retirement.  Different rules may apply if you are saving for a house down payment, for example.

  • Is this the best method for dealing with draw-down risk?

Also, there are already documented methods for dealing with the initial sensitivity to a market crash right after retirement: Rising Equity Glide Path.  You don't need to prove the variable model better than the S&P500, you need to prove it better than the known alternatives.  Again, you have brought NO data to the table.

Risk-parity funds do use VIX as a measure of variance.

Yikes. 

Even if I take this as correct (I lack knowledge of how exactly they measure risk, so make no opinion on it), it is extremely scary to jump from "Risk parity funds use VIX" to "I should take my *entire portfolio* and treat it like a risk parity fund".  Even if you someone believes in using Risk Parity, I suspect they believe it should be *one part* of an overall portfolio, not *the entire* portfolio.

Here's the implied question in your behavior:

  • Why should your entire portfolio be treated as a Risk Parity fund, rather than risk parity being one factor in a multi-factor portfolio?

Again, no data.

OK. So one of the bigger issues that has been brought up is that VIX is not actually predictive of future variance in the S&P 500. So I charted it out.

This is another one of those things that should raise red flags for those following along at home.  Folks have pointed out that the VIX doesn't predict market *performance*, but did anyone actually make that claim that it wasn't predictive of future variance?  I even stated the R-squared was around 0.2, so I actually supported the same claim you are making.  The problem is: So what?  What is the logic chain that makes that information valuable? (and remember, it has to be *relatively valuable* to other strategies, not just *absolutely valuable* vs the S&P 500). I just happen to think the claim (about implied volatility predicting future volatility) is useless in the face of known alternatives and the questions listed above.

That's why I picked the 50% loss limit. The system optimizes for that level of risk tolerance.

Ah, the wonders of marketing.  There is little to no basis for their 50% claim, especially if it is backtested only into the 1990s.  Keep in mind the losses in '29-'32 were WAY bigger than 2008.  What they have done is provided you a slider to choose a loss limit.  There are some statistics around this to give it an air of legitimacy, but in reality, it's part of an oft-used marketing scheme called (among other things) "Fake Precision".  This gives you a precise value to give you an air of comfort that they know what they are doing.  This is designed to lower your stress level and validate that the service you are buying is performing a useful function for you... while actually providing no guarantee of accuracy in return.  I can query 10 people and average their answers as to the height of the Statue of Liberty to the nearest millimeter, but Wikipedia is likely to give me a much more accurate answer (albeit with less precision).  You should want an accurate answer, not a precise one.

Said another way: You are giving up returns in exchange for a false sense of security.  If this helps you sleep at night, then perhaps that false sense does have real economic value for you.  Some people are willing to pay prices for things like that (you can find threads here about robo-advisors and the comfort of those services).  I actually don't have any problem with people doing that as long as they understand they are not reducing their risk, they are merely paying for their emotional comfort with lower returns.  If you both go in with eyes open, and make sure to educate others you are encouraging to follow you with the truth, then it's all good.

Since folks here are maximizing return and accepting the volatility, I don't know why anyone here would be interested in using the VIX as you describe.
If everyone here literally has 100% of their liquid assets in stock indexes all the time, then sure, you're right.

As noted earlier, this is setting up and tearing down a strawman.  To be more clear: Each individual should pick a portfolio that is appropriate for their risk tolerance.  Within that, we accept the volatility as appropriate for the risk we have chosen.  Again, I am not using volatility as risk here, as that simplification for economics papers has some nasty logic holes.

Also, let's be clear on one more concern: Why are they selling the methodology $8 at a time?  If it's really "that good", then they should keep it a secret.  Once a secret is out, the market prices in that information, and the edge goes away.

Overall, you are spending a lot of effort to prove you are correct, but you have not yet taken on the effort to really tear down your own assumptions or identify where you are making leaps of logic that don't hold water. It really feels like you are "shifting the burden" (Getting lots of practice with my logical fallacies today!) to have us prove your methodology wrong.  As I've pointed out, there is a LOT of evidence that passive investing is the way to go... so the obligation is on *you* to prove that the VIX is not, as you put it, "useless garbage".  The data shows implied volatility predicts real volatility... assume we accept that... but you haven't connected that point to any action that is more useful than other already known options.

Not sure there is much more for me to add here.  Hopefully that post is sufficient warning to others to at least do a lot more of their own research before buying into an active methodology.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Sailor Sam on October 06, 2018, 05:42:59 PM
@letsdoit, @DreamFIRE, please don't derail this excellent thread with side debates. I think the whole community enjoys it, and wants to see it remain on point.

If you feel the topic really needs to be hashed out, start a new thread with the post you want to parse quoted in the OP.  And thank you for your community consideration.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: marty998 on October 06, 2018, 06:51:59 PM
@Malkynn on the world being worried that young FIREies have got their sums wrong:


I know!
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills every time this “concern” comes up.

Like, WTF people???

The FI community is filled with people trying to be financially responsible and informed. We are a teeny, tiny, minuscule percentage of the population that’s ACTUALLY GOOD WITH MONEY.......and people are worried about us??? Are you fucking kidding me???

People here throw around retiring on 1M as if it’s nothing and then debate at length if it’s enough to protect against SORR, inflation, and healthcare. Do you have ANY IDEA how many 65 year olds would KILL to have 1M???

It’s not like all of these people working until 65-70 are better off, they just wasted more money along the way and never gave themselves any choice but to keep working.

Mustachians aren’t eating cat food and hoping for markets that never crash. We’re saving absolute boat loads of cash, understanding investing better than most Financial Advisors, and not wasting money on pointless shit.

We’re better off than over 99% of the population and people are concerned that we have a math problem???
Jesus fucking Christ that’s fucking hilarious.

It’s like when I lost a bunch of weight and went from Obese to low-healthy BMI and suddenly everyone and their cousin was “worried” about me and my “health” despite me being healthier than I’ve ever been in my life.

I remember when I was first introduced to MMM, I immediately thought “well, I don’t want to retire super young, I love my work”, but the rest of it, the frugality, the focus on health, the control you gain over your life when you lower your consumption, etc. It all immediately struck me as brilliant. Instead of retiring super early, I’ve cut down to super part time, which is just as amazing for me.

It’s only people who are immediately repelled by choosing to spend less that recoil against the idea and throw the baby out with the bathwater when they don’t love the idea of super early retirement. I once said frugality was the financial equivalent of being a vegan, it irrationally pisses everyone else off who doesn’t choose that lifestyle and makes them feel compelled to mock you and judge your life choice as crazy and/or offensive.

People so truly hate the concept of consistent hard work that they need to vilify any example of it as somehow misguided or unrealistic.
It’s truly laughably absurd to look at the FIRE community as anything other than common fucking sense.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Life in Balance on October 08, 2018, 07:07:52 PM
+1 to Malkynn's post above.  I keep seeing those headlines and it's maddening.

And thanks to all for this thread. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on October 09, 2018, 08:26:00 AM
+1 to Malkynn's post above.  I keep seeing those headlines and it's maddening.

And thanks to all for this thread.

lol, yeah, clearly they drive me bonkers, but I try to find humour in the total absurdity.


It's almost as if you were speaking directly to Suze Orman, using some of her style, to argue against her attitude.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: wenchsenior on October 13, 2018, 09:27:37 AM
From the IPCC report thread: Kyle Schuant dropping the microphone


Quote from: Cache_Stash on October 09, 2018, 07:07:31 AM

    Population is the problem, not mankind's contribution to carbon dioxide in the air.


I have a friend who makes this argument. He is childless and his hobby is flying aircraft. It is perhaps possible that this is a self-serving argument.

It doesn't matter if what we do has an impact or not. "It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support." - your countryman Henry David Thoreau.

Now, what sort of lifestyle might we choose if we wished to wash our hands of personal contribution to climate change, and not to give it practically our support? I would suggest that many of the things we could do are things which would also help our finances and our personal health: stop flying, home and work closer to each-other and walk and cycle rather than drive, eat less junk food and meat, use less natural gas and electricity, and so on. If you care only about finances, these are all good things to do; if you care only about health, these are all good things to do; and if you care only about the environment, these are all good things to do.

Further, once you consider the environment of other countries, and how places like China have worse environmental practices than most of the West, and then consider also the collapse of manufacturing in the West, "buy local" is both an environmentalist and a patriotic maxim.

I'm old-fashioned. I believe: duty first. Whether or not I pay my taxes, do jury duty or military or civilian service of some kind, whether I speak well of my wife behind her back or not, whether or not I call people by racial epithets when out of their hearing, the practical impact of these things is almost zero. Nonetheless an adult in a civilised society has duties. A duty is something which whether you like it or not and whether it makes a difference or not you simply must do. A society is nothing but an accumulation of kept promises and duties met.

Now, some may reply that we as humans have no duties to one another. And I would answer that this is indeed a popular point of view, and explains much of the world's problems now, but I wash my hands of such an idea, and do not give it practically my support.
« Last Edit: Today at 12:25:46 AM by Kyle Schuant »
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BNgarden on October 22, 2018, 10:41:00 AM
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/i-quit/msg2177865/#msg2177865 (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/i-quit/msg2177865/#msg2177865)

Strangely, I don't feel like I chose it :(   I think that's part of the angst, sadness, grief. (And I'm okay with angst, sadness, grief.)

It was one of those "rock and a hard place" matters, "damned if I do and damned if I don't" things. The ladyfriend who quit her late-in-life relationship is a lot like me in general and also has a very hard time quitting something she's started. She really knew that point of "just not knowing", of imagining that "if I just work harder...". And she's a really cool person so it helped me to know she quit such a high-stakes thing (much like the grad school examples, etc).

But today I did also notice how easy it is for me to prioritize everything else I do. I have no trouble choosing amongst everything else in my life moment by moment, day by day (rest/social; paperwork/respite; exercise/rest) and no trouble stopping most things that should be stopped. Noticing that was somehow helpful. If the only question is "should this be continued or stopped", stopping is no trouble. So my only challenge with quitting was actually just other people (teacher, grantors, admin people), and "other people" should not compel me to break myself.

I love that you have excelled at quitting things that should be quit, jane x! Thank you for those examples. So helpful.

Ahh, but you absolutely *did* choose it.
You chose not to continue doing something beyond your capacity that was hurting you and damaging the rest of your life. What's frustrating you is that you somehow feel that you *should* have had capacity for it, but it turns out that you didn't.

We all have limitations, and those limitations are all different. For everything you can't do easily, you have capacity for doing things that others struggle with.

For example, you and I both have certain limited capacities, which are quite different.
I am rather physically limited. I have a condition that leaves me very prone to serious and permanent injuries, so I have a lot of pain from injuries that normally happen to athletes, but happen to me during day to day function. Throw in affects on almost every organ in my body, and it's a constant battle to function day to day and not be overly exhausted from fatigue, joint pain, and digestive problems. I can only handle my day job 2 days a week as a result. I could easily feel like most of my career was taken away from me by my disability.

However, that's really not the case, that's just a parameter of ability within which I need to construct my best life.
Sure, others don't have my physical limitations, but the vast majority of people don't have the aptitude and capability to do my job in the first place as it's one of the most insanely competitive careers to get into and brilliant people are rejected every year. Am I disabled compared to my professional colleagues, or am I gifted compared to those who can't even get a chance to do this job?

So I will never be a full time clinical practitioner, so what?
I will also never be a professional basketball player, or a chef, or a Zumba instructor, or an underwater welder, or a crab fisherman, or a potato farmer,  or a runway model, or a competitive eater.
So???

If you look realistically at what you *can't* do in life, the list is extensive and kind of pointless to care about. Sure, every once in awhile
there will be an unfortunate intersection between what you want to do and what you can't do. Countless wannabe actors and singers hit that wall of reality every day.

So I have some physical limitations and you have some neurological limitations, and others have intellectual limitations, or emotional limitations, or situational limitations. Everyone has a set of parameters within which they need to function otherwise things start falling apart. I don't have the same limitations as my SIL who has a severely disabled daughter who needs 24 hr care. I don't have the same limitations as my ex who has a brilliant mind but a debilitating anxiety disorder. I don't have the same limitations as my childhood friend who got pregnant at 15. I don't have the same limitations as my other childhood friend who is shockingly really really not smart (like, falls for every email scam out there, unbelievably not smart), I don't have the same limitations as anyone born somewhere without the same access to medical care that I have, etc, etc.

Then there are the priorities within the realities and parameters. The decisions that we all make as to how to allocate our various skills and resources available to us.

I know of an executive business man who is able bodied and brilliant. He has absolutely no limitations on his workplace function.
He throws himself into his business 110%, full tilt at all times, and what he has accomplished is truly exceptional. Cool.
He's also drinking like a fish, eating out for business meals every day of the week, morbidly obese, has no family, and sees his body as nothing but a resource to use (and use up) for the business. He works 100hrs/week.

I know another executive who doesn't give as much to the job, doesn't have nearly the level of success, but values self care and has a family that they prioritize as much as the business. She quit a job that required her to work 100hrs/week. Same capabilities, different parameters and priorities.

So, no. You didn't have a choice as to what your capabilities, realities and parameters in life are; however, the decision to not put every ounce of resource towards a program that would have compromised other top priorities is still a choice.
I could actually choose to try and do my job full time again and you could choose to try and follow through on your program, there's just a reality that that would cause so much damage to our lives that making that decision would be an unwise trade off and not worth the cost and consequences.

Likewise, I could choose to do a PhD, or DH could choose to get into competitive MMA. Those are both life choices that would be astronomical in the trade offs and use of resources, they would require immense sacrifice of other life priorities. Thankfully, neither of us have any bloody interest in a PhD or MMA, lol.

Whether we realize it or not, we are always building our lives within the boundaries of our particular realities. It's just that sometimes we overestimate our capacities or fail to predict the costs of some choices and then we have to regroup, re-define our parameters, re-evaluate our priorities, and pivot towards a better balance.

This happens too when life circumstances change. People adapt to illness and injury, to having children, to illness and injury in their children, to divorce, to emotional trauma, to aging parents, to economic downturns, to entire industries being wiped out, to political and social changes, to ecological changes, etc, etc, etc. What you thought you could do is always being influenced and changed. It's just a matter of adapting and pivoting along with the new parameters.

In the end, it's not that you can't do something. It's that something you tried isn't worth pursuing given the parameters within which you function based on your needs, capacities, capabilities, and priorities.
And that is true of absolutely EVERYTHING in your life.

Go ahead and grieve the loss of the potential that you thought there was, but remember, it's not a tragedy that you can't fit this within your life any more than it is a tragedy that you can't fit being a runway model due to lack of height or nobel winning physicist due to lack of brilliance in physics or the Guinness record holder for longest fingernails due to other things in life requiring you to be able to use your hands on a daily basis. Don't get bogged down in what you can't do, because I guarantee many many people out there are insanely jealous of what you can do. For example, I envy that you can likely sit in a normal dining room chair without searing spine pain (don't feel bad for me, it's a good thing because it keeps me from eating out at restaurants often, yay frugality!)

You are not a failure for choosing not to pursue a path that isn't worth the sacrifice.
You haven't had anything taken away from you either.
You have learned the boundaries of your capacity, it just sucks to find out that that boundary was closer than you initially thought.

Be sad, regroup, move forward, and be grateful that you had the wisdom not to see excessive sacrifice as a good thing like most people do.

I really appreciated this post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RyanAtTanagra on October 22, 2018, 12:00:57 PM
Holy shit what a great post
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MoseyingAlong on October 24, 2018, 02:59:13 AM
From "The top is in" thread.

Today's Marketwatch headline is "Stocks threaten to book first two-day decline in a week".  IN A WEEK

Yes, truly the end is nigh, today could be the first time we've had two bad days, for seven days.  Remember the halcyon days of yore, a half-fortnight ago?  Ahhh, our lives have been truly blessed since then, as we basked in the glorious tranquility of five whole days without two bad ones in a row.

Read it this morning and still chuckling about it. Plus a great reminder how overblown media reports can be.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: pbkmaine on October 24, 2018, 06:33:51 AM
Holy shit what a great post

Yes!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on October 24, 2018, 01:39:27 PM
Holy shit what a great post

Yes!

Wow really puts things in perspective
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: saguaro on October 24, 2018, 04:14:17 PM
Holy shit what a great post

Yes!

Wow really puts things in perspective

It sure does.  I want to print and frame that post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FIRE 20/20 on October 24, 2018, 06:31:00 PM
This is a response from @Frankies Girl in the, "Is it possible the market has peaked?" thread in the Investor Alley forum.  I love it - especially the part at the end about having an IPS and trusting your asset allocation:

I actually don't know or care what a Shiller or PE or whatawhozit is.

You know there is a study that showed the portfolios that performed best during the crashes were the ones where the people basically didn't even remember to check them? Literally didn't do a damned thing, and they outperformed the market timers/panic buy/sellers. Because just leaving things alone and letting it drop and then recover (as long as you're not invested in one volitile company/industry) was the best way to weather the crashes. So if you're invested in a broad market assortment - like an index fund AA - LEAVING IT ALONE (and just keep buying like normal, all the way down) - is the smartest thing to do.

I don't care if the market has peaked, the bears are coming, dogs and cats living together mass hysteria...

It is noise. All those news channels and financial gurus need to talk about the next big crash, the hot new investment, who is going bankrupt, who is going public... they gotta predict, fear-monger, and get SUPER EXCITED because otherwise they'd be out of a job and their books and sites might not be so popular.

Markets go up, then they might go down for a while. Might be a sudden drop, might take a while. Might go flat even. That is what they are supposed to do. It is expected, it is normal and shorting this or market timing that isn't going to matter a hill of beans and mostly is just a waste of precious brain space trying to figure out if I need to sell this or buy that RIGHT NOW.

I have my IPS, I trust my AA, and I am over here sittin' next to honey badger... I don't even care. And I'm down like 80K and counting so far. No worries.

Top is in.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lexde on October 26, 2018, 12:19:37 PM
@FIREby35 did a very good thing today.

So, I'm an independent lawyer. Over the years, I've done many things. But, as my stache' has grown so has my freedom to choose my cases. I've begun to choose cases that trigger my "spider sense" for deep injustice.

I don't want to share too many details, so you'll have to take the ones I give and trust the overall idea. The prosecution was of a man who had no criminal history, supported a family, had purchased a home while working in construction and only came to the attention of law enforcement when federal authorities contacted his family as victims of crime. A minor in the family was a victim of online sexual abuse and "enticement."

But, while they were conducting this investigation, ICE agents thought the client being "illegal" and working in construction was sufficient basis to prosecute federally for crimes that won't cause a long prison sentence but will permanently disqualify an immigrant from ever legally immigrating or regularizing their status. He could then be branded a "felon" and "illegal criminal." Those labels are then used to justify many things. In this case, the result would be the destruction of a traditional nuclear family of five. The minor sex crime victim already thought everything happening was "his fault."

On top of all that, defending an "illegal" immigrant in a deeply conservative area of our country is no small task. But it has been my task for years. This happened in a midwestern state who would surely produce a high percentage of Trump voters and white people for the jury. I mean, we are a mostly white community and I am a white man. It was a federal prosecution and our United States Attorney is a Republican and was recently appointed by the Trump administration. These are just facts.

In my dealings with the federal government, I set the conditions for the resolution of the case. At least for me, that is a role reversal. Usually it is the feds that set the conditions. But, as it was, I set the conditions and then, when they refused, I proceeded to plan for a trial. A trial for an illegal immigrant in front of a theoretically hostile jury. In case you didn't know, over 97% of federal prosecutions result in plea agreements. It is not common to refuse even terrible offers.

For one, I knew from the beginning I would have to fight to the end on this case. I knew it would take time and effort. I knew the client didn't have the resources for the defense he would need. But, because of my growing stache' and financial security and the strength of my belief that this was a real-life tragedy, I figured I would just go tilt at windmills, Quixote style.

I did all kinds of things that were totally the product of Mustachianism. For one, I took the time to challenge everything at every turn with pre-trial litigation. I got the federal government to pay for a private investigator to get more facts, witnesses and clarity about my client, the government witnesses and the reality of the situation. I went on walks to daydream and theorize about my voir dire, opening statement, witness cross-examinations and, most importantly, the attitude I would have to cultivate in order to win in front of a jury of my peers (not a jury of the accused's peers, you might notice).

I just had the time and financial security to give all of this to my client.

Anyway, yesterday, on the eve of trial and after one year of effort, the federal government gave me what I asked for nearly a year ago - a resolution that will preserve the family. A resolution that will allow a minor child, sex crime victim to have a positive role model and avoid carrying the burden of destroying his own family.

When I called the client to tell him, he broke down crying. I don't think he is the type of man who cries often.

I feel a debt of gratitude to MMM and this community. I know that I couldn't have done it years ago when I was chasing every dollar and spending it on something other than personal freedom. I don't think that level of effort is something you can give if you are saddled with the burden of debt payments and luxurious office overhead costs or a legal job that doesn't let you follow your heart. I've been Mustachian since April 2013 when MMM was featured in the Washington Post. I've applied the ideas to my personal and professional life. It has been awesome and, for now, the new peak is challenging and beating the feds. Or, better stated, discovering the attitude and effort it takes to have a chance at beating them. I'm permanently more capable after all of this.

I hope there are more battles, victories and defeats. I hope the security and confidence I feel, because of my stache' and the badass attitude it has cultivated, will blossom and lead to more opportunities to fight for what I believe is justice.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: diapasoun on October 26, 2018, 12:25:05 PM
Bless you, Fireby35, and what you're describing right now is absolutely one of the things that draws me to Mustachianism.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: letsdoit on October 26, 2018, 01:48:53 PM
baudacious bad assity
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RyanAtTanagra on October 26, 2018, 02:41:25 PM
Great story!  I almost went into law, but didn't because I'm pretty sure I'd hate it as a career, but it's one of my possible post-FIRE dreams to become a pro-bono civil rights defender.  Your story is exactly what I've had it mind.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MaybeBabyMustache on October 26, 2018, 05:26:46 PM
@FIREby35 - cried reading this. Thank you. Truly, you inspired me & made my day.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: OtherJen on October 27, 2018, 04:56:15 AM
@FIREby35 , that is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for helping that family and for actually making America great.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dandypandys on October 28, 2018, 06:17:48 AM
wow! that gave me spiders in the reallllly good way!!!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Blindsquirrel on October 29, 2018, 08:50:10 PM
@FIREby35 Mass respect for that. Federal prosecutors win 97% of the time. They print the money, pay the judge and pay the law enforcement.  Respect!!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: JanetJackson on October 30, 2018, 12:35:32 PM
@FIREby35 - cried reading this. Thank you. Truly, you inspired me & made my day.
@FIREby35 I CRIED TOO!  Thank you for doing this.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: JGS1980 on October 30, 2018, 12:52:51 PM
This is a response from @Frankies Girl in the, "Is it possible the market has peaked?" thread in the Investor Alley forum.  I love it - especially the part at the end about having an IPS and trusting your asset allocation:

I actually don't know or care what a Shiller or PE or whatawhozit is.

You know there is a study that showed the portfolios that performed best during the crashes were the ones where the people basically didn't even remember to check them? Literally didn't do a damned thing, and they outperformed the market timers/panic buy/sellers. Because just leaving things alone and letting it drop and then recover (as long as you're not invested in one volitile company/industry) was the best way to weather the crashes. So if you're invested in a broad market assortment - like an index fund AA - LEAVING IT ALONE (and just keep buying like normal, all the way down) - is the smartest thing to do.

I don't care if the market has peaked, the bears are coming, dogs and cats living together mass hysteria...

It is noise. All those news channels and financial gurus need to talk about the next big crash, the hot new investment, who is going bankrupt, who is going public... they gotta predict, fear-monger, and get SUPER EXCITED because otherwise they'd be out of a job and their books and sites might not be so popular.

Markets go up, then they might go down for a while. Might be a sudden drop, might take a while. Might go flat even. That is what they are supposed to do. It is expected, it is normal and shorting this or market timing that isn't going to matter a hill of beans and mostly is just a waste of precious brain space trying to figure out if I need to sell this or buy that RIGHT NOW.

I have my IPS, I trust my AA, and I am over here sittin' next to honey badger... I don't even care. And I'm down like 80K and counting so far. No worries.

Top is in.

Very Nice and Well Said
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: neo von retorch on November 02, 2018, 11:33:36 AM
The physical fitness equivalent of "frugality muscles":

Sarcopenia.

Once men reach about the age of 35 to 40, they start to lose muscle. The rate of muscle loss varies between individuals, but it’s very slow. We’re talking about half a pound of muscle per year, maybe a little less. This is nothing to worry about on the surface. The rate is so slow that it’s irrelevant.

Over time however, it adds up. At the other end of your life when you’re 70+ (maybe even 90+) years old, you will feel the effects. You will lack the strength to perform basic physical tasks like bending down to pick up a coin that you dropped. Getting out of a chair unaided. Carrying some moderately heavy grocery bags. Pushing the vacuum cleaner around.

It’s not just muscles though. Bone turnover slows down and eventually stops. What this ultimately means is that you very gradually lose bone mass and welcome in sarcopenia’s better known cousin, osteoporosis.

My maternal grandmother died when she fractured her hip in a fall. You know the scary thing. Her hip fractured – and then she fell. Not the other way around.

Society has been conditioned to believe that becoming weak and frail in old age is just how it is. You just have to live with it and suck it up.

The number one weapon against this is resistance training. It comes in many guises, like bodybuilding, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, Crossfit, bodyweight workouts or just plain old, training with weights at home or in a gym.

The earlier you start training, the better. If you do start training at the age of 50 or younger, you could wind up being a 70 year old with physical capabilities that are still superior to that of untrained sedentary people around half your age. That may not sound like superhero level stuff, but when you compare it to 70 year olds that are untrained, the difference is night and day.

It’s not about 6 pack abs, sex appeal and massive muscles. It’s not about setting some world record in the squat or deadlift. It’s about training for a couple of hours a week, consistently over the long term to make yourself far stronger and more physically resilient than you need to be. In short, a surplus of strength and muscle will make life physically easier as you age.

It’s estimated that most back pain stems from loss of strength and muscle in the lower back. Muscular weakness is the root cause, but once it leads to other problems, the medical profession just treats those symptoms and remains virtually unaware of sarcopenia.

Of course all this is exacerbated to a great extent by obesity, or when the two combine, sarcopenic obesity i.e. little muscle but loads of fat. It’s a double whammy. Huge bellies pulling on an already weak lower back is a recipe for disaster.

Resistance training works just like saving for retirement. You wouldn’t wait until you were 70 years old and completely broke in order to start saving and investing.

Equally, you don’t want to wait until you’re 70 and fairly withered before you start resistance get into this stuff (although it will still work wonders at that age).

You want to build up your stash (muscle/strength) so that compounding can take effect over the long term so by the time you get to old age, you’re ready to face it head on and kick it in the nuts, rather than sheeplishly and pitifully struggle with basic physical tasks and moaning and being stiff, tight and in pain, but having nothing to blame other than yourself or the damn government no providing you with healthcare etc.

I’m 36 and have trained in gyms for about 14 years on an off. I now train at home. Pushups, rows on gymnastics ring, pullups and parallel bar dips along with back extensions, a variety of squats, overhead presses and a bunch of other stuff. 3 days a week for about an hour.

It’s obvious that I already have more muscle mass, better posture, a smaller waistline and generally more spring in my step than my close friends who are between 34 and 40. This gap will continue to widen. My aim is to be just as lean, and a lot stronger and more flexible by the time I’m 50. By then my friends will look aged and overweight. I’ll be the fitness equivalent of an early retiree in a sea of high spending salary slaves.

I’ve coupled my resistance training with stretching (check out Kit Laughlin) and I’m learning to do handstands. I realise that this is my hobby and I have been interested in it for many years which is a massive advantage over someone who has never been interested and doesn’t see the point.

I think the worst thing about resistance training is that to learn about it you have to navigate a veritable minefield of hucksters, scam artists and nonsense online before you get a handle on what is sensible practical information and what is marketing driven lies. With something simple like running, you can just start running. The problem is, running doesn’t address sarcopenia or osteoporosis, and in excess, it can actually speed up both processes.

I should make it clear that losing weight is almost entirely a dietary issue. Neither “cardio” nor resistance training will do much if anything. They are like coupon clipping. Reducing your caloric intake is like flat out cutting your expenses.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lexde on November 02, 2018, 11:37:12 AM
Well said, @Spud.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RWD on November 14, 2018, 09:49:35 AM
@sol had a nice post this morning:

I wish he would acknowledge that he deals in allegories .  i.e., that for many it's not so easy to afford a new house and/or move closer to work

Why do you think the MMM message is allegorical?  I don't think it is allegorical at all. 

If you're the kind of person who says "I can't do this" then the message clearly hasn't gotten through to you.  That's like an overweight person saying he can't lose weight because he "can't give up McDonalds".  Well, you COULD, you just don't want to.  You have made a list of reasons why McDonalds is super convenient for you, instead of looking at the viable alternatives and then making the hard choices required to implement them.

I'm not sure I can think of a single example of a person who truly can't move closer to work.  You may temporarily find yourself in a situation where it is difficult, but it is never impossible.  You could change your living situation, or you could change your working situation.  Incarcerated felons maybe?  They have no freedom to choose their work or their living situations.  Are you incarcerated?  In a non-temporary way?

The key message of this blog, and every other motivational speaker in the world, is that you have far more power to effect change in your life than you realize.  You are not bound to your current situation.  This part is certainly metaphorical in the sense that the advice about finding ways to improve your commute is equally applicable to finding solutions to other life problems.  You have to first identify the solutions, then figure out how to make the changes that support your desired outcome.  But the commuting advice is still literal.  You shouldn't waste your time driving in circles every day if you can help it.

As for the "afford a new house" portion of your post, I'm not at all sure that's part of the MMM message at all.  Has the blog ever advocated home ownership over renting?  Sometimes, renting is the frugal choice.

I think the key messages of the MMM blog, if I may engage in a moment of meta-analysis, is that the average American lifestyle is pretty sub-optimal in a variety of ways that have straightforward solutions for anyone willing to open their eyes.  We spend too much time driving, harming our health and the environment and reducing our ability to do more important things.  We waste too much money on frivolous and unfulfilling purchases that don't add to our happiness.  We collectively choose the lazy solutions to problems, instead of exerting the personal willpower required to make positive choices. 

All three of these are tied up together in examples like your commute to work, where you can save money and time and improve your local environment and improve your health and happiness by biking to work instead of driving.  It's a hard change to make, for some people.  Especially people who really think McDonald's is super convenient and not that bad for you.  We like easy familiar solutions, particularly when they are constantly reinforced by targeted marketing campaigns designed to get you to spend your money (get poor) in order to be lazy (get unhappy).  It's hard to buck that trend.  That marketing has been so successful that in just a few decades we've transitioned from a world in which everyone walked (or biked or rode) to work for centuries to a world in which everyone drives to work and is fat.  We have literally let cars ruin us, in exchange for lazy high speed transport that destroys the environment.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lexde on November 14, 2018, 09:58:17 AM
As usual, @sol hit the nail on the head. I completely understand where the other poster was coming from because it’s very easy to feel “stuck” or trapped in your situation. I did for a long time, thinking that the grass wouldn’t be greener. I then moved one mile away from work, then eventually changed jobs to a much better work situation for me. Now I’m working on finding a place nearer to the new job to optimize even further. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it with each change. And you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be better.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Warlord1986 on November 14, 2018, 03:55:34 PM
That post by @FIREby35 just gave me one more reason to be proud to be an American.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FIREby35 on November 15, 2018, 06:44:27 AM
To all the people here who said nice things, thank you :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: whitewaterchica on November 15, 2018, 09:25:14 AM
To all the people here who said nice things, thank you :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you @FIREby35 for being a truly decent and good human being.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dances With Fire on November 16, 2018, 06:21:08 AM
@Malkynn on the world being worried that young FIREies have got their sums wrong:


I know!
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills every time this “concern” comes up.

Like, WTF people???

The FI community is filled with people trying to be financially responsible and informed. We are a teeny, tiny, minuscule percentage of the population that’s ACTUALLY GOOD WITH MONEY.......and people are worried about us??? Are you fucking kidding me???

People here throw around retiring on 1M as if it’s nothing and then debate at length if it’s enough to protect against SORR, inflation, and healthcare. Do you have ANY IDEA how many 65 year olds would KILL to have 1M???

It’s not like all of these people working until 65-70 are better off, they just wasted more money along the way and never gave themselves any choice but to keep working.

Mustachians aren’t eating cat food and hoping for markets that never crash. We’re saving absolute boat loads of cash, understanding investing better than most Financial Advisors, and not wasting money on pointless shit.

We’re better off than over 99% of the population and people are concerned that we have a math problem???
Jesus fucking Christ that’s fucking hilarious.

It’s like when I lost a bunch of weight and went from Obese to low-healthy BMI and suddenly everyone and their cousin was “worried” about me and my “health” despite me being healthier than I’ve ever been in my life.

I remember when I was first introduced to MMM, I immediately thought “well, I don’t want to retire super young, I love my work”, but the rest of it, the frugality, the focus on health, the control you gain over your life when you lower your consumption, etc. It all immediately struck me as brilliant. Instead of retiring super early, I’ve cut down to super part time, which is just as amazing for me.

It’s only people who are immediately repelled by choosing to spend less that recoil against the idea and throw the baby out with the bathwater when they don’t love the idea of super early retirement. I once said frugality was the financial equivalent of being a vegan, it irrationally pisses everyone else off who doesn’t choose that lifestyle and makes them feel compelled to mock you and judge your life choice as crazy and/or offensive.

People so truly hate the concept of consistent hard work that they need to vilify any example of it as somehow misguided or unrealistic.
It’s truly laughably absurd to look at the FIRE community as anything other than common fucking sense.

Bump^^^^ Great post. Thanks for sharing.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: JGS1980 on November 16, 2018, 04:57:54 PM
Nippy Crisp's Journal is rather new, but he's way up there in the belly laughs per post ratio.

Big shout out to him.

JGS

Stories seem to be oozing out of me lately. Good, bad, funny, sad... the whole gamut. Still hoping that getting them out of the system and down will help me manage to close this thing out.

Last night, my fiancee said that it was pretty clear I was bored with my job. This is almost certainly correct, and there's plenty of evidence to support the assertion. In fact, it's probably time to introduce my modest readership to another of my semi-unprofessional workplace activities: the morally nebulous office prank.

When I was in grad school, my friends and I held a debate about whether or not a particular staff member would eat something that was clearly not meant for them. I don't recall the particulars of the discussion that led to this, but I was of the opinion that they would. To prove my point, we deliberately mis-delivered a cake to the person in question's office, leaving it anonymously on their desk. How could this individual be certain that this cake wasn't meant for them? Simple - I'd had a roommate of mine personalize the frosting with the message, "Congrats on Your Hysterectomy!!!", a biologically impossible accomplishment for the person in question.

I'll leave whether or not the person ate the cake to the imagination, but a nippycrisp classic was born: the impenetrable food mystery. I would leave (normal) food and drink on people's desks, with no additional message or attribution, and allow nature to take its course.

This activity had several variations over the year. For several years, I would put a can of coke and a can of pepsi on the left and right sides of our IT guy's desk. The next week I would do the same, but switch the cans' positions. Then I would put two coke cans on one side and only one pepsi. This is a variation on a novel object recognition test normally performed on mice, but details.

There was no end game - I just did it because I was bored. And I'm not proud or ashamed. It just happened. Because I was cripplingly bored. Or an asshole. 

The longest-running version of this activity occurred with an older guy I worked with. Actually, it's "John" from the F-U-C-K-J-O-H-N password story on the first page of this journal. Older dude, really lazy, but a great bullshitter, which can get you surprisingly far in research. I was as professional as I could be, but one day I was tempted into doing something.

John was turning to fat and entering heart attack country, so his wife was packing these terrible carrot-and-yogurt lunches. This made John a total cruiser for free food. If another company set up in our lobby with a buffet lunch, odds were John would be down there within five minutes, chatting up the person in charge of guarding the spread and sniffing around for some calories. John's real-life office nickname was "Old Bear," which he acquired when an Asian co-worker saw him making a play for some Mexican leftovers and tried (and failed) to call John "Yogi Bear" (picnic baskets are universal, I guess).

Point is, John would eat anything. And one December fate put me in a position to test the limits of his decorum. Over Christmas one year, I'd somehow fallen into possession of a whole shopping bag full of boxes of Whoppers - the malted milkball candy that's fallen out of favor.

No one really likes Whoppers, and I had no intention of eating the twenty or so boxes I had. John, however... well, let's just say I had a pretty good feeling he wouldn't be so picky.

Most of the candy was in movie-theater-sized packs. But I started slow. I took a single milk ball and placed it by John's keyboard while he was away.

John came back. "Well, what have we here?" he asked aloud. "Hmmm." He didn't bother to ask if I knew what the deal was with the candy - at this point we weren't speaking any more than was professionally required. Instead, I watched from the corner of my eye as John proceeded to eat a single, unwrapped piece of nasty chocolate candy.

If I didn't say it already, let's be clear that I really disliked John. Of course, if he would have shown any signs of disgust about a random comestible being placed directly on his desk I would have aborted. But it didn't happen. John gobbled that nasty little fucker right up and commented he wished he had a whole handful.

And that's how it began. Next day, two milk balls appeared on John's desk. They were eaten without question. The next day, three. Four. Five. Eventually, John was eating upwards of a dozen malted milkballs a day. The nuttiest thing was that the man never even questioned where they were coming from, why he was receiving them, whether it was a good idea*. Nothing. Just bare-handing them and shoveling them into his gob. It was like watching a toddler eat cheerios of his tray. 

Using the candy as a motivator, I tried several behavioral neuroscience assays on John - things like adding a reward milkball (John preferred the strawberry milkballs) on days where he was less annoying, and punishing him with eggnog milkballs (his least favorite) on days he annoyed me. In that period, I may have produced more data on John's food reward drive than John produced in his job as a scientist. But I digress - over a year or two, I indirectly fed this portly bastard several thousand milk balls. The gag went on so long I sometimes forgot for a while, then started up. When I would begin again, John would idly muse about the occasion for his sugary tributes resuming.

I never finished dumping the entire bag of candy into John, as he was abruptly fired (but that's a whole 'nother story), and although life improved somewhat, the story's potential expired along with the remaining boxes of candy. Although it's been years since this came to pass, I sometimes find myself musing over whether John still has flickers of nostalgia for the malted milkball period of his life. 

*Of course John eventually made some token investigatory efforts. I should mention I was careful to cover my tracks. I had a trusted co-worker deliver milkballs when I was on vacation (and I did the same for him). Then an unwitting scapegoat came along; at one point, John asked Jose (our nefarious janitor from a few stories back) if he was leaving him candy. Jose, whose english comprehension was non-existent at best, apparently (and inadvertently) admitted to it, apparently earning himself a crappy christmas present from John in the process.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on November 17, 2018, 06:30:25 AM
This thing of beauty deserves a wider audience. The journal and author have both had recent name changes and this should not get lost in the revamp:

I have an old friend coming out of an abusive relationship that may leave her in a bad place. Today she posted a poem on FB that she said was "raw emotion." It read like angriness and hurt - which probably isn't far from the mark. I've been trying to reframe things for her in a more positive light so I replied with this:

Today I face a cliff face.
And I have no way to climb it.
Today I know that I cannot take the next step to rise up. So I sit.
And I look out on a rose garden.

In that garden I planted dreams.
Love strengthened through storms.
Cherubic fists holding our fingers.
Growing old together.

But this garden grew thorns without roses.
The storms never gave way to peace.
There was never a father's fingers for the cherub to hold.
We shall not grow old together.

And looking upward at an impossible precipice,
I see daisies waving over its edge.
Their white petals filtering the sun,
Their promise a question - He loves me not?

One hand rises up the chalky stone,
And then another,
and then with strength I do not know I have,
I rise toward a tomorrow I have never owned.

"There is danger in this climb" I think.
"What if I fall? What if I don't make it?
What if I am forever climbing and never rising?"
And yet, I climb - hand over hand, foot over foot.

Above there may be a great nothing.
Or a great reward,
Or a simple victory.
Or the daisy's promise - "I love me."

And that is good enough.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Basenji on November 30, 2018, 08:29:23 AM
Putting this @iris lily comment here for sheer joy: made me snort my coffee. I needed a good laugh.

One thing I'm curious about in terms of marriages or relationships ending.. are there many here who have differing religious views with their partner? Can that be a threat to the relationship? I would like to think this is something that is discussed openly way ahead of time so I'm not sure this would have much of an impact on a marriage.
I am a non-believer, and he is a wishy washy Catholic. It is not a problem as we have been married 30 years.  But then, we do not have children. We dont have to worry about the religious education of our dogs. They are theists and think we are gods.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Louisville on November 30, 2018, 09:45:03 AM
Succinct summation of a world trend.

Heckuva of a lot to unpack here, but there's one piece of this that I don't think is being addressed.

The conversation thus far has been highly US focused, probably because the population of this board is majority US.  But this is not a US only phenomenon, and I think the global spread of nationalist populism is worth consideration.

Numerous countries, particularly those in Europe but also in the Philippines, India, Brazil, Turkey, etc., have been electing and consolidating power in nationalist leaders who are either outright authoritarians or, at least, show some authoritarian tendencies.  FWIW, I think Trump falls into the latter category.  Modi belongs there too, I think, though I've not followed it that closely. Orban, Erdogan, Duterte, Xi, and Putin I would classify as outright authoritarians.  Too soon to tell on Bolsonaro, though he has authoritarian tendencies for sure. Obrador in Mexico stands out as one of the sole left-leaning populists to rise to power, but has taken on a similar "strongman" ethic. 

A few threads emerge from these leaders. 

-disrespect for traditional democratic institutions, particularly surrounding the media and the rule of law.  No accountability under traditional systems of checks and balances.
-blaming a shadowy "elite" for keeping prosperity from the larger population
-scapegoating an "other" who is set up as in opposition to a true citizen.  The scapegoated group is often migrants (see Europe and the US especially), but homosexuals and religious minorities and “leftists”  have also been targets.
-Most importantly, a cult of personality around the leader, drawing on tropes of traditional masculine power - strength, uncompromising policies, inflammatory rhetoric, willingness to use force--and holding up that leader as the only one who can deliver the country for the people

Each country’s history and culture gives their version of nationalism its own unique characteristics.  But I think the broader implication is that the age of multilateral cooperation between nations may be coming to an end.  If there’s anything that could be called a Trump Doctrine, it seems to be a focus on bilateral agreements and relationships where each side is trying to maximize benefits to their citizenry, regardless of how it effects the citizens of any other country.  It’s highly transactional, and I sort of get the appeal of “I’m going to do what’s best for my people, and I’m going to assume you’ll do what’s best for yours, and we’ll see who wins at the end of the day.”  But it doesn’t make room for long term negotiations where trust becomes an important factor.  And it strikes me as a really bad way to solve complex global problems.  And at this point, all our problems are complex and global!

As to what it’s highlighted? I think the clearest thing for me is that our education systems are failing a large number of people, and with the proliferation of information on the internet, many people (even highly educated ones) are struggling to differentiate useful facts from propaganda, half-truths, and manipulation.  It used to be authoritarians had to suppress a free press.  Now they just have to let actual facts drown in misinformation.  Most people shrug, and because they don't know who to trust, they trust only those who appeal to their preconceived ideas.

TL / DR:  It’s not just the US.  It’s everywhere.  And it’s not good.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on December 17, 2018, 02:45:26 AM
I used to wonder why there were so few posts from people who had already FIREd.  Seven weeks after pulling the plug, I suspect I now know why as I seem to barely have time to scratch my arse.
My feelings in that time have varied between weird, wonderful and knackered.  On my first trip into the market after retirement I kept catching myself rushing and had to make myself relax and slow down as I didn't need to rush any more.  This kept happening for the first few weeks until one sunny day when I found myself gently pootling around town on my bike and a strange, unfamiliar feeling came over me that I eventually realised was happiness.  That feeling has been recurring with increasing frequency ever since.
The biggest difference to how I expected to pass my days and the reality is the sheer amount of physical work I'm doing almost every day.  It turns out that the fatigue which I had been attributing to my leukaemia drugs, and which I expected to mean several hours every day would be spent chilling, was actually largely caused by work stress and a sedentary lifestyle. I'm feeling ten years younger, powering through the various projects around the house and garden and getting more of a feeling of achievement from things like building a new log store or digging up a tree stump than my job gave me in years.  Spending is coming in under budget and I hardly ever think about my finances any more - after spending the last few years obsessing about them.
All in all I am having a wonderful time.  Having concentrated my plans so hard on wealth the bonus of health and happiness post FIRE is a delight that I hope you all get to share.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: marty998 on December 17, 2018, 03:21:17 AM
This thing of beauty deserves a wider audience. The journal and author have both had recent name changes and this should not get lost in the revamp:

I have an old friend coming out of an abusive relationship that may leave her in a bad place. Today she posted a poem on FB that she said was "raw emotion." It read like angriness and hurt - which probably isn't far from the mark. I've been trying to reframe things for her in a more positive light so I replied with this:

Today I face a cliff face.
And I have no way to climb it.
Today I know that I cannot take the next step to rise up. So I sit.
And I look out on a rose garden.

In that garden I planted dreams.
Love strengthened through storms.
Cherubic fists holding our fingers.
Growing old together.

But this garden grew thorns without roses.
The storms never gave way to peace.
There was never a father's fingers for the cherub to hold.
We shall not grow old together.

And looking upward at an impossible precipice,
I see daisies waving over its edge.
Their white petals filtering the sun,
Their promise a question - He loves me not?

One hand rises up the chalky stone,
And then another,
and then with strength I do not know I have,
I rise toward a tomorrow I have never owned.

"There is danger in this climb" I think.
"What if I fall? What if I don't make it?
What if I am forever climbing and never rising?"
And yet, I climb - hand over hand, foot over foot.

Above there may be a great nothing.
Or a great reward,
Or a simple victory.
Or the daisy's promise - "I love me."

And that is good enough.

Thankyou @Dicey and @Le Poisson. I'm teary now. That's beautiful.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on December 19, 2018, 09:13:15 PM
Incredibly inspiring poem
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Eckhart on January 10, 2019, 07:03:54 PM
Great post from Malkynn.  "Happiness is so much more than just the absence of suffering".  Amen to that.



Agreed.
I suspect it was edited to be framed in a confrontational way.

Change the lense though and there is a valuable commentary there on how FIRE isn't actually a source of happiness or a plan in and of itself.

If you aren't happy to begin with, FIRE won't make you happy, but it can facilitate an environment within which it's possible to build a happy life in the absence of financial and time barriers. The work to be happy still needs to be done.

Happiness is so much more than just the absence of suffering.

He left his job for a reason, he chose to make a drastic move for a reason... except, he never explained what those reasons are, which makes the writing completely incomprehensible since it has ZERO context.

However, if we make the assumption that he was not satisfied with his life and that's why he chose MAJOR changes, depite his attachment to his work, then the whole story starts making more sense.

We can reasonably assume that's the case because he says he "envisioned living a life of freedom, purpose and happiness", implying that his working life was lacking in some critical areas. 

If he was not living a life that was fulfilling him, then running away from it and expecting sudden "carefree bliss" was bound to backfire.

Instead of FIRE and the move being a huge adventure, he ended up losing the few things in his old life that made him feel secure and fulfilled to a degree, his emotional anchors.

What I read was the emotional outpouring of someone completely inexperienced and unprepared to live a happy and full life. His reactions to leaving work and to change are not those of an emotionally secure, confident and grounded person who knows what they want from life and isn't afraid to seek it out. He sounds vaguely petrified of life and is responding reactively instead of proactively.

It's not easy to be happy, it's not something that just happens in the absence of obligatory work. Living well is actually tremendously challenging if you don't have years of experience behind you learning how to do it.

Expecting to be happy because you FIREd is like expecting to be fit because you joined a gym. It doesn't work that way.

I felt I was reading the words of someone who needs to do a lot of work on themselves in order to better understand their own needs, their own drives, and to basically start from scratch on figuring out just what the hell their best life actually looks like.

What I read was "I thought FIRE was supposed to make me happy, but instead I'm even more stressed out than I was in my old life! Why isn't this working for me? This isn't what I was promised!"

There is a theme in the FI sphere that happiness is something that comes post-FIRE and that can leave a lot of people feeling like it's okay/normal to be unhappy during their working years.

Sure, that's an option, but it comes with serious consequences that FIRE will NOT fix, and that is worth discussing. This article just didn't really do that.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: marty998 on January 12, 2019, 01:30:00 AM
Another classic from @sol on why paying tax is not the defining point of one's contribution to society....

Even most Americans are net takers, but it's worse for illegals.

Your understanding of economics is considerably flawed.  You really think that everyone who does work is a taker, and rich people who live off investments or business ownership are actually contributing?  Taxes paid are NOT the right way to gauge economic productivity.

I assure you that if every "taker" in your definition were to suddenly evaporate, our economy would collapse.  Labor is the source of all wealth, remember?  Those people WORK, for you and for me, and their work is what keeps this country running.  We need people who work hard, and the fact that they make so little money that they pay no taxes does not make them takers.  Quite the contrary, I would argue that every CEO and celebrity athlete and trust fund kid is a taker, because they consume enormous resources without doing any meaningful work. 

The rich are the parasites of society, not the poor.  Poor people work, and produce, and create.  Rich people just consume, mostly while doing nothing.  They're vital parasites, don't get me wrong, but they're still parasites.  Living off the hard work of others.  Taking advantage of lenient tax laws that preserve their privileged position in society.  Lounging by the pool, complaining on the internet about all of the people who mow their lawns for them. 

And since you're so stuck on the supposed cost of illegal immigration, I'm sure you're aware that these people pay taxes without being eligible to receive social services, right?  They're the exact opposite of takers.  They give and get nothing back.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Fields of Gold on January 14, 2019, 08:41:37 AM
Spent hours reading the entire thread and took lots of notes.  Inspirational!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: letsdoit on January 15, 2019, 10:56:55 AM
ppl without documentation in the US pay alot of taxes, via tax ID #s

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: matchewed on January 15, 2019, 01:26:19 PM
ppl without documentation in the US pay alot of taxes, via tax ID #s

Not the place for continuing a forum discussion. This is for highlighting a particular post. The place to discuss it is the n that particular thread. :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: JAYSLOL on January 22, 2019, 04:24:24 AM
So last week @patrickza posted a link to an investment game he made - https://theinvestorchallenge.com/games/com_timing.php - which lets you attempt to sell when stocks are high and buy back when they are low a bunch of times over a 20 year period of historical data and compares the results of staying the course vs market timing.  It's a great game, but all investment games i've seen let you start out with a large chunk of money and then play with it but not add to it, which i think is less realistic than the average persons investing history.  So I replied to his post that I would love to see an investing game that reflected someone's working career starting at $0 and then having an investable surplus each month and comparing automatic monthly dollar cost average investing VS allowing that surplus to save up and trying to time buying stocks at "the dips".  Oh, and I told him i'd like the career timeline to be adjustable, the investable surplus/month to be adjustable and that I'd like what you save to be able to be set to increase annually to a desired %, and oh yeah, no big deal but i'd like the game-speed to be customizable too.  This was his response...

So over the weekend I tried to see if I could code your wishlist. Take a look here: https://theinvestorchallenge.com/games/com_game_monthly.php
Let me know what you think. If you like it I'll add it to the site menu and give it a scoreboard too.

Do I like it?  You bet!  Dream wish-list achieved, and the game works great.  Much deserving of the best thing I've seen on the forum today. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: AmzResearcher on January 23, 2019, 03:29:56 AM
Thank you. I feel good to join #mrmoneymustache
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on January 24, 2019, 06:56:20 AM
If it were me, I would certainly not be getting up at noon and casually scrolling through job listings as my main attempt to build my career. Job listings really are just low hanging fruit when it comes to career building, and you simply aren't likely to get the best jobs that way.

If you are serious about your career, then you should be serious about networking.

In your shoes, I would research which companies I thought were best for my future, research which charities the executives of those companies work with, volunteer my services to those charities in an effort to network with the executives I want to connect with, get relevant and respectable experience, and to grow my professional reputation even while unemployed.

I would also study intensely to better my knowledge in more in demand areas of my profession to make me stand out more. If language skills were in demand, like they are where I live, I would dedicated 2-3 hrs/day to improving my second language skills.

I would schedule lunches with every single professional I know in my field and would come prepared with up to date and relevant information in our field to keep me in their minds as a smart and capable professional instead of them seeing me as their unemployed friend. That way they are likely to pitch me to anyone they know is looking, and they'll sell me instead of just casually connecting me.

I would be up before the sun, exercise, eat a good breakfast, and treat my day like any other day of my professional career, except I would be working my very hardest because NOW is the most important step of my entire career. Where I start working next and how much salary I can earn next will set the stage for my entire career, so this shit is serious, especially after a history of being let go.

I would hustle my ass off and prove beyond any doubt through hard work and effort that I am more valuable than my competition and I wouldn't just wait until I found a job to start doing that. I would NOT treat this time as a pseudo vacation where I can take it easy.

That is how "lucky" people never "get screwed", we just fucking WORK no matter what happens.

If you legitimately need a break after being let go and need some time to recover and reflect on your life and figure out what you actually want to do, then cool, take that time and make a real plan.

Don't casually half ass it though and expect amazing results to land in your lap. There are too many hustlers out there networking their asses off and taking all of the best jobs, many of which are never listed online.

If you want to be valued you have to prove your value BEFORE you ask someone to hire you for an amazing job. Otherwise, you're left having to take whatever you can get.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: lifejoy on January 27, 2019, 01:06:09 PM
Okay.... here goes

You seem to be missing the most important point of this whole thing...
This is about living your best life.

When you are high income, it’s very easy to fall into a logical trap that your best life includes expensive luxuries because you “can afford them”. Except that what you “can afford” is completely predicated on how much you want to work, not what you can earn in a given year.

It all depends on what your yard-sticks of value are.
What matters most to you? And what does that cost?
Money isn’t anything in and of itself, it’s a representation of time and energy whose values change as you age.

To put it simply: everything is a trade off.
Mustachianism is about negotiating every trade off to get the best deal for your particular circumstances. For every single cent you spend, you need to evaluate the time/energy/money exchange and decide if the trade is worthwhile.

For high income earners, this is a very big question because the possibilities are tremendous.
If your household income is over 200K, you can afford almost any luxury you want short of mega-rich territory stuff like private planes.
You *could* afford a huge luxurious 1M+ house, an Astin Martin, luxury travel, high fashion, expensive restaurants, wine collections, private school for your kids, a country home, a huge retirement nest egg, or an extremely early retirement, or fund some amazing projects, or buy a seat on an important committee, etc, etc...you just can’t afford them all. You have to choose.

Okay, so you like expensive activities and expensive travel. That’s cool.
Do you like it more than every other single thing that that money could buy you? Is it more satisfying than any alternative including more free time? Earlier retirement? Literally everything else in the world?

The statement “I can afford it” directly translates to “I’m happy to work more for it” not “oh well, I’m working super hard and generating this income anyway, so I might as well spend some of it to make the whole thing worthwhile”
See how insane the second one is when you actually look at it???

This is where you need to know yourself.
You need to know your own needs and values to be able to use your big incomes to craft your best life because if you piss away your money, you are pissing away your time, your energy, and all of the incredible opportunities that go along with your situation.
The opportunity cost of your current lifestyle is astronomical, and you don’t even feel like you live a rich or spendy life! Do you see how crazy that is?

It’s not about not spending.
It’s not about adjusting to depriving yourself of things.
It’s not about learning to live on less.
It’s about learning to live more, learning what truly makes you happy, and using the time/energy/money balance to generate the best life possible.
You have every resource at your disposal to live amazingly well and you are wasting it.

One of the most valuable messages that MMM has shared is that your best life probably doesn’t cost nearly as much as your mediocre life.

Personally, I make more money than you do, but it takes something pretty fucking spectacular to get me to part with my cash. I’m not cheap, I’m just a snob about spending. My bar for spending is very high. I’m not at all the most frugal person, I spend on plenty of things that others wouldn’t, but they are things that matter to me. They have value disproportionate to their cost in terms of time/energy/money/opportunity cost for me personally. I feel very good about everything I spend on. If it doesn’t feel like I’m getting an amazing deal on the trade-off, I don’t make the trade.

Hold your life to a higher standard and you won’t find it a struggle to spend less.

Omg I needed this. Thank you for reposting!!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Hirondelle on February 26, 2019, 01:04:02 PM
Really really appreciated these words from Mr. Green:

I'm 35 and fired two years ago at 33. I was a software engineer and when I quit my career I was making just under $300,000 a year so I can relate to the golden handcuffs dilemma.

Others may have spoken to this effect already but I think our generation has a problem with thinking life requires meaning. Nothing on this planet requires meaning to live. Drawing breath does not involve meaning and I think most people will be a lot happier in the long run if they divorce meaning from happiness. I spent a lot of time thinking about this after I stopped working and suddenly had many hours of the day to ponder what it is I wanted to be doing with my life. I realized that meaning is a self-imposed construct that inevitably only limits what you're able to do with your life because of the negative feelings that arise from the idea of having a lack of meaning. Trying to find meaning in any particular activity of your life leaves you open to unhappiness if your circumstances suddenly change and you are no longer able to live meaningfully. Think about the worker whose meaning is pouring his soul into woodworking and is suddenly disabled to where he is no longer able to do that. We put such a great weight on meaning that the loss of it creates identity crises for many people. If instead we focused on the pursuit of happiness then when something is no longer able to provide it we can simply continue the pursuit elsewhere.

If you're financially independent and your job brings you no happiness, perhaps you should question why you're spending 40 or more hours a week doing something that brings you know happiness. It could be that the salary allows you to do other things in your life that bring enough happiness that it's worth those 40 hours a week. Perhaps the job itself is rewarding to you and give some form of happiness. If it isn't then what is the point of staying in the job?

If you're not truly financially independent then it would seem the answer is comparing the choice of staying in the job to become more so and what amount of happiness in life that may provide you while doing it and choosing to leave the job for something else and what level of happiness that could provide. Everything in life is a gamble though and there's no guarantee that something you may choose to pursue will provide the level of happiness you think it will, particularly if you're pursuing something that is new to you and you don't yet know whether you truly enjoy it.

I've noticed that some of the happiest people I've come across aren't the most intelligent. I think this allows them to more easily accept most things in life and be happy with what they have. Those of us constantly questioning things and looking for the best or quickest way to do something never seem to be satisfied and I wonder if the feeling of needing meaning is somehow tied to that. I've spent a lot of time trying to slow down and actually enjoy my life more and think about meaning less. I've been pleasantly surprised at how okay I am with not accomplishing much on a day-to-day basis. I would say that last spring is probably the first time in my life that I've experienced truly unbridled joy just to be alive. Taking in a glorious day, going for a walk, or something else of that nature. None of those things involve meaning and I've never been happier.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: LoanShark on February 26, 2019, 05:34:39 PM
^^^ really enjoyed that as well
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on February 27, 2019, 01:06:16 AM
Really really appreciated these words from Mr. Green:

<snip>
I've noticed that some of the happiest people I've come across aren't the most intelligent. I think this allows them to more easily accept most things in life and be happy with what they have. Those of us constantly questioning things and looking for the best or quickest way to do something never seem to be satisfied and I wonder if the feeling of needing meaning is somehow tied to that. I've spent a lot of time trying to slow down and actually enjoy my life more and think about meaning less. I've been pleasantly surprised at how okay I am with not accomplishing much on a day-to-day basis. I would say that last spring is probably the first time in my life that I've experienced truly unbridled joy just to be alive. Taking in a glorious day, going for a walk, or something else of that nature. None of those things involve meaning and I've never been happier.

This paragraph reminds me of my mother. She seems pretty happy. When I tell her I tend to become depressed when I think about things like climate change, she tells me not to worry about things that I cannot do anything about. That is what she does: lives in the now and doesn't worry. She is also a pensioner with a good financial situation and has therefore no financial worries.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CptCool on March 05, 2019, 01:57:32 PM

Every time I contemplate whether or not I need to be involved in solving a problem at the office, I ask myself "if I step in, am I crippling the capacity of my team to handle this without me?"

I used to take ownership of absolutely everything that I could have a positive impact on, but now I really focus on how inefficient that is and how the more critical I am to the function of the office, the more vulnerable the system is to my loss.

"Not my problem" for me is not about caring less, it's about caring *more* about the effectiveness of the systems in place and whether or not they need to change. I shouldn't need to be involved beyond my main responsibilities, anything that takes me away from those is an inefficiency in the system that should be resolved.

I've been trying to stop caring so much at work (for lack of better words). It's a lot tougher than expected, but reading this really hit home
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Gremlin on March 05, 2019, 06:14:41 PM

Every time I contemplate whether or not I need to be involved in solving a problem at the office, I ask myself "if I step in, am I crippling the capacity of my team to handle this without me?"

I used to take ownership of absolutely everything that I could have a positive impact on, but now I really focus on how inefficient that is and how the more critical I am to the function of the office, the more vulnerable the system is to my loss.

"Not my problem" for me is not about caring less, it's about caring *more* about the effectiveness of the systems in place and whether or not they need to change. I shouldn't need to be involved beyond my main responsibilities, anything that takes me away from those is an inefficiency in the system that should be resolved.

I've been trying to stop caring so much at work (for lack of better words). It's a lot tougher than expected, but reading this really hit home

I'm beginning to think that this thread should be renamed "The Best Posts from Malkynn" thread...
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on March 05, 2019, 09:36:05 PM

Every time I contemplate whether or not I need to be involved in solving a problem at the office, I ask myself "if I step in, am I crippling the capacity of my team to handle this without me?"

I used to take ownership of absolutely everything that I could have a positive impact on, but now I really focus on how inefficient that is and how the more critical I am to the function of the office, the more vulnerable the system is to my loss.

"Not my problem" for me is not about caring less, it's about caring *more* about the effectiveness of the systems in place and whether or not they need to change. I shouldn't need to be involved beyond my main responsibilities, anything that takes me away from those is an inefficiency in the system that should be resolved.

I've been trying to stop caring so much at work (for lack of better words). It's a lot tougher than expected, but reading this really hit home

I'm beginning to think that this thread should be renamed "The Best Posts from Malkynn" thread...
Yup! Totally agree. You can always click on her name and then "show posts" to see everything she's written. Worthwhile way to spend some forum time, says I.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Metalcat on March 06, 2019, 04:13:37 AM
I'm beginning to think that this thread should be renamed "The Best Posts from Malkynn" thread...
Yup! Totally agree. You can always click on her name and then "show posts" to see everything she's written. Worthwhile way to spend some forum time, says I.
[/quote]

Oh my...
No pressure, eh?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on March 06, 2019, 08:10:08 AM
I'm beginning to think that this thread should be renamed "The Best Posts from Malkynn" thread...
Yup! Totally agree. You can always click on her name and then "show posts" to see everything she's written. Worthwhile way to spend some forum time, says I.

Oh my...
No pressure, eh?
[/quote]
Nope. Just keep doing you, any way you want.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Parizade on March 08, 2019, 12:51:13 PM

Books - I love the feel of a brand new book.  I have 6+ on my unread shelf at any given time.  I don't like used books (unless they are in pristine condition) and really dislike library books (unless I can get them the day they hit the shelf).  I've been giving ebooks a try lately but they are not the same as paper.

I love library books for the very reasons you probably hate them! They're little adventures in themselves. Sometimes you open them and they smell of perfume, or smoke, or sand comes out. Sometimes you find scraps of paper in them, lists or letters, or old library receipts. Sometimes they have little notes written in them where the author got something wrong, or spelling corrected, or odd passages circled. Couple of times I've found some total rants about very small points, which I find entertaining. Once I found one with a great big spider squashed between the pages, which was gross but also interesting. Once I found a $20 note, which was more interesting! I like the library admin stuff also. I can tell which library originally acquired the book by the page number that's stamped with the library name, for instance. Some libraries protect their paperbacks with seal in a certain way, some do it another way. Library books have lives of their own, really.

I thought this was a very pretty little piece of writing, and I plan to stalk AnneGrowsAMustache to make sure I haven't missed any other little gems she may have penned
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on March 08, 2019, 06:20:02 PM

Books - I love the feel of a brand new book.  I have 6+ on my unread shelf at any given time.  I don't like used books (unless they are in pristine condition) and really dislike library books (unless I can get them the day they hit the shelf).  I've been giving ebooks a try lately but they are not the same as paper.

I love library books for the very reasons you probably hate them! They're little adventures in themselves. Sometimes you open them and they smell of perfume, or smoke, or sand comes out. Sometimes you find scraps of paper in them, lists or letters, or old library receipts. Sometimes they have little notes written in them where the author got something wrong, or spelling corrected, or odd passages circled. Couple of times I've found some total rants about very small points, which I find entertaining. Once I found one with a great big spider squashed between the pages, which was gross but also interesting. Once I found a $20 note, which was more interesting! I like the library admin stuff also. I can tell which library originally acquired the book by the page number that's stamped with the library name, for instance. Some libraries protect their paperbacks with seal in a certain way, some do it another way. Library books have lives of their own, really.

I thought this was a very pretty little piece of writing, and I plan to stalk AnneGrowsAMustache to make sure I haven't missed any other little gems she may have penned

Wow that's inspiring. Now I want to get a library book.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: AnnaGrowsAMustache on March 08, 2019, 06:55:43 PM
Awww, thanks! I'm so excited that I made this thread!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: zolotiyeruki on March 09, 2019, 11:46:12 AM
In a thread discussing a recent report that Americans are paying an average of $550/mo car payments:
My car payment was £500, that's about $650

It was only one payment though. I'm quite happy with my 12 year old VW
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on March 18, 2019, 12:39:19 PM
About bailing out irresponsible parents...

You love them. We all know this, they know it. They also know that because you love them, they can use that love to manipulate and use you to patch up their grossly neglectful spending.

You need to stop bailing them out because until you do, they won't stop being assholes about money. Until they face actual consequences, they have no reason to stop. You bailing them out gives them the liscense to keep being spendthrifts. You are part of the problem - so step out of it and tell them. Do not buy a house or anything for them. Do not take control of their finances. Do not do anything other than offer to help them sort things and make phone calls or internet research. They are not helpless and you should not be taking over as their parent because they are helpless little children, and if you did do this... you know that they will be angry and resentful of your control even if it was "for their own good" right? Stop it. Just stop.

I'd suggest a hard line in the sand starting now. You've already tried the pay for their mistakes and bills and shit. It didn't work and they obviously didn't appreciate it or feel the least bit embarrassed about it because they not only did not change at all, they got even more in debt and now your father is using blackmail and emotional manipulation to try to get you to pay his bills - as soon as the words about that bullshit "likely going to have a heart attack if this bill isn't paid" left his lips, I would have told him he should be ashamed that he would stoop so low as to try to make his poor decisions and irresponsibility your problem after all you'd done before, and threatening to have a heart attack is just childish and disgusting behavior. And I would have told him that at this point, you'll be happy to call the ambulance or take notes in the emergency room if he's unconscious, but he better never use that sort of gross manipulation on you again or the relationship is over with. And I'd also tell him that he needs to have a serious think on how terrible he's treated you and taken advantage of your love and generocity over the years and this is the straw that may be the breaking of the relationship - that he values his stupid wine and insane spending more than his relationship with his daughter? Oh hell no.


Now that may sound really cold, but what he's doing to you is stone cold manipulative and using you like the Bank of Daughter is WRONG.

If you don't end up strong enough to have that type of convo (above) then you still need to tell them the Bank of Daughter is closed. So nicely:

Mom & Dad, I love you and I'm so sorry things are difficult right now for you, but going forward I am no longer able to give you any more money or bail you out of debts you've incurred. There are agencies out there that can help you find a cheap subsidized place to live if you lose your current housing, and I can help you research debt consolidation and other state/government assistance programs when I have time, but I can't afford to gift you more money or provide any financial assistance any more. You are adults and you are the ones that made this huge problem and aren't taking any steps to fix things for yourselves because you expect me to keep fronting the money to bail you out each time. But I can't be your safety net any more because I am draining my own earnings and endangering my own future to keep doing this over and over again for you. This is hurting me and hurting our relationship and I just can't do this any more. I'm sorry but that's how things are going to be going forward. Please don't try to guilt me or say things like you're going to have a heart attack if this or that doesn't get paid. That is childish and manipulative and I won't entertain any conversations that contain these types of threats or guilt trips.


I'd suggest you try reading a few books (check your local library!) by Susan Forward: Toxic Parents and Emotional Blackmail. There are several others that are great to read, but those two should be easy and fast to get through and help you to see clearly what is going on and how to break that dysfunctional cycle.

This is NOT the same thing as helping out a relative that has had unexpected bad luck or a series of terrible things happen. Of course you'd be there for a friend or family member if you could. But in your parents' case, they are spoiled babies that need to stop being lazy regarding their spending habits and make some hard choices about what is actually a want and what is a need. And they also need to learn that sometimes they don't get to have everything they want exactly when they want it just because they demanded it to be so. If they want to spend like they're rich, they themselves need to be RICH. Simple as that.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: former player on March 19, 2019, 06:48:48 AM
Here's a happy one -

So, my son said the word "rich" again at bedtime so I said to him, "there's that word 'rich' again, is this something that's been on your mind?  What does 'rich' mean to you?" 

"I dunno, like, a high income or a big bank account?"

"Well, a high income only goes so far . . . if you spend it all, then are you rich?  If you make $100,000 a year but save nothing, are you rich?  If your neighbor makes $50,000 but saves $25,000, is he richer?  It's not necessarily what you make but what you keep."

"Plus taxes," he said, "why do we need taxes?"

"Well, we need taxes to live in a civilized society, to have teachers, and police officers, and roads, military, libraries, all sorts of things.  But even after taxes, most people have the choice to save or to spend.  Some people don't really make enough to save anything, but lots of people do, and they might spend it all and not have anything left.  So do you think that a high income is what makes you rich?"

"Or a big bank account?  How much is in your bank account?"  (This one he asked while half-hiding his face.)

"We have enough.  We have enough to own our own home that no bank can ever take away from us, we have enough to pay our bills and never have our lights turned off and always have food in the house and clothes that fit us and we have enough to buy what we need whenever we need it.  Enough is as good as a feast.  We are, in fact, richer than 99% of humans who have ever lived!  We have wealth that others have only ever dreamed of.  Some people don't have a home, or don't have food every day, or clothes that they need.  We are very fortunate."

"Or, like, maybe a big fancy house?"

"A big fancy house, okay.  Well, if someone lives in a big fancy house but owes the bank lots of money because they had to borrow a lot to live there, do you think that person is richer than someone who lives in a smaller house but who owes no one anything?"

"So, like, you guys could buy a bigger house if you wanted to?"

"Yes, if we wanted to we could.  As you've no doubt heard me tell you before, I grew up in a big house, and I wanted to live in a small house when I grew up, and now I do.  A big house is too much trouble and work for me, plus you can lose things quite easily and then have to run up three flights of stairs to get something from the attic when you're down in the basement, and it's just a hassle, to my way of thinking.  So I'd rather not spend more money to get a bigger house.  That's not something your father and I value.  If someone else values that, that's their prerogative and I'm not saying it's wrong, it's just not what I want to do.  Same with cars.  You see a lot of expensive cars in Miami, and if that gives someone joy to spend their money that way, that's up to them, but I just see a car as a way to carry my family and me from here to there in relative comfort, so I don't want to put more money into cars."

"So, we are rich?"

"Yes, we're rich--rich in kisses!!" and I covered his face with kisses and he started to laugh.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: aspiringnomad on March 19, 2019, 08:24:19 PM
Here's a happy one -

So, my son said the word "rich" again at bedtime so I said to him, "there's that word 'rich' again, is this something that's been on your mind?  What does 'rich' mean to you?" 

"I dunno, like, a high income or a big bank account?"

"Well, a high income only goes so far . . . if you spend it all, then are you rich?  If you make $100,000 a year but save nothing, are you rich?  If your neighbor makes $50,000 but saves $25,000, is he richer?  It's not necessarily what you make but what you keep."

"Plus taxes," he said, "why do we need taxes?"

"Well, we need taxes to live in a civilized society, to have teachers, and police officers, and roads, military, libraries, all sorts of things.  But even after taxes, most people have the choice to save or to spend.  Some people don't really make enough to save anything, but lots of people do, and they might spend it all and not have anything left.  So do you think that a high income is what makes you rich?"

"Or a big bank account?  How much is in your bank account?"  (This one he asked while half-hiding his face.)

"We have enough.  We have enough to own our own home that no bank can ever take away from us, we have enough to pay our bills and never have our lights turned off and always have food in the house and clothes that fit us and we have enough to buy what we need whenever we need it.  Enough is as good as a feast.  We are, in fact, richer than 99% of humans who have ever lived!  We have wealth that others have only ever dreamed of.  Some people don't have a home, or don't have food every day, or clothes that they need.  We are very fortunate."

"Or, like, maybe a big fancy house?"

"A big fancy house, okay.  Well, if someone lives in a big fancy house but owes the bank lots of money because they had to borrow a lot to live there, do you think that person is richer than someone who lives in a smaller house but who owes no one anything?"

"So, like, you guys could buy a bigger house if you wanted to?"

"Yes, if we wanted to we could.  As you've no doubt heard me tell you before, I grew up in a big house, and I wanted to live in a small house when I grew up, and now I do.  A big house is too much trouble and work for me, plus you can lose things quite easily and then have to run up three flights of stairs to get something from the attic when you're down in the basement, and it's just a hassle, to my way of thinking.  So I'd rather not spend more money to get a bigger house.  That's not something your father and I value.  If someone else values that, that's their prerogative and I'm not saying it's wrong, it's just not what I want to do.  Same with cars.  You see a lot of expensive cars in Miami, and if that gives someone joy to spend their money that way, that's up to them, but I just see a car as a way to carry my family and me from here to there in relative comfort, so I don't want to put more money into cars."

"So, we are rich?"

"Yes, we're rich--rich in kisses!!" and I covered his face with kisses and he started to laugh.

Nice. Parent of the year nominee right there! Thanks for sharing :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: marty998 on April 05, 2019, 06:49:15 PM
I'll just leave this here on relationships and unconditional love.

Thank you @Frankies Girl.


Big, scary truth bomb here: there is no such thing as unconditional love in a healthy relationship. That is love beyond reasonable. That is loving a serial killer or abuser or someone that continually hurts you because "he's a good man when he's sober and not smacking me and the kids around" type of love. It twists things around and the fact that you can't take a step back and re-read what you've written here and seen how absolutely sick your entire relationship is... that is super scary.

Unconditional love is a desperate sort of romanticized love that means "you have to forgive me even when I act like a shit to you because you LOOVE me" - it is not real and it is not something to strive for in a mature relationship. At best it is what a parent might feel towards their child - but in a grown up mature relationship - you will always have conditions. Being treated like garbage and never being forgiven for a past mistake, or living sexless for the rest of your life unless she wants to have a kid should be hills to die on.

Just because you made some mistakes and she made some mistakes... so that makes you even/made for each other? No, it doesn't. This is not something you just settle for. You have great reservations, otherwise this wouldn't even be a think to question. LISTEN TO YOUR INNER VOICE.

That whole coming home to an empty house and stopping off to buy her food things and all the stuff you shared mutually over the years and it is just so scary to think about her not being there any more? That's fear of the unknown and being alone and feeling stupid for having invested so much time into this and the next step should just be getting married and popping out kids and ..... it's fear and loss of the familiar and comfortable. You are friends. You are comfortable together. That does NOT mean you are a good couple or should get married.

What you want is a true, deep, and abiding love that is a based on respect, on desire, and true affection and concern for the other person's wellbeing and happiness. It is kindness. It is forgiveness when asked for. It is support when one of you is hurting. It is being open and non-judgmental when someone makes a mistake. It is setting clear boundaries in what you and your partner need from each other and doing your damnedest to follow through with them. It is caring for your partner's needs as if they are your own.

Do you think your girlfriend is considering your feelings over all these years? Do you think it is right to be continually chastized and guilted for things you deeply regret and have apologized for over and over again? Is this how you want the rest of your life to be? Just okay, feeling neglected and sometimes very lonely in this relationship, but hey, at least she's someone to sit on the couch with or go out to dinner right? Warm body without any real connection/affection for the rest of your life - FTW!

It is not holding grudges forever and setting ultimatums. If you have something you want/need from your partner, it means talking through things without threats, or guilt, or "well, you OWE me" bullshit. You work things out and compromise, or you part ways with the understanding that as much as you loved each other, some things just should not be compromised on. Sex, having/not having kids, using a past mistake as a stick to beat you with forever, holding out the carrot of "maybe I'll sex you again if you marry me?" This is a hard line, absolute - dangerous, unhealthy, completely wrong and poisonous.

You've both been drinking the hemlock for so long, you don't realize there is any other way to be, and you're both too scared of leaving and the unknown out there to just make a clean break. And again - look up SUNK COST FALLACY. It applies to relationships too.

I'm gonna check out of this at this point because I think it likely you're not really wanting to do the hard stuff of leaving and starting over. That makes me sad. For the both of you. Because I have zero doubt that you're going to end up with a child or two and divorced and very, very bitter and depressed 5 years from now if not sooner. And it didn't have to be that way if you valued yourself AND HER enough to do the hard but very right thing and break up and get counseling to work through all this stuff so your next relationship could be beautiful.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Caroline PF on April 06, 2019, 07:13:59 PM
This post spoke to me. I love the big picture look at the FIREd life.

Reading these responses you'd think us retirees (early or not) do a lot of napping, cooking, and eating and you wouldn't be wrong! :)  Set out like this it could make our days seem pleasant but maybe a bit boring.

So then I thought about how I would have described one of my work days (and I really liked my work).  "Got up at 6. Breakfast, etc. Walked to transit (30 min), transit to work (30 min).  At work: made tea, opened email, handled anything urgent, planned meeting agenda for distribution, met with a small group of direct reports, met with my own boss, ate lunch at desk, had one-one meetings with a couple of reports, drafted a few CCE's (Carefully Crafted Emails) to other units, met a colleague for coffee, transit home (30 min), walked (30 min). Home, read a bit/watched TV, prepped and ate dinner, TV/web, read, bed.

Not very exciting and a lot of it not even very pleasant!  To get the full flavour of my work though, and why a lot of it was satisfying, I'd need to think in terms of annual or even multi-year achievements, e.g. hired and mentored excellent people, developed programs that made an impact, negotiated consensus on tricky issues for worthy ends, and so on.  The values were "work hard, have fun, do good" (Dilbert before Scott Adams went strange...)

So same thing for FIRE, the full flavour isn't in the details of the daily routine, it's in the values that are being expressed; health, family, friends, service, fun, learning, pleasure.   And this is how our daily details add up to something great!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Budgie on April 07, 2019, 08:28:48 PM
In the thread on "Our housing prices tripled, and new buyers don't blend into the community"


Here's a hint. People here generally don't like jokes about rape, even if you're being fun and flighty.

Sorry about that, you're right.  I was being careless with language there, I'll be more careful in the future.

Because it is lovely to see someone just acknowledge an error, state intent to do better, and move on. Thank you HBFIRE, for your graceful response.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Parizade on April 08, 2019, 11:18:33 AM
It's amazing how difficult people find honesty.  I don't mean this in a critical way, just that people often avoid conflict, which can often compound the original "problem." When my friend suggested an expensive restaurant few months ago, I suggested we pick something a commoner like myself could afford.  A good laugh was had and a more reasonable restaurant was suggested.  We had a great time.  Making light of it while still addressing the issue works well.
I thought this post was so simple, logical, useful and balanced.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Abe Froman on April 22, 2019, 12:29:05 PM

THIS one made it real simple - real fast. Thank you CindyBS for your reminder to everyone.

To me the real wealth that money brings has nothing to do with retiring early or buying or not buying some material good, but giving you the opportunity to do whatever is needed in a situation when your life falls apart.

Money gives you to choice to walk away from a job when you are being harassed or abused at work.  Money gives the opportunity to buy a last minute plane ticket and rush across the country when loved one has a stroke.  Money lets you leave an abusive relationship.  Money gives the last few months with your mom as she dies. Etc., etc., etc.

The day we found out my son had cancer (he's doing much, much better now), my world fell apart.  I never gave it a second thought that I would quit working and devote myself to saving him.  I never worried if we had enough to pay the bills, even as they were higher than ever.  I never worried we would lose the house, or get the car repo'd.  I never had to market my son as a product to gain sympathy and donations from others in order to survive.   Most of my frugal behaviors like home cooked meals went out the window when my singular focus was saving him.  Money bought me the ability to be the parent I needed to be at the moment my son needed me the most and not give a crap about anything else.   That is real wealth.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: APowers on April 22, 2019, 10:53:35 PM
Malkynn, batting 1000 with good insight into human nature, as usual:

OP, you sound exhausted.

Working takes energy, doing work you don't enjoy takes orders of magnitude more energy, studying takes energy, studying while tired takes energy you don't even have, basic adulting takes energy, having fun takes energy, and dealing with a chronic illness takes an ENORMOUS amount of energy.

Something has to give before you will have the capacity to really enjoy life. You need a surplus of psychological and/or physical energy in order to be mentally healthy and happy.
Living in survival mode/ "reserve mode' just isn't fun, and there's really no way to make it fun either. Being physically and emotionally perpetually overdrawn is simply toxic.

A balanced life involves a combination of activities that simultaneously drain and generate energy. A long hard day of challenging work partially drains physical and focus energy, but fuels the satisfaction and excitement energies. However, if you enter into a long and hard work day with too little physical and focus energy, you can't recharge anything and operate only on "reserve mode".

In "reserve mode" you never recharge any energy. This makes all "down time" reserved for sitting the fuck down and doing nothing, which replenishes the baseline energy reserves just enough to maintain "reserve mode", but never lets you reenergize enough to get back up to full capacity. It's why hobbies and socializing are draining and feel like work.

It's like always using your phone in "power save" mode where you never actually get to use your phone's best features. Sure, you can make a call, but what's a smart phone without the capacity to stream cat videos??

As a result, you are living a hollow shell of a life never getting to experience the world in its full colour. You are living perpetually in grey-scale. You can't even know what would make you happy because you've never experienced having enough capacity to ever be overall happy.

We have this bizarre martyr culture where when we start failing due to lack of internal and external resources, we instinctively push ourselves harder, as if a lack of resources is a personal failing and not just a reality of our personal limitations.

It's like someone who runs a marathon being disappointed with their time because they weren't rested enough, so they immediately start running it again right then and there under the premise that if they just try harder that they will go faster, even though they're infinitely more exhausted than when they woke up.

It's illogical. Yet, it's what most people instinctively do.

You look at your lower grades and think of how you should "punish" yourself with harsher study practices. Meanwhile, knowing that you are perfectly capable of performing better, you could look at those grades as a warning sign that you are using up too much of your available resources, and that pushing yourself harder is actually the least efficient option available.

If a shortage of resources is the problem, then aiming to drain even more of those precious resources without cutting back somewhere else is probably the worst move.

You're not wrong, you really aren't living and you can feel it. You are surviving. Survival mode is not living, it's the psychological equivalent of eating only meal replacement shakes. Sure, you will survive, but you aren't eating and enjoying food the way others do. It's not the same experience.

Personally, I consider living in survival mode to be a state of emergency. I think knuckling-down is the worst possible response in that state unless it's absolutely necessary for your literal survival.

Just like financial debt is a hair-on-fire situation, energy debt is an even bigger HAIR-ON-FUCKING-FIRE situation.

Practicing gratitude is one thing, but being complicit in your own self torture is another. If you have any other options available to you to start living a better life, then being grateful for a suboptimal life is nonsense.

Aiming to maintain this state for 12 long years until you can FIRE at 40 sounds insane and self destructive to me. I recommend looking at your life right now and seeing where you can make more space for yourself.

Realistically evaluate your own capacity and try to operate within it. Could you reduce your work load while studying?
Could you quit working altogether and finish school full time?

I'm not actually asking you these questions to answer, I'm posing them as the types of questions you can ask yourself to push yourself out of the parameters that you have likely set for yourself as givens in this current situation. Meanwhile almost nothing is ever actually a given.

Life is a series of trade offs and if your current trades aren't producing happiness, they might be bad deals for YOU.

Just because you *can* do everything, doesn't mean you should and doesn't mean it's the smart or right thing to do. A radical change in plans might be worth considering.

I guarantee you, life will never put external pressure on you to be happy and healthy, so the only pressure to defend your own well being will only ever come from yourself. So if you aren't putting pressure on yourself to protect your own health and happiness, no one will. The only way you can ever truly fail yourself is to not care enough about your own well being.

The most powerful question anyone has ever asked me is : "whose job do you think it is to make sure that your life is a good one?


When people are depleted, almost nothing is fun, and certainly nothing recharges them enough to be able to fully enjoy anything.

Relaxing at home feels like a reasonable facsimile of "fun" when you are exhausted because of the absence of obligation for a period of time, but it's really just a basic recharge of the batteries.

The absence of suffering is not happiness. Happiness, joy, having fun, doing activities, self care, they all take energy.

Everyone has a different capacity and different resources. For someone who has some remaining energy on top of work, adding self care activities is rejuvenating because it uses a small amount of a certain type of energy while intensely recharging other types.

It's the same way that exercise is energizing even though it takes energy to do.

Someone on empty doesn't have the energy to invest in energizing activities, so adding them just feels like more work. Everything feels like work. Existing feels like work, sleeping feels like work, just feeling exhausted feels like work.

Once someone hits that level of empty, there's literally nothing that can be added to their life to add energy, everything is a net energy drain. Even therapy tends to require way too much energy.

The only answer in that state is to take something away reduce the demands on the grid and let it recover from the perpetual brown-out that it's been stuck in.

People can be so deep in energy debt that offering them a free all inclusive beach vacation would be a burden to them and they would only be able to accept if they were allowed an addition week off after returning in order to recover from the demands on traveling.

I only know what OP has shared, but their grim view of their life up to this point as being a vague collection of hard work spells out a pretty clear picture of someone who's energy stores have not been full, possibly ever in their life.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Playing with Fire UK on April 28, 2019, 01:49:40 AM
@Malkynn  How did you get to the point of consciously changing your perception?

I am very much struggling with wishing for things in the future and not able to enjoy day to day life as much but can't seem to change.

It's just about making it a top priority.

The problem is that most people don't understand priorities.
Most people think making something a priority means cramming into their existing life by willpower or force.

Like exercise, most people try to willpower themselves to exercise after work, on top of everything else they are already trying to accomplish. It doesn't work because they're not actually prioritizing it over anything else, they're trying to allot extra resources to it that they don't have.

Making something a priority means putting it first and adjusting your *entire life* around it and allotting your resources accordingly.

I now believe that if you aren't happy with your present, you had better have a damn good reason for it: finishing med school, battling cancer, bouncing back from a major business failure, going through a divorce, etc, etc.
Y'know, shit that really throws you for a loop and can take several years to manage.

If you are relatively able bodied, remotely intelligent, and have even a smidge of discipline, you should be able to generate a fulfilling life.

If you aren't...maybe you need to re-evaluate not just your plan, but also your priorities.

If your plan is based solely on the priority of making your future self happy, then you have a glaringly obvious culprit as to why you aren't happy in the present.
You CHOSE not to be. You chose a life and balance of priorities that puts future you ahead of present you.

The biggest problem with choosing future happiness over current happiness is that the more you do it, the more you train yourself to only consider your future self.

You train yourself to devalue your current happiness, which isn't healthy. If you do it long enough, it becomes very hard to stop.

When is enough? When is future-you allowed to be now-you?

It will ALWAYS seem more beneficial to prioritize future-you. It will always seem wiser, more mature, admirable, advisable, and praise-worthy.
Except it's not. In fact, it's pretty fucking pathological actually.


Delayed gratification is wise compared to self-destructive self-indulgence, but that's VERY different from prioritizing present happiness, and that's the part that most people get confused about. We're taught as kids the value of not giving into our short term drives, only NO ONE teaches us about how hard it is to be happy.

People assume happiness is a passive state that occurs when there's an absence of barriers to said happiness.
"I'll be happy when I graduate", "I'll be happy when I have FU money", "I'll be happy when I retire", "I'll be happy when I lose the weight", "I'll be happy when my kid gets into college and I no longer have to worry about all of these extra curriculars", etc, etc.

Happiness is like physical fitness, it takes work every day to maintain it. An obese person who loses weight isn't suddenly fit. They're not obese anymore, which is great, but they still need to exercise in order to get fit.

Happiness is the same. You can remove barriers to make it a lot easier to be happy, but you still have to put in the daily work and make it a daily priority.

So again, if happiness *today* isn't your priority, then how on earth do you expect to be happy in the future? And when exactly will it be appropriate to start working on it?

Your life will never be perfect, you will always have stressed and obligations and retirement won't fix that for you. A certain net worth won't fix that for you.

So you feel like you want to focus on happiness today but you "can't". Well, of course you can't, your priorities and plans probably don't align at all with generating present happiness.

Look carefully at your life choices and your priorities. I bet most of them are future-focused and by design they put your current happiness on the back burner. And don't forget, that that's a choice that you made for yourself.

If you want it to be different, you have ALL of the power to decide to have different priorities. But understand what that means. Understand that that means completely rearranging your entire life around a new priority, not just really wishing things were different and continuing on in the exact same pattern you always have.

The craziest thing about prioritizing present happiness is that it often correlates with higher future happiness as well. People like me and MMM himself have learned though experience that amazing doors open up when you focus on living your best life.

I chose to significantly cut back in my career in order to focus on mental health and happiness, and a few years later, my career has exploded in ways I could never have imagined, because I've focused only on projects that I enjoy and ferociously defended myself against work I don't enjoy.

As a result, my future self actually has a much cushier life than what was initially planned back when my future self was my top priority.

My last note on this very long essay of a post is that focusing on my present happiness has made me much more insightful as to what my future self might actually want.

It's shocking to realize that if you aren't already happy, it's extremely difficult to anticipate what a happy future-you really cares about. It's been eye opening getting to know my happy self and alarming to find that her priorities are WAY OFF what I thought they were back when I was unhappy.

ETA: sorry for the length, I've had way too much coffee this morning, lol

I'm still processing this. It's fantastically insightful. I've never considered that too much self-control and future focus can be harmful rather than admirable. Time to shake up my priorities to focus on now-me, thanks @Malkynn
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Metalcat on April 28, 2019, 04:46:33 AM

I'm still processing this. It's fantastically insightful. I've never considered that too much self-control and future focus can be harmful rather than admirable. Time to shake up my priorities to focus on now-me, thanks @Malkynn

Yeah...that was a goddamn paradigm shifter for me too.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dougules on May 01, 2019, 11:18:56 AM

I'm still processing this. It's fantastically insightful. I've never considered that too much self-control and future focus can be harmful rather than admirable. Time to shake up my priorities to focus on now-me, thanks @Malkynn

Yeah...that was a goddamn paradigm shifter for me too.

Wow.  This really solidified something already kind of had a very vague notion of.  Well-put. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mm1970 on May 01, 2019, 01:27:14 PM
Quote
I chose to significantly cut back in my career in order to focus on mental health and happiness, and a few years later, my career has exploded in ways I could never have imagined, because I've focused only on projects that I enjoy and ferociously defended myself against work I don't enjoy.

This is really something I need to think about.  I've done a *decent* job at making my job something that I enjoy.  Until the last month, when my boss has been forcefully jamming shit I hate down my throat, and taking away the things I enjoy.

OTOH, I have been focusing on my health and happiness OUTSIDE of work, and have been making work "work around" the rest of my life, as much as I can.

Similarly, one of the things I do for fun is run.  I'm training for a half marathon but I kind of just want to DO it for fun.  All the focus of the coach is on RACING and choosing RACE PACE and setting goals and ... I just want to finish?  And have fun?  And not die?  Which she doesn't like as a goal.  I've raced for time in the past and am just not feeling it right now.  Well, in the last week I've had an epiphany based on a couple of conversations where I said "can't I just ... run ?  And not race ?"  I finally got the YES answer from more than one person.  So yay.  (Including the coach, who mentioned she's RUNNING the race but not RACING.)   So my priorities in this case ... I'm not running so that future me can get a PR or be more fit or whatever.  I'm running because I WANT to and I want to enjoy it.

Such a good post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Tracyl-5 on May 01, 2019, 03:52:15 PM
Malkynn, batting 1000 with good insight into human nature, as usual

+1!
I recently stumbled across one of Malkynn's posts in the "how-do-you-motivate-yourself-to-work-1-000-more-days" thread, and realized I have some soul searching to do...  Had no idea about all the amazing gems of advice Malkynn has given out that I'm seeing here!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: APowers on May 01, 2019, 05:19:59 PM
Malkynn, batting 1000 with good insight into human nature, as usual

+1!
I recently stumbled across one of Malkynn's posts in the "how-do-you-motivate-yourself-to-work-1-000-more-days" thread, and realized I have some soul searching to do...  Had no idea about all the amazing gems of advice Malkynn has given out that I'm seeing here!

And that's *after* she deleted hundreds and hundreds of old posts which were also amazing.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on May 01, 2019, 07:11:10 PM
Malkynn, batting 1000 with good insight into human nature, as usual

+1!
I recently stumbled across one of Malkynn's posts in the "how-do-you-motivate-yourself-to-work-1-000-more-days" thread, and realized I have some soul searching to do...  Had no idea about all the amazing gems of advice Malkynn has given out that I'm seeing here!

And that's *after* she deleted hundreds and hundreds of old posts which were also amazing.
WTF? Why did she do that? I love Malkyn's writing! Boo-hoo!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Metalcat on May 02, 2019, 03:21:34 AM
Malkynn, batting 1000 with good insight into human nature, as usual

+1!
I recently stumbled across one of Malkynn's posts in the "how-do-you-motivate-yourself-to-work-1-000-more-days" thread, and realized I have some soul searching to do...  Had no idea about all the amazing gems of advice Malkynn has given out that I'm seeing here!

And that's *after* she deleted hundreds and hundreds of old posts which were also amazing.
WTF? Why did she do that? I love Malkyn's writing! Boo-hoo!

Creepy shit happens online sometimes.
It's all good, I'm fine.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on May 02, 2019, 05:45:34 AM
Friendly reminder to all:

This thread is a repository to all the 'Best Posts' made in these forums.  If you wish to comment on the subject or poster, please do so in the relevant thread.  You can find the thread by clicking on the "Quote from: XXXX on XXX....."

Thank you :-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on May 07, 2019, 05:32:37 AM
This is amazingly helpful:
I wish there were a way to see all my posts on just this topic.  Because I have more I want to contribute, but I think I may have already said them.  :(

Use the print view: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/wordsphrases-i-wish-would-go-away/?action=printpage

And then hit control+f and search for "Post by: BlueHouse"

I see 22 of them.

10-20 seconds per post, I estimate it'll take you 5-10 minutes to read through them all.
Maybe we could have a sticky thread for Forum Tips & Tricks?

Friendly reminder to all:

This thread is a repository to all the 'Best Posts' made in these forums.  If you wish to comment on the subject or poster, please do so in the relevant thread.  You can find the thread by clicking on the "Quote from: XXXX on XXX....."

Thank you :-)
Nereo, I understand your point and agree with you in general, but I'm not going to apologize for expressing concern for a beloved member. And  Malkynn's reminder to be careful with personal information is relevant everywhere :-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DadJokes on May 08, 2019, 09:18:38 AM
What if you lose your job and have no household income? What happens if you then develop a health problem related to stress about that?

Your argument made a lot more sense a decade ago than it does today.  Today, I've already won the game using a buy and hold strategy, and I no longer care about market fluctuations.

Like basically every mustachian who started saving 60% or more of their income during the great recession, I have long since passed the 25x expenses threshold.  I FIRED by buying every month even while people like you told me to wait, and now my investments can provide my income even in the face of another great recession.

Every single early retire like me is proof positive that the mustachian investing mindset works.  Hundreds of forum members have used it to reach FIRE.  By ignoring the doubters and the naysayers, we have made ourselves financially invulnerable to market moves.  So the entire premise of "well, what if prices go down" no longer concerns us.  We're not looking to time the market now, and we got here by not looking to time the market over the past decade.

So I am not worried about losing my job.  I already gave it away, and it was one of the best things I have ever done.  I am also not worried about the stress if having no job, because it turns out that being retired is about the least stressful thing you can do with your life.  You too could be early retired right along with me, if only you had started saving the majority of your paycheck in 2008, every week, instead of holding cash waiting for your dry powder moment.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BicycleB on May 23, 2019, 11:24:02 PM
@1WattLightbulb posted an article about a fantastic idea: attaching a horizontal pool noodle to the back of your bike. This could save lives. Wow!!

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/article-why-every-cyclist-needs-a-pool-noodle/msg2378483/#msg2378483
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on June 06, 2019, 07:04:09 AM
Another winner from @Malkynn...

This is the MMM forum, not the Marxism 101 and Income Disparity Discussion forum. You may have come to the wrong place.

You're still new here, this is actually a totally normal direction for this thread to go in on this forum.

Interesting, and unfortunate!

Not really...

Threads go off into all sorts of directions that involve discussion of greater societal impacts of our personal life decisions. 

Again, you're new here, so you haven't participated in the same few dozen thread topics that pop up in various forms over and over and over and over.

Do I agree with what everyone says, of course not, but I am happy they participate and keep things interesting.

You will get used to it.
Debates are repetitive, criticisms get very personal, if there's a thread about anything to do with spousal problems a large number of people will jump immediately to telling the OP to break up/get divorced, threads that go political are generally a lost cause, the word "strawman" probably appears in more posts than the word "money", and literally any spending can be simultaneously lauded and maligned with equal intensity, and there are a lot of inside jokes hidden in a lot of threads.

This place is what it is, and within the noise is some absolute brilliance and an astronomical amount of valuable knowledge and resource.

For me, the benefit of participating in a thread like this is not to defend my own position, but to voluntarily expose myself to the arguments around it, because I find it healthy to have my own spending justifications challenged regularly, or even better, to see my position supported in ways that give me pause by posters I regularly disagree with.

Nothing makes you question a position more than thinking "hell yeah!" to a response and then looking at the poster's name and reacting "what the fucking fuck?"

If the thread goes into larger and unexpected territories, all the better for contemplation.

I felt good about hiring my cleaner because she was a young woman starting her own business and charging a non-minimum wage rate.

However, I don't mind reflecting on why I make so much more than she does, why my time is valued so much higher, and if I'm fundamentally okay with that disparity...and why.

If you come here just to be right, you will burn out pretty quickly. You cannot win threads here, you cannot win debates, there will always be someone who is either too stubborn or willing to take the argument into whacky directions.

I've come to love it as a feature of this place instead of be frustrated by it, because at the end of the day, we're really just talking about the same damn few subjects over and over and over where the ultimate conclusion is: well, it depends on your personal decision.

So really, this place can either be ridiculous, entertaining, and regularly brilliant, or it can be sane and fucking dull.

So no, as a very active member here myself, I don't think it's unfortunate at all.

[Obviously for those watching closely, the whole point of my post was to write something long and tangential as a self referential joke to entertain myself because I'm really not all that concerned about what anyone thinks of this place and I'm finding it slow this morning and I don't feel like working yet ;) ]
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: bbates728 on June 06, 2019, 04:43:30 PM
@MonkeyJenga had a great line today in response to a claim that FIRE-types are typically type A personalities.

I got to FIRE because I was too lazy to buy things. Retirement suits me.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MonkeyJenga on June 06, 2019, 11:46:10 PM
Fitting that my laziest post ever gets me into this thread. :D
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dougules on June 07, 2019, 11:29:37 AM
Fitting that my laziest post ever gets me into this thread. :D

Is this the shortest post to have made it into this thread?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: markbike528CBX on June 07, 2019, 04:35:05 PM
Fitting that my laziest post ever gets me into this thread. :D

Is this the shortest post to have made it into this thread?

No :-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on June 25, 2019, 12:40:32 AM
About getting a job offered elsewhere for someone who is stuck in a relationship that leads nowhere.

Oh for fuck's sake.

Dude. This is not running away from your problems. This is SOLVING YOUR PROBLEMS. This is the literal definition of the perfect answer to everything you've been not dealing with. Your horribly messed-up sexless relationship, your passivity and acceptance of playing the role of martyr, your dead-end job that isn't using your skills or challenging your intelligence or offering you a single rung up the ladder for advancement let alone reasonable pay, a change of scene, a chance to move to someplace where you already have friends and support system there and willing to give you a place to live and help you out and be social with you... great zombie jesus, do you want them to bake you a plate of cookies and give you a back massage in addition before you wake up and see this is the kind of opportunity that most people would kill for? This is the fucking Deus ex machina divine intervention that silly/great movie plots hinge on - you're not possibly going to pass this up are you?

Running away from your problems is EXACTLY WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST 7 YEARS. Despite the verb "running" indicating action, you've spent your entire relationship avoiding that giant Very Insanely Big Mess that is your romantic relationship. You've hidden from it, you've avoided it, you've bent yourself into stupid painful shapes pretending that everything is just fine, this is normal, stuff like this is totally okay and you are now numb and distanced from living a real, in living color and with all the amazing colors and sounds and feelings out there... because you've spent the time RUNNING AWAY FROM DEALING WITH IT.

Moving and taking this job is literally whatever higher power/deity/karma/clockwork that you may believe in handing you your golden ticket. This is your out. And it's "easy" like something easy is necessarily a bad thing? Who the fuck cares if it's easy - not that I think it is since we're talking uprooting your entire life and moving to someplace you never even considered before - but if you think this is easy, even better! You've been handed pretty-awful and stuffing down your wants/needs for years... you've earned "easy" at this point!

Do NOT let your girlfriend's pessimism and lack of support blind you to the fact that this is AMAZING opportunity. She is not considering you at all here (again). She is only concerned for her own self - she is selfish and self-centered and needs to grow up. I still don't think she's doing any of this intentionally, but until she gets her own head straight, she isn't fit to be in a relationship... and you are exactly the same. Sad thing is, you need to grow up too, and neither one of you are going to do any growing or maturing or working towards being really content/happy if you stay together. You need to leave. Hell, if you are that nervous, don't sell and just rent the house out, and promise yourself that if you hate San Antonio you can come back there in a year. But GO and commit to doing your damnest to having fun, growing up and work on you.

San Antonio is actually a pretty nifty place - GREAT food, fun stuff to do - amusement parks, sports, nature/state parks, RIVERWALK and FIESTA for the crazy party stuff, lovely people for the most part, museums, beautiful, old world buildings and lots of cool stuff a 20-something guy should be REALLY happy to experience. I personally think San Antonio is one of the best cities in Texas - I'm a transplant myself in one of the not so great cities - but I honestly can't see living anywhere else despite the slightly annoying "crazy Texan" personas you'll meet down here (they put the flag/lone star stuff on EVERYTHING. You'll be fine tho, promise). Heat sucks, but it's pretty nice in the winter months and just wear sunscreen/hats/drink lots of water and get in the shade or A/C if you start feeling too hot. Or go swimming. Or river tubing, or the many waterparks...

Just try it. Even if you hate it, give it one year. You get some space to find who you really are without being tied down to someone that was happy to cripple you emotionally/physically and get some great job and living experience and have the safety net of friends in the area.

Break up with your girlfriend, give her a few weeks to move out, then either put the house up for sale or rent it out. Do NOT contact your old girlfriend and make sure to block her on social media/phone. Do not call her/text/message her. Move to San Antonio and take that job. Date LOTS of different people. Do NOT start any new relationships other than casual stuff (no exclusive dating) for at least 6 months to a year. Get a counselor to work through the relationship stuff and your self worth and confidence.

You are worth more than what you are getting now - both in your career and in your relationship - please don't pass this opportunity up. Someone out there throwing you a lifeline while you're drowning. Just grab onto that rope and don't look back.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: fuzzy math on June 30, 2019, 06:44:32 AM
In response to someone complaining that low wage workers are lazy and call in sick a lot


Seriously have you ever set foot in any Megacorp at all?

I work for one. No, the 6-figure incomes don't call in sick a lot because their bonus payment depends on it. Instead they call in to say they work from home today or close the door to their office the entire day so nobody knows what they're really doing.

The blue collar workers that we employ, when we are not satisfied with their work we fire them. The white collar workers just get promoted to a different department or are at worst suspended with full pay for 6 months so they can find another job.

Yes, our blue collar workers sometimes don't show up in time or are rude, but on the other hand we time their bathroom breaks and make them work in the heat during summer and in the freezing cold during winter, we let the bosses yell at them. Often blue collar workers are treated with such contempt that it's no wonder they retaliate by breaking the rules. I'm not talking specifically about my current employer but my general experience from my own minimum wage jobs and how I now hear leadership talk about workers. No one has yelled at me anymore since I got my degree.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: marty998 on July 05, 2019, 02:37:36 AM
I like this. Speaks for itself really.

A good policy is to never lend money to anyone whose knees you would be uncomfortable breaking.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ElleFiji on July 05, 2019, 08:07:09 AM
@Allie has a delightful post yesterday (ARS had one that came in second), but both are lost in the ether.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: bbates728 on July 05, 2019, 09:16:36 AM
@Allie has a delightful post yesterday (ARS had one that came in second), but both are lost in the ether.

Any hint as to the overall message in their posts?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ElleFiji on July 05, 2019, 09:35:12 AM
@Allie has a delightful post yesterday (ARS had one that came in second), but both are lost in the ether.

Any hint as to the overall message in their posts?
The stand out piece for me was "in case you're wondering, and I don't think you ever would, my summer is going great" in response to a banned poster who'd tagged her with the intent to start an argument.

ARS was less pithy, but did a good job of reminding the poster that the new account was welcome to discuss on topic topics
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: former player on July 09, 2019, 01:14:39 PM
Could anyone put this better?  I don't think so.
TL;DR - talk to your wife early and often. Make a plan that is right for both of you.

Wife is 100% on board and has full disclosure. Her visibility of our financial situation is also 100% mostly because I tell her regularly what our investments are and what our net worth is. She probably would be ok with less information.

Once a month she signs into her 401k for the monthly net worth spreadsheet update. She likes the Race To $$$ thread, she calls it “the ranker.” She also asks me, “how is the stock market today?” Not because she cares, but because she wants to humor me.

Back in January she was concerned about the stock market collapse everyone was talking about at her office (she works at a financial publication). She asked if we should sell. I assured her I was buying as much as I could and will not sell unless we run out of grocery money. She trusts me to make the right call.

Left on her own she would probably stash in a savings account and eventually buy real estate when she had enough to pay cash. She doesn’t know about stocks and doesn’t care to learn. She also is very debt adverse. To accommodate this we keep a decent cash cushion, not because I think we should, but because it makes her feel secure. I am also 100% planning on trading my taxable account for a multi family when possible. Again, not because I think real estate is superior, but because it’s something that interest her and will make her feel secure.

It’s all about finding a path you can both walk together. Make compromises, be transparent, offer to educate her, and accept if she doesn’t want to be educated. Build her trust in your ability to provide and you will be able to do whatever you think is best openly. Secrets can only work to break down her trust and cause problems for you in the future.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Gerard on July 10, 2019, 07:31:00 AM
Once you start to disengage from the default way of life by driving less, living closer to everything you need, downsizing your too-big house . . . it seems so obvious that it's an interlocking, or mutually reinforcing, set of "needs" the keeps people mortgage-poor, car-poor, stuck in traffic jams on the way to Costco and IKEA to fill up the big house . . . . and on and on. (Because I NEED the car to get to work from the big house which I NEED to relax because of my hard work and commute, which I NEED to do because big houses cost too much close to work, where I NEED to work to earn enough to pay for the car and the house, oh and the suits, which I NEED to keep the job to pay for the car . . . and the PARKING . . .)

Step away from the default way of life. Put down the car keys. Sell the lawnmower. Get a bike and a library card. Your soul will thank you.

Or as I saw it expressed in an article about Japanese salarymen years ago, "I take a train to a job I hate to pay for the train it takes me to get there."

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on July 19, 2019, 02:25:47 PM
On a post about moving closer to work but paying more, Walt made a very succinct observation:

I think using a percentage makes sense, but only if you include *all* of the costs of the house. You can buy a cheap run-down house far away from work/play/school that will end up making you poor. You can buy an expensive well maintained house close to everything and do much better.

The main point is: commuting costs *are* housing costs (both the gas and vehicle maintenance, and your time/health). The bank might not think of it that way, but you should.


-W
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Basenji on July 19, 2019, 03:39:12 PM
@tyort1 on minimalism and keeping things that make you very happy

Here's what happened - the impact of the single awesome lamp was actually increased because it didn't have all the other "sort of nice" lamps taking away from it's awesomeness.  It stood out even more BECAUSE it was alone. 

So the moral for me - even if you have lots of nice things, the beauty/impact of them is hugely impaired when you have too many of them.  Thus, I keep ONLY the very, very, very NICEST things and get rid of all the other stuff that's merely "good".

Now, to bring this back to cards and papers - I take the same approach.  I only want to keep the things that have the MOST impact, and bring me the MOST happiness.  IME, those things are actually pretty easy for me to identify!  So I sort those out of the pile first and put them in the "You won't even get this out of my cold, dead hands" box.  Those things are the things I cherish the most and they are sacred. 

The other stuff that makes me "sort of" happy, I toss all that.  Because I don't want the "pretty good" memories to take up any of my headspace and thus distract me from the "super awesome" stuff that I really cherish. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: zolotiyeruki on July 23, 2019, 08:41:50 AM
From the "Are we rich or poor?" Thread:
This is one major reason why I won't go to my sister for celebrating the local version of christmas. She gets her kids a bag full of crap with a few expensive toys. My kids get 1 thing, each, paid for by Grandma.

The irritating thing is that when we did participate, she would buy gifts for my kids because she couldn't explain to hers why mine only got one gift. I don't get why her kids wouldn't understand it (8 and 9 at the time) but I think it's mostly because my choices don't match hers and she simply cannot explain because she doesn't get it herself.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: AlanStache on July 26, 2019, 08:17:09 AM
following
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Hirondelle on July 27, 2019, 07:17:17 AM
BicycleB having some wise moments and giving the best overview of mustachianism that I've ever seen:


What about when money DOES buy happiness, especially the aspect of where does Original Standard Mustachianism overlap with True Happiness as advertised, and where does it not. Spent half the morning discussing that topic with a buddy, who recently read his fill of MMM's posts in one giant sitting. Our joint tentative conclusion, shared for perspective and discussion, not as recommendation for any one person's life:

1. MMM's prescriptions in totality are a perfect system...for some people, of whom MMM himself is one.
2. Most of his stuff relates to many people, but most people are justly going to pick and choose what to apply and how, because everyone is different.
3. The early stage of the forums included many participants for whom the whole package worked really well, so many first wave forum members did the whole deal - optimized house insulation, frequent bike rides to work, engineer level DIY, producing serious thrift as the engine towards seriously early and perhaps very active retirement from cube jobs. I aspire to their level of action, but am not there myself.
4. My personal theory is that #3 occured as a simple result of search and ad sorting algorithms doing their job properly. The people most like MMM found him first, boom done. The forum didn't start with holy saints and then suffer a fall into modern lazy slacking because society declines or forum newbies are sucky lame asses, it started with full clones (no offense, my dear eco-heroes) and only drew in us half cases later.
5. Forgive my digression in #4 from the topic...it's meant to illustrate and support, but if you disagree, forgive me; return to the main point. Which I shall do momentarily, but in the second wave, the blog's growing numbers brought it to mainstream attention, bringing in the second wave. This is people who love some aspects, such as FI or finding happiness, but are not as predisposed to find happiness in bicycle pedals, swinging hammers, hanging laundry to dry, or in your case OP, cooking. Some will do particular things, but in the new wave, more of us have some exclusions from the Full Mustache Template.
6. In short, there's a spectrum of where happiness is, and where money can buy it.
7. I do think that MMM's ideas about Stoicism, hedonic adapatation and the like have value.
8. I'm still pondering when to apply them in my life and when not to try.
9. We each get to explore that for ourselves.
10. I am glad you have chanced into a happy medium. Enjoy it as long as it works for you!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ErrantVenture on July 30, 2019, 08:17:16 PM
Unless you were kidnapped and forced into slave labor, an bad employment contract is by your choice and by your fault to a great extent. Staying longer than you like and sacrificing your ethics and work morale just for the paycheck (or maybe for your children's sake or what not) demonstrates that you were probably not worth hiring in the first place.
When I was a college student working as a waitress, I thought it was so much fun!  I couldn't understand how or why the older servers had such negative attitudes or allowed the random bad customer to get under their skin.  Then I realized that the difference in attitudes was because I had choices in my life.  I was in college, working toward any number of better opportunities.  The older servers were single moms or people with no education, struggling to pay the rent or a kid's medical bill.  Not a lot of choice for them. 
While I'm sure you treat your employees with respect and dignity, not everyone does.  And it often seems that those who supervise the people with fewer choices are sometimes complete jerks. 

As I write this, I am remembering a certain Labor Day weekend where the restaurant manager tried to strong-arm me into working a single shift in the middle of the weekend, despite me giving notice weeks in advance that I wouldn't work that weekend.  I was able to say "no thanks" with the knowledge that it could get me sacked.  It didn't, but it did force the lady with kids to cancel her plans to cover the shifts.
 
Education or savings or plans = options=choice

Reading through the Epic FU money thread. It's instructive.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: markbike528CBX on July 31, 2019, 12:19:31 AM
While a doomsday prognostication will eventually be correct the following threads show how they can be wrong.
The logical bases of the threads are often identical to new threads. So you can judge the likelyhood of truth of current threads by the fact that prior threads have been wrong.

1/2013  [SP500 = 1462]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/is-now-a-bad-time-to-invest-in-stock-index-funds/
5/2013  [1583]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/starting-today!/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/$80k-sitting-in-cash-bc-scared-of-high-flying-stock-mkt-punch-me/ (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/$80k-sitting-in-cash-bc-scared-of-high-flying-stock-mkt-punch-me/)
10/2013  [1695]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stock-market-expensive-now-alternatives/
5/2014  [1884]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stock-market-is-high-am-i-too-late/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/is-the-stock-market-too-expensive-to-get-back-in/
7/2014  [1973]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/current-market-has-me-scared-to-invest/
9/2014  [2002]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/is-it-a-good-time-to-invest-new-money/
10/2014  [1946]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/stock-market-would-you-buy-now-or-wait/
1/2015  [2058]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stock-market-should-i-be-concerned/
3/2015  [2117]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/talk-me-out-of-timing-the-australian-market/
12/2015  [2103]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/where-to-put-a-large-windfall-with-stock-market-near-all-time-highs/
1/2016  [2013]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/about-to-sell-everything-talk-me-off-the-ledge-(or-push-me-off)-please!/
2/2017  [2280]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/does-anyone-think-we-are-in-a-bubble/
4/2017  [2359]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/top-is-in/
6/2017  [2430]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/continue-the-blog-conversation/recession-coming/
8/2017  [2476]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/getting-scared-of-stock-market/
1/2018  [2696]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/nervous-about-the-market/
3/2018  [2678]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/when-would-you-get-back-in/
5/2018  [2655]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/investing-in-a-bull-market/
6/2018  [2735]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/moving-to-cash-market-timing-can%27t-believe-it/
10/2018  [2925]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/sell-index-funds-now-for-down-payment-during-recession/
2/2019  [2707]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/welp-i'm-going-to-take-a-stab-at-timing-the-market/
4/2019  [2867]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/buy-vtsax-now-while-its-this-high-or-wait-till-a-drop/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/how-concerned-are-you-about-the-everything-bubble/
5/2019  [2924]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/scared-of-investing-in-the-stock-market-now/
6/2019  [2890]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/uk-tax-discussion/global-index-tracker-is-so-high!-do-i-just-keep-putting-my-money-into-it-anyway/
7/2019 [3026]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/would-you-106836/

Miscellaneous
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/%27but-right-now-the-market-is-at-an-all-time-high-%27/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/the-great-market-crash-of-2016!/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/how-to-deal-with-losing-$117k-in-stock-market/ (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/how-to-deal-with-losing-$117k-in-stock-market/)
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/anyone-else-feeling-depressed-about-global-equities-10-year-outlook/
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stocks-will-only-return-4-annually-for-next-decade-john-bogle/

Found at https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/would-you-106836/
and represents a S$&@@load of work by @RWD, THANKS!!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Loren Ver on July 31, 2019, 07:29:39 AM
That was a fun look through, thanks for posting.  :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DadJokes on July 31, 2019, 07:41:39 AM
You're amazing - thanks for posting all of these.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RWD on July 31, 2019, 07:46:04 AM
While a doomsday prognostication will eventually be correct the following threads show how they can be wrong.
The logical bases of the threads are often identical to new threads. So you can judge the likelyhood of truth of current threads by the fact that prior threads have been wrong.

1/2013  [SP500 = 1462]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/is-now-a-bad-time-to-invest-in-stock-index-funds/
[...]
7/2019 [3026]
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/would-you-106836/

Found at https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/would-you-106836/
and represents a S$&@@load of work by @RWD, THANKS!!
That was a fun look through, thanks for posting.  :)
You're amazing - thanks for posting all of these.

Welcome! I just got tired of seeing the same thread over and over again so I decided to make that compilation. I'm sure there will still be plenty more in the future too. And of course since a thread pops up every month or so one will eventually coincide with a crash, but not because of brilliant market timing.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Brother Esau on July 31, 2019, 08:02:56 AM
Top is in!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Brokenreign on August 01, 2019, 09:07:11 AM
Hopefully I did this right....really enjoyed this post by wenchsenior:


Wow, this hits home. Right from the blog post.

"Then something strange happened.  In early 2012, I got a job that gave me a lot more free time.  It sounds great, but here’s the weird part:  After initially feeling much better, about a year after I started, I developed a mild case of depression."

[ADDED] - But after reading through 8 pages,  doesn't feel too familiar. It seems like Dr.Doom had a small number of challenges... I suspect that my therapy may last longer than 5 sessions, but who knows.  Maybe there's a lynchpin?

I think he had more than 5, he doesn't really even start working on the specific problems until he says appointments "5-6". But yes, his specific issues may well be different. I think the point I was trying to make is more that you're not alone in this, lots of people have issues when confronting middle age, retirement, and other massive life changes. Lord knows I do. Hang in there.

Yes, I do see that.

I have my first therapy next Wednesday and had an initial conversation with the therapist today.  I'm hopeful.

I was listening to the radio today and the announcer said something to the effect that Eminem turns 50 in only a few short years.

<blink><blink> No, that can't be true... He grew up in a trailer park with his mom... That was only a few years ago...

So yeah, still feeling like I literally blinked and all of a sudden, old, not young. It's almost like my brain is capable of time travel but can only seem to go forward and feel nostalgic about the past.

This is truly messing with me. I was at the dentist today...  Looked at the dental hygienist that 6 months ago I would consider being around my moms age... only... I realized that she was my age.....

W.....T.....F....???

Was watching American Beauty last night...  I'm the same age as Lester Burnham (played by Kevin Spacey) in the movie...  He makes a comment about how much the price of weed has gone up since 1973 (movie came out in 1999).  25 years...   The difference of 1973 to 1999 is the same as 1993 to 2019...  One timeline seems like ancient history...  the other seems just like yesterday.

Lester Burnham looks and acts like a grown up to me.  I much more relate to Paul Rudd in "This is 40." Perhaps it's a generational thing?

Mind...blown...   I didn't see this coming. Like a rabbit punch out of nowhere.

Kill me when I start wanting to decorate the home with "old person" paintings of a horse looking at a sunset over a barn.

Welcome to middle age LOL.  I kid (gently), but with real sympathy.   A couple years ago I realized that I was now older than the age of most of the celebrity 'sexy older men' crushes I had in my teens and 20s.  In fact, some of those crushes are DEAD now. 

Life seems to go faster and faster as we get older. I routinely now 'forget' an entire decade when trying to remember dates (it's like my brain just skips the 2000s...I will think: "Oh, that album came out about 15 years ago," when it will actually be 25 years ago). But of course, the 1990s stay vivid in my mind, it being the decade I was in college/having fun/becoming an an adult.  It seems more 'real' to me than the 2000s, in many ways.

I think this is very typical. Midlife crisis is a cliche for a reason.  The 40s are tough psychologically.  For those with kids, many of the kids are approaching college and getting ready to leave the nest.  Most of us are start to deal with the unpleasant realities of our parents' aging/health/financial issues, and sometimes need to restrict our own freedom to help them.  Time seems to rocket by, and yet we often have trouble engaging in/enjoying the moment we're in.  We've made a lot of crucial life decisions by our 40s, and therefore closed off a lot of life possibilities; this can be a shock when we realize it...it can make us feel trapped in a way we weren't in our youth when more options were still 'live'.  Women usually start perimenopause and are beginning to contemplate a future of actual menopause. Men's testosterone levels are dropping, which can lead to body changes and depression. 

Then there's the advent of health problems. My health also took a serious nosedive at age 40 (no more carefree assumptions that my body would just continue functioning as I took for granted for so long). My situation is unusually complex, but many people still deal with sudden realization of consequences of being overweight, or nagging injuries, bad diets, high cholesterol/blood pressure, etc., by their 40s. 

None of this should be a surprise to us: after all, evolutionarily speaking, humans are built to be 'done/cannon fodder' by their mid-40s, post reproductive prime.  But it still feels shocking, almost like we bought into a bad deal, or got scammed.

The good part is that for most people, the psychological turmoil associated with the 40s does ease off eventually, and can be actively worked through faster than that.  My husband (who is 9 years older) struggled with malaise in his 40s, and didn't really try to address it except by increasing his fitness level.  But since hitting his 50s he's been much calmer, happier, more mindful, and more emotionally resilient to the realities of his body and life.    I had all sorts of emotional turmoil from 40-45, as my body seemed to constantly betray me.  I wish I'd really started to attack my psychological state immediately, rather than waiting half of my 40s for things to just work themselves out (news flash: they didn't).  However, once I took the opportunity to try to learn new psychological coping tools (mostly based on mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy techniques), as well as starting to prioritize health/exercise, etc. more, things improved notably.  Now, in my late 40s, I feel more optimistic and (especially) resilient than at any time since my 20s. And that's a big deal b/c my baseline had long been to have relatively high anxiety and mild dysthymia.  It's also important b/c the challenges of the 40s are just the beginning of many similar challenges I am going to be facing as I age, assuming I'm lucky enough to live a long time.  And I need these new skills to cope with those inevitable challenges! 

Aging also gives perspective that can be really helpful. It helps you prioritize what's important in life.  It helps you communicate better and with a broader array of people.  E.g., I was recently thinking how much better I can connect to older people emotionally than I could just a few years ago.  No matter how empathetic I tried to be, my younger self couldn't directly relate to a lot of the issues that my older friends and relatives were dealing with. I hadn't lost friends and family, I was healthy, I wasn't grappling with life's disappointments as much.  But all of those are part of life, and now that I've had to deal with some of that myself, I can connect emotionally to an entire chunk of the population in a way I formerly couldn't. Conversely, when I'm doling out life advice to my husband's grad students, I now need to remind myself that they can't necessarily relate to everything I'm telling them, and I can understand why.  It will come to them in time, just as it did me.

I also am definitely much better now than I was in my 20s and 30s at just living in the moment, and appreciating the small things as well as the big things in life.

If I were you, I'd try to tackle this life stage as a crucial opportunity to learn new skills and try new things to actively improve your emotional well-being.  Make sure you don't have any obvious physical problems (e.g., thyroid imbalance) that might be exacerbating your mental state.  Try to absorb yourself in new projects or hobbies that give you a feeling of progress and accomplishment, etc.  Consider cbt therapy or mindfulness practice, etc.

It does get better, with some effort, for most people.  Though I should warn you, some of this mental disorientation never really leaves us.  My 75-year-old mother notes that she still 'feels mentally like she's a 35 year old woman, and has no idea who the hell that wrinkled old lady in the mirror is...sometimes can't even relate to that person at all'.   We just learn to accept it, hopefully with grace.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: former player on August 11, 2019, 12:47:55 AM
[…]

 It's better that they think you're crazy than to actually send yourself over the edge trying to be what they think is normal.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Cache_Stash on August 19, 2019, 08:06:26 AM
From the IPCC report thread: Kyle Schuant dropping the microphone


Quote from: Cache_Stash on October 09, 2018, 07:07:31 AM

    Population is the problem, not mankind's contribution to carbon dioxide in the air.


I have a friend who makes this argument. He is childless and his hobby is flying aircraft. It is perhaps possible that this is a self-serving argument.

It doesn't matter if what we do has an impact or not. "It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support." - your countryman Henry David Thoreau.

Now, what sort of lifestyle might we choose if we wished to wash our hands of personal contribution to climate change, and not to give it practically our support? I would suggest that many of the things we could do are things which would also help our finances and our personal health: stop flying, home and work closer to each-other and walk and cycle rather than drive, eat less junk food and meat, use less natural gas and electricity, and so on. If you care only about finances, these are all good things to do; if you care only about health, these are all good things to do; and if you care only about the environment, these are all good things to do.

Further, once you consider the environment of other countries, and how places like China have worse environmental practices than most of the West, and then consider also the collapse of manufacturing in the West, "buy local" is both an environmentalist and a patriotic maxim.

I'm old-fashioned. I believe: duty first. Whether or not I pay my taxes, do jury duty or military or civilian service of some kind, whether I speak well of my wife behind her back or not, whether or not I call people by racial epithets when out of their hearing, the practical impact of these things is almost zero. Nonetheless an adult in a civilised society has duties. A duty is something which whether you like it or not and whether it makes a difference or not you simply must do. A society is nothing but an accumulation of kept promises and duties met.

Now, some may reply that we as humans have no duties to one another. And I would answer that this is indeed a popular point of view, and explains much of the world's problems now, but I wash my hands of such an idea, and do not give it practically my support.
« Last Edit: Today at 12:25:46 AM by Kyle Schuant »

All good points which are true.  I never said that Carbon footprint shouldn't be dealt with, nor do I condone flying your own personal plane for pleasure.  Yet you threw me under the bus without consideration of anything else I might think.  I'm just pointing out the root cause.  Not the contributing factors.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: solon on August 21, 2019, 02:53:27 PM
@caleb explains why student debt is so evil

What have I missed here?   

17 year old commits to going to a college.  Because they're 17, they don't really know how money or credit work.  The big tuition numbers are just abstractions.  Assume they come from a family that lives an upper middle class life and money isn't an issue they discuss, even though the family is living paycheck to paycheck.

Comprehensive fees (tuition, room, and board) run from the high teens to low twenties at state flagships.  Privates average about 30k/year after discounting, which is about half of the sticker price.

Let's assume the 17 year old manages to graduate from college in four years.  At a state flagship, that's going to be 60k out of pocket, and at a private more like 120k.  Federal loans cover 31k.  Depending on the state, there might be another 10k or so of state-based loans available.  So maybe there's $40k of Federal and state loans available on average, which have an historically high interest rate of 5%+ (in the late 70s and 80s the Dept of Ed was originating loans at 2% interest when inflation as above 10%). 

Where does the extra $20-80k come from?  Parents?  That's how it's supposed to work with the Parent PLUS loans, but plenty of parents don't take the debt on themselves.  Instead, they cosign private loans for the student, often at 8-12% interest that begins accruing immediately.  Even 20k at 8% interest balloons in a hurry. 

Now the student is on the hook for a bad loan taken out to shift the expected parent contribution to them, that's been ballooning the entire time they've been in school.  There's no IBR, PSLF, or often even a forbearance option.  The repayment timeline is 10 years for most of these loans.  Not only is their credit on the line, they're also in the awful position of having their parents' credit on the line, too.

What you're missing is that the student I describe above is common, and that student has gotten f'ed by every adult in the room, from their parents, to their financial aid office, to private banks, to the Dept of Ed.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: monarda on August 23, 2019, 08:00:48 PM
Hilarious post by nereo

Crooks are stupid
...or at least occasionally very disappointed

Funny thing happened today:  I'm moving, so I've got the last load of random stuff that we didn't think highly enough to box up during our packing marathon and put into our temporary storage locker.  Among that is my worm bin, which I use for converting kitchen scraps into 'black gold' for gardening.  I built it out of an old plastic tool case that I bought at a flea market... the kind that's a big plastic box with an upper and lower shelf once you open the lid.  I drilled holes in the two trays and the compost goes in the top and the worm casings drop down into the large compartment below.

Anyway, when I was at the Y swimming some a-hole decided to swipe the 'tool box' from my vehicle and (presumably) run away with their load of new tools.  On one hand I'm kinda pissed that I lost all my worms (though they're basically free).  On the other hand it's one last thing I need to move.  And I really, really wish I could have seen that thief's face when they discovered their stolen toolbox contained worms, worm casings and a bunch of half-decomposed veggie peels.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on August 28, 2019, 08:52:23 AM
On the "4% rule" - and how it's not infallible:

It's like every week someone is shocked to discover that the 4% rule isn't infallible.

I'm absolutely fascinated by this.
No WR is safe no matter what mathematical model you use.
You can't Boglehead your way to total financial security.

The models are a best guess at how to make decisions today to anticipate the financial needs of tomorrow and to assess the possible risk mitigating effects of different options.

It's all just probabilities and not dissimilar to the weather forecast. The calculations behind it are solid and the best we've got for deciding whether or not to bring an umbrella.
Though, that decision will depend far more on the individual's willingness to risk getting wet.

Is it wise to retire on exactly 25X your base expenses and  to spend every single cent of your budget every single year, plus inflation, while blindly ignoring what the markets and global economy are doing, while keeping no doors open for future earnings if necessary???
Lol, probably not.

What these models do is allow us to decide today what mitigating strategies we think best fit our particular risk tolerances for what might happen tomorrow.

For one person, ageism might be a huge factor in their industry, so banking on going back to their career is a bad mitigating strategy. They may choose to be more conservative, or they may choose to build skills that aren't subject to ageism, or both.

For another, they might have citizenship and family in an extremely low cost geographic region and can easily geo-arbitrage their way to a much lower spend rate.

For yet another, they might not have a lot of flexibility and may have a lot of high fixed costs, say, for a medically complex child whose specialists are only in HCOL areas of a country with expensive healthcare. Their best bet may be an extremely low WR and a large cash reserve.

For someone whose stache is primarily in index funds, AA based strategies might be best for mitigating risks like SORR. For someone with a rock solid defined benefit pension that covers their entire bare bones spend, a bond tent or cash reserves might be overkill.

For someone whose stache is primarily in real estate...well, I have no idea what they might do since I don't read much about primarily RE strategies. But you get the point.

All plans can fail.
The best thing you can do is try to understand your possible and probable failures, know your particular risk factors, and modulate accordingly.

The 4% rule is a starting point, not an end goal.
If you just got a perm and wear a lot of silk, grab an umbrella. Me? I don't mind getting rained on and I don't worry about the 4% rule. YMMV
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Loren Ver on August 28, 2019, 05:59:04 PM
^^^  This is really good.  I like the umbrella analogy!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Not2Late on September 06, 2019, 08:04:01 PM
TGS on difficult family dynamics, pure gold...

This sounds like a situation for @TheGrimSqueaker

Actually, @mm1970 nailed it by saying that formal safety nets and support systems have rules-- that is to say, expectations for the people who receive help. Family, friends, and some charitable ventures often do not, because they have a messed-up moral structure that tells them that it's spiritually good and beneficial to give without having any particular standards or expectations with regard to the other person. The kind of doormat-as-moral-obligation thing is embedded deeply into Western culture. From an atheist perspective I think that organized religion, particularly Christianity, is at least partly to blame for this phenomenon.

So, what do people do when someone from the past comes around with their hand out?

Well, first you have to understand that by the time the person from the past shows up, they have already burned through every other person who was close to them. Nearly all human beings have other humans in their network who are at least mildly or occasionally supportive of them. I'm not talking "supportive" in the sense of a functional parent providing care for a minor child, I'm talking "supportive" in terms of providing an occasional loan, job lead, or meal.

@JestJes you are doing the right thing by making sure you don't enable your parents' addictive practices by giving them money or things that can be turned into money. You are also right to not consider taking them in or otherwise making their problems into your problems. Whatever aid you provide them must be the kind that won't make their situation worse or create artificial dependence. It sounds to me like you're already on the best possible track.

The second thing you must do is not accept responsibility for doing the things that are theirs to do. You've described how, when you don't take responsibility for holding up their end of communication, they find a reason to not call and then find ways to explain why it's Not Their Fault. These are people with years of experience in deflecting responsibility and trying to get others to assume responsibility for their behavior. Don't fall for it, no matter how much they cry and plead (because they've learned from other people that the more pathetic they become and the more they melt down, the more responsible people around them will dig deep and help out). You're 100% right if you think that kind of behavior is manipulative. It's also habitual for them at this point. It's unlikely to change, and if it does the impetus for the change must come from them, not you.

It's not your fault your dad had a traumatic past, however he's now an adult and can make decisions to move beyond it.

The societal norm of helping people when they are down? You have now satisfied it. Further help must take the form of directing them to resources, social services, etc. where qualified social workers and service providers can put them on the right track. If they are too "proud" to accept direction from professionals even when there's obviously a problem like a year of missing mortgage payments, you don't have the power to help them. They have made the choice to put their pride and self-image ahead of having a roof over their heads. It's an odd choice, but they have the right to make it. They also have the right to the consequences of that choice, which they are now experiencing. Don't deprive them of their autonomy by interfering.

You also don't have to become an out of state social worker by taking responsibility for whether they access services they are fully capable of accessing on their own. Their Lackawanna syndrome will no doubt kick in, but you're doing right by not enabling that.

The whole moral/religious/societal thing about helping people who are down kind of assumes that the person who is down is a basically functional individual who wants to interact in a positive way, and who wants to get back to normal ASAP because he or she is a reasonable and well socialized individual. When you're dealing with someone who is not reasonable or well socialized, the more you do for them the less they will do for themselves, and the more bad behavior you tolerate from them the more they will dish out. The solution is to dial down your help until you're not being abused.

The more you wipe butt, the more you can expect to be treated like toilet paper.

Good luck to you.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Radagast on September 07, 2019, 10:10:03 AM
If inflation is much higher than the official published rate, as Shadow Stats claims... then why hasn't Shadow Stats raised their subscription price since 2006? (https://theweek.com/speedreads/449820/subscription-price-hyperinflationpredicting-shadowstats-hasnt-changed-8-years)
This was pretty good!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DavidAnnArbor on September 13, 2019, 01:45:56 PM
Radagast provided an excellent description of the pitfall of going from 95% certainty to 99.9% certainty. This issue relates to how one might decide to pull the plug in a job situation that isn't satisfying and getting ready to FIRE.

I recall there was a discussion once before about the false precision of going from a success rate of 95% to 99% to 99.9%. Though, I don't remember all the details of that discussion.
I don't recall the forum discussion either, but Taleb covers it in The Black Swan. His analogy is pulling colored balls out of a tub of unknown and possibly infinite size. Some of the balls are red, and some are black, but you can't see into the tub so you don't know what the color distribution is, you have to infer it by pulling them out one at a time. If you pull out 45 red and 55 black, you have a pretty good guess that the distribution, even if it is not 50/50, is pretty close to that. But what if you pull out 99 black balls and 1 red ball? Based on your single sample of a red ball's existence, you don't have the slightest freaking clue what the distribution of red balls actually is. Maybe it is 40:60 and you had an odd coincidence? 1 in 10? 1 in 100? 1 in 100,000? 1 in 10,000,000? Maybe they somehow migrate to the surface and appear in clusters? It is impossible to guess what reality is.

And what if you pull out 100 black balls in a row, and in fact have never even seen a red one? You may not even realize that red balls, as a concept, can exist. Which is where the name of the book and concept of "black swan" come from. In ancient times a black swan was a phrase used for an impossibility, similar to a pure black zebra. "Ha ha, silly person. By definition, zebras have stripes. If it is pure black it can't be a zebra." Taleb notes that AfroAmerEurAsians had perhaps billions of independent observations of white swans and knew with near statistical certainty that all swans were white (seriously, a billion observations with zero negatives can generate a high degree of statistical certainty). Then they discovered Australia, which had actual black swans, and the impossible happened.

Then consider being in a natural, social, and economic system which adapts to past events and in which every single new year may have no relationship to the past, and you realize that predicting extremely unusual events is basically just a funny movie. The actual odds of success of any withdrawal rate with a low historical probability of failure is unknown, and 95% is statistically nearly identical to 99 or even 100%.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Abe Froman on September 19, 2019, 06:10:00 AM
Solid life lessons.

I still struggle with this now that I am 1 year in after leaving full time work.  Not FIREd but similar - wife working fulltime still, I left high tech after 25 years (47 YO now), to help my wife since we were both doing 12 hour days when we realized we didn't both need to.  We now have less stress and share her work (from home) so no more >12 hours days.

I have the same ups and downs as you describe, when busy, up early, exercise (as when I was at work), getting daughter to school, doing admin tasks with wife's work, yard work, all house work, and the busyness keeps me from thinking what to do next.  But then when slow, same 'what am I doing and going to do with my time'? feeling.

I keep these items in mind from https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/10/05/the-fire-movement/

- Physical health FIRST: your brain is a system of meat and tubes, just like the rest of your body. The whole system will only perform well if you place its wellbeing first, before anything else. Salads and barbells every day, no goddamned excuses.

 - Mental health NEXT: feed your mind with happy input and learn to practice mindfulness, educational reading, and meditation daily, which is simply a workout for the brain.

- Daily hardship and Learning: if you are not sweating and learning and doing something difficult and solving problems, you are not living fully. Find a way to scale back the pampering and achieve more with your own body and mind.

- Indulge, but only with Moderation and Self-Mockery: this country is rich enough that you can become wealthy even without perfect self-discipline – even on minimum wage. But the moment you think you deserve or need whatever indulgence you are currently treating yourself to, you have lost the game. Luxuries and treats are just short-term pleasurable distractions, like any other drugs. Indulge if you can afford them, but you’re not missing one ounce of happiness if you choose to go without at any given moment.

Also relates to the 3 P's - we naturally need to replace the 3 P's once we leave company work - people, purpose, and patterns.

So I use our work routine, together with household work, and raising our daughter to provide most of this.  Thing is, this will need to be confronted again once the kids are >12 YO and independent, which is what I am dealing with now.  The daily learning/hardship is key - we are hard-wired to want to work for something to 'earn' it, from making spreadsheets to building a garden.  Work provides this by default - but we need to find our own way to provide it once FIRE'd.

GB
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on September 26, 2019, 10:19:13 AM
From the DPOYM thread:

I feel like I'm at an AA meeting,

"Hi, I'm SwordGuy and I'm debt averse."

We should hijack that moniker:

"For today's Asset Allocation meeting, we'll discuss with SwordGuy the pros and cons of paying off his mortgage versus investing it in tax-deferred equities. Step one: Admitting that the instinct to pay off debt is a healthy one, though being able to use intellect to overcome instinct when circumstances favor debt is the path to wisdom."
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: deborah on September 28, 2019, 11:40:19 AM
On how to build a life after FIRE
Stepped up to be downsized back in May when I was going to retire/resign this December....all good.

I liked my work(software) but still pursued extracurricular things that I wanted to do all through my life.
I never, ever waited to do  whatever it was that I wanted to do....within the constraints of
married life,  raising our kids, family things....whatever.

I decided to start riding and have spent well over 20 years growing in that direction.
I did various aerobics and other structured exercise programs and the moved into swimming.
Have done a lot of church volunteer things all through the years and am still in it now.

I didn't have a job/career that caused me to typically have to work inordinately long hours.
I did have periods of travel overseas and domestically but have a great husband who
took care of things with the kids and the house while I was gone.

Each day seems filled with whatever I want it to be.
I have the freedom to ride, swim, do house projects on what turns out to be an earlier in the day schedule.
I'm pretty much doing what I've always done but with much more time to do them.

It must be difficult to RE or just plain of retire and have to somewhat start from scratch in creating a vision of
life that has up until that time been a dream or optimal plan.   
I feel that it's something that has to be constructed and built over a period of time.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: arebelspy on October 01, 2019, 11:55:24 AM
On not committing to a life you don't like because you won't find another rrjob that pays as much (or whatever other excuse you're using to delay present happiness for future happiness):

I used to say "once we're debt free", "once we're more financially settled", "once we're close to FI", and "once we retire" A LOT.

Then some serious shit hit the muther-fucking fan and I just stopped making excuses for not being happy now. As a result, I really stopped caring about FIRE and consider my present happiness a far more urgent concern.

I'm not saying that you have to do anything drastic, but it seems insane to me to not thoroughly consider other life options if you aren't happy with the one you are living right now.

Honestly, I now see Pete's story as almost a cautionary tale: the story of a dude who worked for an entire decade in a job he didn't really want to do to save a bunch of money he didn't really need because he didn't feel comfortable just living the life he actually wanted until he reached an arbitrary goal that he defined for himself that no one pushed him to reach.

The option is always there to just start living your best life now. It's critical that you consider that option very seriously before concluding that hunkering down for x number of years is actually your best option.

Happiness doesn't have to be this rarified state that can only be achieved through extraordinary measures like retiring extremely young.

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Sanitary Stache on October 01, 2019, 01:03:56 PM
On not committing to a life you don't like because you won't find another rrjob that pays as much (or whatever other excuse you're using to delay present happiness for future happiness):

I used to say "once we're debt free", "once we're more financially settled", "once we're close to FI", and "once we retire" A LOT.

Then some serious shit hit the muther-fucking fan and I just stopped making excuses for not being happy now. As a result, I really stopped caring about FIRE and consider my present happiness a far more urgent concern.

I'm not saying that you have to do anything drastic, but it seems insane to me to not thoroughly consider other life options if you aren't happy with the one you are living right now.

Honestly, I now see Pete's story as almost a cautionary tale: the story of a dude who worked for an entire decade in a job he didn't really want to do to save a bunch of money he didn't really need because he didn't feel comfortable just living the life he actually wanted until he reached an arbitrary goal that he defined for himself that no one pushed him to reach.

The option is always there to just start living your best life now. It's critical that you consider that option very seriously before concluding that hunkering down for x number of years is actually your best option.

Happiness doesn't have to be this rarified state that can only be achieved through extraordinary measures like retiring extremely young.

I connected with this quote also.  I find the math aspect of MMM's version of FIRE easy to understand and the optimization of his FIRE'd lifestyle to be appealing, but there is a huge space in the middle - the space occupied by working for 10+ more years to reach the point when I can start doing what I really want to do.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on November 05, 2019, 06:33:08 AM
Well, when someone wants to retire and doesn't have any money, it is not surprising that you get some stories that are not all unicorns and rainbows.

To be nice: you definitely have my sympathy. Many of us have relatives who did not save for retirement, so you certainly have a lot of company here!

If I pull out my crystal ball, here is what I see happening:
1. MIL stops working and agrees to take care of your baby/toddler.
2. She decides to start drawing social security at 62 anyway because what you are paying her is not actually enough to cover what she is is used to spending.
3. In a few years, you no longer require child care and don't want to pay her any more.
4. Since she doesn't have a big enough social security check to live and still desperately needs your money, she then plays the "but I only stopped working at your request to take care of your little ones, and now you are betraying me!" card. It is all your fault, of course, and not your spouse's fault.

In her mind and in the story she spins to those who will listen, her lifetime of poor financial habits are irrelevant at that point. All that will matter at the point is that she sacrificed by giving up her day job to help you, and now you are not helping her enough in return.

Each of my parents was in the same situation as your MIL. I have chosen to help them by providing solicited advice only. When they have asked me what I thought they should do, I have shared my opinion (which they have promptly ignored, which is well within their rights.) When they have asked me for money directly, I have said "no."

My Mom has chosen to live out her golden years in poverty. This is her choice. She was healthy as a horse and gainfully employed when she decided to do what your MIL is thinking about doing: quit her job and start taking social security at 62. When she asked me what I thought, I advised her to keep working and delay social security until 70 since she had a good job and could still work, had no savings, and all of her relatives lived well into their 90's (at the time her parents were both still alive).

But, although she was 100% healthy, she wasn't interested in continuing to work. She felt she deserved to not work. She felt that she would be fine in an extreme frugal living situation, underestimating her expenses just like I see your MIL doing. So she made her decision. When her parents did die, she had a little reprieve as she inherited modest sums which are now gone. Eventually she sold her $200K house and moved to a cheaper house. Again, with some cash in her pocket, she felt like a high roller and she burned through most of it in a couple of years. Now, in her 80's, she has told me that she will run out of the remaining money from the home sale. It is what it is. Is it a negative story, or is it just the facts of the matter?

My Dad made a different decision. He never saved much money either, but he also never fully retired. In his 70's, he still has a huge mortgage on his home of 20+ years because he has continuously refinanced it. He also started drawing social security at 62 while he cut back his work hours to part time. Now he wishes he could retire. But, again, he can't. He knows this situation is the direct result of a series of his own decisions, and he has resigned himself to working until he dies.

I know these stories are sad, but these are adults who made independent decisions. I am not going to divert money from my own retirement and my own children's futures to pay other adults who have continued to make very bad decisions.

So, my best advice is that you urge her to continue in her current job and delay taking social security for as long as possible. If you make any other decision, then you need to understand that you are making a conscious decision to make her your family's dependent for the rest of her natural life.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: solon on November 08, 2019, 11:27:29 AM
You can't do this right now, but you might want to plan this outing in the near-ish future. There's a place called "I-fly". It's indoor sky diving.  You suit up and "jump", with a guide. It's just a giant turbine that keeps you aloft. The prep takes much longer than the "dive" itself. But man, the "dive" seems to last forever. There are a couple of locations in the Bay Area and Costco sells discounted tickets.

When DH were on our bargain* honeymoon in FL, we weren't interested in the Mouse House, so we stopped into a Costco  to see what deals they had on other experiences, and this is what piqued our limited sense of adventure (i,e. We have no desire to do actual skydiving). It was a total thrill. The feeling of being buoyed by such a strong force was amazing. Only later did I realize that's what FIRE feels like, financially. Your big number will lift you up and hold you aloft for the rest of your life. Want to spin left or right? Want to do a front flip or a back flip? Want to do anything you want to do? The force of your assets will let you do so with ease, once you get comfortable with this strange new sensation.

In the unlikely event that life hands you a shit sandwich, being FIRE will give you coping skills you'd never imagine. As you know, my MIL has ALZ and has lived with us for over six years. ALZ is a total pain in the ass, yet I still believe I have a damn great life with plenty of options. The fact that I never have to worry about money makes me feel like I'm "flying" no matter what the mundane reality of my life is. It is so unbelievable that it never gets old. December 5th is my seven year FIREversary and so far, it's been better every single year.

*We scored a "deal" on a luxury timeshare week at a charity auction without realizing it was for an exact week. Duh. But the timing was okay and we made it work. My cousin works for a [fast, primary color] airline and gave us a couple of buddy passes, woo-hoo! The whole thing worked perfectly and was easy on the wallet. It's also the first time we'd ever seen an Aldi in real life. Since we had a kitchen, we shopped there twice during the week and a third time to stock up on stuff to take home. Win!

Genius, @Dicey! I'm going to go try this!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: frugalnacho on November 11, 2019, 08:26:17 AM
You can't do this right now, but you might want to plan this outing in the near-ish future. There's a place called "I-fly". It's indoor sky diving.  You suit up and "jump", with a guide. It's just a giant turbine that keeps you aloft. The prep takes much longer than the "dive" itself. But man, the "dive" seems to last forever. There are a couple of locations in the Bay Area and Costco sells discounted tickets.

When DH were on our bargain* honeymoon in FL, we weren't interested in the Mouse House, so we stopped into a Costco  to see what deals they had on other experiences, and this is what piqued our limited sense of adventure (i,e. We have no desire to do actual skydiving). It was a total thrill. The feeling of being buoyed by such a strong force was amazing. Only later did I realize that's what FIRE feels like, financially. Your big number will lift you up and hold you aloft for the rest of your life. Want to spin left or right? Want to do a front flip or a back flip? Want to do anything you want to do? The force of your assets will let you do so with ease, once you get comfortable with this strange new sensation.

In the unlikely event that life hands you a shit sandwich, being FIRE will give you coping skills you'd never imagine. As you know, my MIL has ALZ and has lived with us for over six years. ALZ is a total pain in the ass, yet I still believe I have a damn great life with plenty of options. The fact that I never have to worry about money makes me feel like I'm "flying" no matter what the mundane reality of my life is. It is so unbelievable that it never gets old. December 5th is my seven year FIREversary and so far, it's been better every single year.

*We scored a "deal" on a luxury timeshare week at a charity auction without realizing it was for an exact week. Duh. But the timing was okay and we made it work. My cousin works for a [fast, primary color] airline and gave us a couple of buddy passes, woo-hoo! The whole thing worked perfectly and was easy on the wallet. It's also the first time we'd ever seen an Aldi in real life. Since we had a kitchen, we shopped there twice during the week and a third time to stock up on stuff to take home. Win!

Genius, @Dicey! I'm going to go try this!

Indoor skydiving, or FIRE?  Both sound great honestly. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: fuzzy math on November 11, 2019, 08:39:45 AM
You can't do this right now, but you might want to plan this outing in the near-ish future. There's a place called "I-fly". It's indoor sky diving.  You suit up and "jump", with a guide. It's just a giant turbine that keeps you aloft. The prep takes much longer than the "dive" itself. But man, the "dive" seems to last forever. There are a couple of locations in the Bay Area and Costco sells discounted tickets.

When DH were on our bargain* honeymoon in FL, we weren't interested in the Mouse House, so we stopped into a Costco  to see what deals they had on other experiences, and this is what piqued our limited sense of adventure (i,e. We have no desire to do actual skydiving). It was a total thrill. The feeling of being buoyed by such a strong force was amazing. Only later did I realize that's what FIRE feels like, financially. Your big number will lift you up and hold you aloft for the rest of your life. Want to spin left or right? Want to do a front flip or a back flip? Want to do anything you want to do? The force of your assets will let you do so with ease, once you get comfortable with this strange new sensation.

In the unlikely event that life hands you a shit sandwich, being FIRE will give you coping skills you'd never imagine. As you know, my MIL has ALZ and has lived with us for over six years. ALZ is a total pain in the ass, yet I still believe I have a damn great life with plenty of options. The fact that I never have to worry about money makes me feel like I'm "flying" no matter what the mundane reality of my life is. It is so unbelievable that it never gets old. December 5th is my seven year FIREversary and so far, it's been better every single year.

*We scored a "deal" on a luxury timeshare week at a charity auction without realizing it was for an exact week. Duh. But the timing was okay and we made it work. My cousin works for a [fast, primary color] airline and gave us a couple of buddy passes, woo-hoo! The whole thing worked perfectly and was easy on the wallet. It's also the first time we'd ever seen an Aldi in real life. Since we had a kitchen, we shopped there twice during the week and a third time to stock up on stuff to take home. Win!

Genius, @Dicey! I'm going to go try this!

Indoor skydiving, or FIRE?  Both sound great honestly.

Shopping at Aldi
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Loren Ver on November 11, 2019, 09:12:00 AM
**SNIP**
*We scored a "deal" on a luxury timeshare week at a charity auction without realizing it was for an exact week. Duh. But the timing was okay and we made it work. My cousin works for a [fast, primary color] airline and gave us a couple of buddy passes, woo-hoo! The whole thing worked perfectly and was easy on the wallet. It's also the first time we'd ever seen an Aldi in real life. Since we had a kitchen, we shopped there twice during the week and a third time to stock up on stuff to take home. Win!

Genius, @Dicey! I'm going to go try this!

Indoor skydiving, or FIRE?  Both sound great honestly.

Shopping at Aldi

*Giggle-snort*
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RWD on November 12, 2019, 12:39:44 PM
@Laura33 on point again. Relationships are a two-way street.

And if you have any tendencies towards OCD or anxiety, some of this could be a symptom.

I have a lot of OCD tendencies. On one hand, I don't see this as a problem, because I know exactly what I want. On the other hand, it can put stress on my wife, who feels that my standards for certain things can be very high. To find the balance, maybe incorporating jlcnuke's question into my decision-making process will be helpful.

Your answer exemplifies the problem.  You know exactly what you want financially.  But your gut response ignores other aspects of what you want -- like, say, your wife to stick around and love you and to be happy together.  Right?  Your rational brain knows this (which your "on the other hand" demonstrates).  But the way you frame it up is really "what I want" as the baseline, with "what other people want" as the other side you are (grudgingly) forced to negotiate with.  That is an artificial construct that allows you to view any decision to spend money as a concession to your wife; and that, in turn, makes the whole thing "me vs. her," so you naturally gravitate to giving as little as you can get away with, so the baseline can stay closer to what you want.  And that leads you right down the path to thinking like a miser -- your priority gets to remain all about the money, and you just "give" as little as possible to keep your wife happy enough to stay put. 

As I wrote above, that is not doing you any service.  Because your real priorites aren't just about the money, are they?  They also involve relationships with other people.  Like your wife.  And the way to develop and maintain a happy relationship with your wife isn't to view every individual decision as "what I want vs. what she wants"; all that does is turn every single decision into a source of conflict and dissatisfaction -- as you saying no to something she values, or as you grudgingly being forced to spend "your" money on something you don't want.  A relationship is happy only to the extent it meets the needs of both parties.  That means your baseline in everything needs to be the unit, not you individually.  You and your wife need to work together, in advance, to talk about what each of you values, and to reach an overall compromise between saving/spending/charity/friends that meets both of your needs.  Then, when a specific issue comes up, your discussion begins with "how does this fit with our overall plan?" -- not "how little money can I get away with not spending.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on November 28, 2019, 08:29:46 AM
So much has been written on this topic, but @Tyson really nailed it succinctly. This is a controversial subject for many, but it really shouldn't be for Mustachians, particularly for US based followers.

I can't pay off my mortgage with pre-tax dollars.  But I CAN invest in my 401k with pretax dollars. That alone is a no brainer for the $18k that I can into a 401k every year.  The fact that I get an employer match for another $6k to get to $24k per year makes it a double no brainer. 

Add to that the fact that my investments yield an average of 8% return over the long term and paying the mortgage only nets me 3.9% and it's a triple no brainer!

For the record, I have nothing against living mortgage-free, as long as one chooses the most optimal method of achieving that. It's pretty counter-intuitive, but so is the entire concept of FIRE. The benefit of understanding this math is huge, especially for those who aspire to FI and RE as efficiently as possible.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on November 29, 2019, 11:51:23 AM
And here's another winner.  Welcome back, @wellactually!


I just re-registered after years out of the forum because of this thread.

You have got to work on your perspective and attitude. You are comparing yourself to peers who you say you've done so much better than. Okay cool. But it seems like you and your wife have enjoyed some really great privileges. It looks like you were both able to go to college and graduate without debt. Did you each pay 100% of your higher education costs? Even if you got scholarships, can you acknowledge that you had advantages that got you to this point? You graduated at a time when the job market was mostly recovered. Myself and many of my peers just a couple years older than you graduated into the worst job market of the era. Your wife, who I'm sure works hard and earns her salary, has the benefit of flexible employment in a family-related business with a company car. You both get free phones even.

Through what I expect is a combination of your hard work, good decisions, luck, and advantages, you and your wife started out in good paying jobs with no debt. You then did not squander that situation and made some good decisions. Comparing yourself to others who have likely had a whole range of situations that they started from is unhelpful.

Just for a small dash of reality, even getting pregnant easily when you wanted to is a privilege. I spent $25,000 in the last 2.5 years to finally get pregnant. I certainly would have loved to put that money towards savings or home remodeling, but I also recognize that being able to have the choice to spend that money on fertility treatments was a privilege. That doesn't mean we didn't make great decisions to be financially stable and work our butts off to save up while denying other wants. But it does mean that we had a choice and so we can be at peace looking at our networth numbers and knowing that spending that money was the right choice for us.

You are choosing to do "normal" things like living in a very expensive house, going out to eat a lot and getting new clothes regularly. Why should you get an even more abnormal RE date while making those choices?

Anyway, stop comparing yourself to others, it will only make you more judgmental and entitled. And I say this as someone who has at times in my life been "the asshole" who had to be right and who knew the best way to do things. It is not a fun person to be nor a fun person to be around. You might think your peers don't realize you're judging their choices, but they either already do or will. And frankly, you're judging them based on your own measuring stick which is retiring very early, meanwhile they are okay working until their 60s and choosing to spend money differently now.

If you enjoy podcasts, I really recommend this episode of This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/504/how-i-got-into-college (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/504/how-i-got-into-college). Acts 2-3 talk about a man who identifies all the lucky breaks that took him from a fleeing Bosnia to graduating Harvard. I don't want to spoil too much, but his perspective on life really changed the way I approached the world and I think it would benefit you too.

ETA: Also recognize the privilege of your childcare option! That's over $1000/month expense in most parts of the US which you are avoiding because of the privilege of available and willing family!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ender on December 08, 2019, 01:18:24 PM
@Malkynn is a pretty regular in this thread I think ;-)

I think a big part of the problem is that no one really seems to know what "rich" looks like.

People have an image of what ultra rich looks like from TV and movies, but actual "rich" really looks A LOT like middle class life, it just costs a lot.

Two people can live essentially materially identical lives:
-nice detached home
-two cars
-kids in good schools and activities
-yearly vacations
-maybe even own a cottage

And that life can range from costing mid 5 figures to several hundreds of thousands depending on location, what finishes are in the house, what kind of cars, what the public vs private school situation is, what activities the kids are into, etc, etc.

Until someone gets to the level where they have a house with maid's quarters and multiple live in domestic staff, and a private jet, then the lifestyle of the rich really isn't really any different from what everyone pictures as a normal, middle class life, at least not in the broad strokes.

A different way to put it is the "normal middle class life" can be really, really god damn expensive. Pete has written about how a low 5 figure life can be virtually identical to a high 5 figure life depending on how wasteful someone is with their spending. Well, that logic extends well into the hundreds of thousands life as well.

DH and I have a low 5 figure base spend and most of our friends spend at least a hundred to a few hundred thousand per year, and our lives really aren't so appreciably different.

Like sure, a colleague and I just both bought new homes (mine under 150K, her's 1.4M) and both kitchens were dated and had bad layouts. She dumped 45K into hers, and I spent about $500 on Ikea modular cabinets, bars to hang pots on my wall, and a plug in chandelier so I wouldn't have to hire an electrician.

Her kitchen is like something out of a magazine, mine is a franken-kitchen with half of the cabinets nearly 50 years old and original to the house and the other half from Ikea, and no, they don't match at all.

I'm a former chef who knew exactly what she wanted and mine is actually my dream kitchen now, and the mix of elements is actually so eclectic that it looks kind of cool. It's perfect for me. Her kitchen looks like something you probably shouldn't touch, and the layout the designer put together is, well, okay, but not overly efficient for actual cooking.

In the end, she spent 90 times what I did, and the real life difference between the two is that they have a different esthetic style and slightly different efficiency in layout.

Both kitchens are solidly, middle class lifestyle. Neither are overly huge or overly small. Both are customized for women who will stand over hot stoves cooking for their families (her's a several thousand dollar Bosch gas range, mine an 'apartment size' cheap thing that came with the place.)

I'll spend about $200 per month on food, she'll spend over $2000 because her two sons and friends like a lot of brand name stuff and they eat pounds of it, and her husband insists on a lot of steak nights, plus none of them will eat leftovers, so their food wastage is massive.

We both love a good restaurant meal. I just went to a local Ethiopian place and shared an amazing meal with my dad for $20 including tax and tip. She just took me out for a meal at her favourite restaurant, where a mediocre glass of wine costs more than my Ethiopian meal. The food was pretty good, both were nice experiences.

I drive a used Corolla, she drives a leased Range Rover. We both have remote car starters, but I have heated indoor parking at my building, so I don't have to clear off snow all winter.

I have a $30 Aeropress and a $100 Breville milk frother. She is known on sight by every Starbucks employee at the locations near her house, work, and gym.

I just booked a trip to Europe, which will be a self-guided road trip through small towns, off season, for $2600 for two, including breakfasts. She is taking her brood to Italy over Christmas, and the business class flights alone will be at least $16K.

I colour my own hair and maintain a low maintenance hair style, she gets her hair cut and coloured every 4 weeks for $600.

Both couples are active. I have a gym and pool in my building, public baseball diamond, tennis and basketball courts across the street, and DH bikes and runs all winter. She and her DH have $800/mo gym memberships each, she has a trainer, he also has a golf membership, and the whole family loves to ski ($$$$$).

Her household spending is enormous, but really, our lives aren't appreciably different in functional terms.

The thing is that as you go up in luxury in life, the cost rises astronomically, but the outcome changes only marginally.
A stone countertop is only so much nicer than a laminate, an expensive restaurant has food and service that can really only be so good, an extremely expensive car in morning traffic is still just a car in traffic, a several thousand dollar chandelier doesn't light much better than a $100 plug-in chandelier from Ikea, a several thousand dollar watch and a drug store watch both tell time, and the latest iPhone vs an older phone both work pretty comparably.

The incremental increases in quality and experience start getting proportionally so much more expensive that it can cost nearly 10X to live a life just superficially better than someone else's.

My colleague and I have the same job, and per hour, I actually bill more than she does. I said that our lives are pretty similar despite our wildly different spending, but that isn't strictly true. She works 6 days a week, and I work 1.
So in truth, our lives are RADICALLY different because of our spending differences, just not in the way people might think.

So yeah, it's very difficult to define "rich" because you need to be rich to afford a lot of seemingly middle class lifestyles.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on December 08, 2019, 05:09:38 PM
The latest (and perhaps last?) post by @sol

tl;dr - spending your time doing things you love in real life is more important than spending it getting angry on forums.

I skimmed over this thread (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-is-sol/) but it looks like it quickly went OT, like all good mustache forum threads.

So hey there forum peeps!  I've been off the MMM forums for a while, but have been receiving semi-regular PMs from some of you inquiring as to my whereabouts.  I'm still alive! 

And I'm checking in just to say as much, but I'm not planning to stick around.  The forum has changed so much over the years that it just doesn't fit me very well anymore.  This community has grown so much, and has had to incorporate so many new and diverse voices, that it no longer serves the purpose for which it was created and which drew me here in the first place from ERE.  Fortunately, the internet is a BIG place with lots of room for everyone to say their piece, without those pieces ever having to get too close to each other. 

I can take my one little voice to other dark corners.  This one is too noisy for me, but that doesn't mean it can't be perfect for someone else.

My partner and I are still retired, and I'm still grateful for all of the financial guidance and advice I received here over the years.  We sold one of our rental houses, and took up some new outdoor hobbies together.  The time that I formerly spent here, talking to all of you, is now most often spent at home with my kids or out and about playing with that "IRL" world.  I have an ever-changing list of volunteer and/or charity gigs that keep me as busy as I can comfortably tolerate.  I am practicing being a better parent and husband, I read more books, I get more exercise, and I'm generally a happier person than I was back when the forum was a bigger part of my life.  Sometimes I miss the entertaining conversations that a few of you provided me over the years, but like I said the internet is a big place and ya'll aren't the only smart people around.

Once upon a time, I mentioned on the forum that I didn't really realize how much of my time and attention had been consumed by my 9-5 until I gave up my 9-5, and suddenly everything else in my life just kind of started to fall into place when those things started getting the attention they really deserved, after retirement.  In a similar fashion but perhaps to a smaller degree, giving up the MMM forums also cleared off another huge chunk of my mental counterspace.  Other areas of my life magically improved when I curtailed my internet usage.  I highly recommend trying it out.

Retirement has only continued to get better the longer I practice it.  These days, I struggle to understand how I survived the professional world for as long as I did. 

You can still reach me via PM, but I can't write back unless you send me some other form of contact info.  Like an alcoholic, I'm aiming for a zero-tolerance rule for MMM forum use every day.  Today is a failure, obviously, but to everyone who's written to say hi over the past ~6 months I wanted to say that yes, life goes on and it's still amazing.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Bloop Bloop on December 08, 2019, 07:40:36 PM
One wonders why anyone would get angry on a forum like this populated by intelligent and articulate people. I think my views make me an outlier in most respects on these forums but I can't remember getting angry at others whether they agree or disagree. Robust conversation is something that usually gives me pleasure. That said, your mileage may vary, and Sol's evidently does.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Fresh Bread on December 08, 2019, 11:01:36 PM
One wonders why anyone would get angry on a forum like this populated by intelligent and articulate people. I think my views make me an outlier in most respects on these forums but I can't remember getting angry at others whether they agree or disagree. Robust conversation is something that usually gives me pleasure. That said, your mileage may vary, and Sol's evidently does.

I don't remember him getting angry as such, but he did join in some heated debates. He did write long and considered posts that definitely would have been a time suck.

Thanks for posting this nereo, I'm glad to hear he is doing well. I also aspire to less time online.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RWD on December 16, 2019, 07:23:42 AM
Learning in school is not just about the grades.

If doing well at school is still a big deal in a person’s life, then that’s great for them!

You aren't listening.    You've got a smug idea and it's interfering with learning something.

We're not talking about doing well at school "being a big deal" like we're proud of winning a touchdown or something.   We're not talking about being some boozy, paunchy and balding ex-football player still pining about our glory days in high school.

We're talking about what we learned in school making a real difference in our success.

I self-taught myself to design databases and program because times were hard, the town I moved to for love was in double-digit unemployment and didn't like strangers, I needed to make a living, I found an opportunity and I ran with it.

Professionally, I've written 1 book and published and/or presented about 80 professional technical articles or papers.
I was invited to speak at technical conferences in four countries and I've been published in 3 countries that I know of.

Generally, to present at major technical conferences, one has to submit an abstract that sells your presentation idea to the conference committee.   There were a number of conferences where they just contacted me and asked me what I wanted to talk about because they assumed if it was worth my time to present it, it was worth their time to learn it.

I've published two different technical publications, been the editor of another, and a contributing editor for two others. 

One US government agency designated me personally as a "unique, sole source provider" of the information that they needed, which meant they did not have put that particular contract out for competitive bidding.

A major international company invented a job for me because they wanted my unique professional skillsets.  I turned them down because my current employer gave me a better deal.   That included sending my wife, daughter and I to Europe for a month, most expenses paid, to write material for them simply because my wife needed to do research for her degree over there.

I wrote most of a report to a commission set up by the US congress on behalf of an entire branch of the US military, and I edited the other 40% of the report.

Oh, yeah, I made a bunch of money and after I learned about MMM, I invested enough to FIRE.

That's a fair bit of professional success.

Those English classes where they taught reading, writing, spelling, grammar and textual analysis?    I paid attention and I learned it!   Plus I did lots of extra reading on top of my assignments.    All that writing I did?   It was a whole lot easier because of it.

Those math classes where they taught arithmetic, trigonometry, and algebra?   I paid attention and learned it.   It was invaluable in my programming work and in business. Ditto with the economics courses.

Those history, sociology, anthropology classes?    I paid attention and learned it.   It gave me a wide range of experience and lots of real-life examples to use when thinking thru "what could happen?" when I was designing a software or business system.   It helped me communicate better with coworkers from other countries and cultures..   

Those political science courses?   I paid attention and learned it.   I got better database design training from Political Science classes than programmers got from computer science classes.    Socrates kicks butt! 

History and Political Science also got me interested in simulations.   Learning complex simulations meant reading complex game rule manuals and then turning those rules into strategies and tactics to win the simulation.    Software language manuals were a cake walk compared to some of the simulations I worked with.

Shop class made it a lot easier for me to renovate real estate property for profit and to keep repair costs on my own home lower than otherwise.

Because I took the time to learn lots of things well, I had a lot of different knowledge and skills I could draw upon to improvise, adapt and overcome whatever difficulties were in front of me.   I don't compartmentalize what I know, I try to use anything useful I've learned in everything I do.   

All those things made it possible for me to succeed and flourish professionally.   

Not because I made an "A" or got inducted into some silly club in high school or college, but because I learned lots of useful
information and I then made use of it.

Lots of people I went to school with never bothered to learn much in school and, after awhile, they lost the skills and willingness to learn.  They lacked the knowledge to recognize opportunities and lacked the habits to take advantage of them anyway.

That's how "what I learned in school" was a major driver of the success I have achieved.

I hope that clears things up.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Moonwaves on December 20, 2019, 01:58:50 AM
Lots of good replies on this thread but for me, @Sailor Sam said it best:

Maybe they're too high, but I'm curious if there are other people with similarly high standards and a lack of desire to work their life through.

Yes, though it’s possible you don’t agree with my standard. I’ve given away tens of thousands of dollars, certainly greater than $50k, certainly less than $100k, though I’ll get there eventually.

I’ve also chosen a public service professional path that pays me far less than doing the same thing in private industry would pay. I did this because I believe in my organizations motto of: Honor, Respect, Devotion to Duty.

That said, when I hit my 20 year cliff vesting of my retirement benefits, I’m fucking gone. Twenty years is enough sacrifice. I don’t know how I’ll adjust my donations once retired, but I’ll figure it out.

Again, I'm talking really high-impact here. Even if I were on the board of a soup kitchen or doing pro bono consulting or whatever... part of the schtick of EA is that there is only a handful of really, truly effective charities. Maybe I'm taking this to an extreme (would not be the first time), but it seems like if I were doing charitable work and it were not part of one of those highly effective charities doing data-proven work in the developing world where a dollar goes farther... it seems like it wouldn't really be worth the effort.

I mean this with the upmost of compassion, but what a terrible fucking paradigm to force yourself into. Effectiveness is nothing but metrics, and humans are the flawed meatsacks that doing the choosing. Charity is charity. Full stop. Period. There are certain charitable organizations that can convert donations into a larger amount of stuff - nets, inoculations, units of gonkolators - than the same $10 used to feed the neighbour kid. Deciding that neighbour kid is unworthy of charity, because feeding the little shit dinner is ineffective is a stance that had never sat very well with me. It does not strike me as humility.

Trying to shoehorn a metric of ‘effectiveness’ onto charity, and then use that as the only metric, kid, that’s turtles all the way down. You need to figure out your own morality, and stand by that harder than you stand by anything else in your life. Posting this means you’re thinking, and that’s great, you’re ahead of most fuckers, but right now you’re wholesale adopting someone else’s morality, and that’s why you’re so uncomfortable.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on January 05, 2020, 12:01:43 AM
I've been surprised by how often people (at least half of whom are retired themselves!) ask me what I'm doing with all of my new-found free time. I've given all sorts of answers ranging from "whatever I want" to "I think I'll take up knitting, buy a rocking chair, adopt 6 cats, and start yelling at kids to get off my lawn," but I really should asking them the following:

How would your life look if you...?
1. Never rush anything
2. Take the time to do things right, or at least up to your own standards, rather than having to choose some things to half-ass due to lack of time
3. Spend as much time as you want (within your budget) on activities you enjoy

I think most people would see how this massive amount of extra time they think I have just evaporates. I don't know why people seem to expect me to have embarked on some huge, grand lifelong project. That's great for those who have a passion for something like that, but I'm just enjoying life's little details.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: monarda on January 23, 2020, 09:31:45 PM
Today in the 1M to 2M thread:


In the first million run up it's fear of running out that keeps you working.  You remain frugal and save aggressively.  Post one million fear of running out is still there, but you know in just a few more, one more years you can eliminate that almost entirely.     Post two million fear of running out no longer dominates your desire to OMY.  Now fear of missing out creeps in.  Your accounts are now growingat $500 or more dollars a day.  You start to justify trading a few more years for a level of security and wealth you didn't dream possible.   All the while you're ageing and time is rapidly becoming the most precious possession.  Perpetual, generational wealth can be achieved. It's a MMM to Boglehead transition.   Maybe most of you can avoid it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: maizefolk on January 23, 2020, 09:33:45 PM
Wow, that is a good one! Thanks for posting it here, monarda.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dandarc on February 06, 2020, 10:13:05 AM
Don't really like the question this thread asks, but this post from @Laura33 is fantastic:

First, I don't really think I am "officially" Mustachian, because my StupidCar disqualifies me.

But to the extent I appreciate and follow the tenets, I think it goes beyond "mindfulness,"* or even mindfulness + environmentalism.  It's really mindfulness + environmentalism + stoicism.  It's the fundamental realization that the easy way is very often the least-satisfying way in the long-term.  So it's not just, "hey, being lazy and grabbing takeout isn't giving me a good return on the happiness-to-dollars-spent scale" and/or "all that packaging and driving is really wasteful."  It's also "and when I give in to the laziness of blowing extra money to pay some poor schlub to cook a pizza and drive it to my door instead of taking 5 minutes and $1.50 in ingredients to do it myself, I am creating a lazy life and building habits of sloth and telling myself it's ok to put bad food in my body because I'm sooooooo tiiiiiired -- fundamentally, I am infantilizing myself.  I need to get off the path that leads to spending my life driving my motorized recliner everywhere while watching cute kitty videos on YouTube, because I will be far better off in the long run if I just suck it up, deal with the temporary discomfort, and make my own damn food that is better for me in so many ways." 

It's choosing to do the hard thing, not just because the hard thing is cheaper and better for the environment, but because you know doing the hard thing is better for you in the long run and will make you a more competent, satisfied, healthy, happy person.


*Which, btw, I appreciate and is important, but is becoming such an overused term to describe so many versions of woo-woo that it has become meaningless and trite and is starting to drive me batshit.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BNgarden on March 08, 2020, 02:52:04 PM
I loved payday too.  It was the reason I worked.  The art is to pretend you don't care and be a good sheep like the others so you can enjoy bigger and uninterrupted paydays.  Never underestimate that sniffy manager who would put your name on a short list to be booted with a downturn-  many people are jealous egocentric jack wangs who secretly harbor darkness in their hearts.  They are not happy for you, they don't want dancing over paychecks, they don't want drama in the workplace if dancing offends others.  They want sheep who stay in their place. 

I had the conversation once at age 25 with a boss who gave me the "I work for noble reasons" bullshit and when I asked if they would keep working the day after they won the lottery the answer was a hard NOPE.  But until that jackpot arrived that boss was going to keep the noble stick up their ass and pretend to be above it all.  And my name was put on the short list of uppity workers who were trouble and things were not very pleasant for me afterward.  Fortunately I left on my own accord but I learned the lesson.  I learned to fake it as long as required while keeping mental clarity that I was there for the little green rectangles.  Keeping it clear in my mind that I was trading bits of my life for those little green rectangles is what made FIRE an option at all.         

Good reminder; I think my employers at a family-based business viewed me as a bit disloyal for being oriented to retirement.  I got some brownie points early by stating I had planned to retire / leave earlier but they treated me so well, I chose to stay longer.  But, eventually, they forgot about that... and do did I;=}
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mspym on March 19, 2020, 04:38:56 PM
Glad to hear you're doing well! I don't spend as much time on here as I did before I retired, and haven't felt the need to quit cold turkey.

To Dicey, seattlecyclone, soccerloveof4, spartana and the rest of the old timers who expressed similar sentiments, I didn't mean to suggest that you have to jump ship once you're retired, only that it turns out to be totally awesome if you do.  Time is a limited resource for all of us, which is kind of the driver behind pursuing ER in the first place, right?  I can't imagine finally achieving that goal, after years of diligent effort, and then just half-assing that golden opportunity by frittering away my newfound freedom.  Go!  Live free!

And honestly, I feel like I have less to contribute to the forum these days anyway.  In 8000 posts I think I've kind of said my piece on a few key topics.  Nobody should be confused about my feelings on market timing or shitty overpriced kitchen appliances, for example.  That horse is dead.  I used to write in detail about the process of putting solar panels on my house, but they're still there and they still work great and they're still making me money.  I used to write about why I chose an electric car, but I still have the same one and probably will for ten more years and it still works great and I have no regrets about it.  So what's to write?  I read less news these days than I used to, so I don't have the same burning desire to eviscerate whichever politician or media figure is currently making an ass of themselves.  I've learned a ton of stuff since retiring but just about non-financial topics, and while I'm still overflowing with unpopular opinions about those topics I don't think anyone here really cares about them as much as I do.  Mostly what I've learned in retirement is how to kick back and live in the moment, and that's probably helped smooth over some of the rough edges that once made me so eager to pound the keyboard for all of the forum participants every single day.

You know how they say "you can't go home again", because the home you remember has changed so much in your absence as to be unrecognizable?  This community has changed a bunch since we started it, but more importantly so have I.  I'm not the same person I was way back then, the new me isn't really an internet forum person anymore, and I'm pretty happy about that.  I do miss some of you, but then again I have a bunch of new IRL friends too so it kind of balances out.

So keep at it, my FIRE friends.  The burning desire for financial independence is a beautiful and transformative thing.  It can change your life for the better, and this community can help you do it.  In my case, all of the advice and guidance I received here set me on a path that freed me from a cubicle, but also from giving a shit about most of the other things that people give shits about.  Most of it just doesn't matter!  Work hard, stay healthy, cultivate your relationships, and pretty much everything else is like three levels below that.  We're all gonna die eventually, but in the meantime I'm grateful that I was able to be part of this community.  You give a little, you take a little, and hopefully everyone has fun along the way.  Then once it stops being fun, or as fun as the alternatives, you move along.

I'm moving along.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on March 19, 2020, 04:50:02 PM
Amazing.  Guy’s been off the forum for over a year, and he still manages to get a “best post today” when he does pop in to say ‘hi’.  This thread’s got a number of ‘best post’ by Sol

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on March 20, 2020, 10:49:54 PM
Ha! As soon as this thread popped up, I knew it was going to be @sol's latest post. Thanks for shouting it out, @mspym!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Sanitary Stache on March 24, 2020, 12:38:33 PM
From the Coronavirus contrarian thread, this was a good use of words:

This reminds me of the conversation around IPCC climate scenarios, and the use of “business as usual” and “worst case” scenarios.  The Energy Transition Show with Chris Nelder just did a great podcast on the topic, and I highly reccomend that show and the entire series.

A key takeaway for me was that the modelers and statisticians think in terms of sets of scenarios, with different probabilities attached to them — whereas those pushing for policies, or trying to understand risks and generate urgency (activists) latch on to specific scenarios. This simplification from an array of possible outcomes is also driven by headlines and journalism’s attempt to deal with short attention spans and the readers desire for conclusions.

The result is that we latch on to the biggest numbers, which are within the realm of possibility, but not so probable.  This happened with the numbers we have seen thrown around for the impact of COVID-19 — just as they do for the “business as usual” scenarios in the IPCC.

In both cases, we also have action taken to mitigate, and a changing landscape for the scenarios to unfold, which change many of the assumptions of the “business as usual” scenarios, and make them even less likely.  For example, oil and coal usage in some of the IPCC scenarios reflects growth rates that industry itself says are ridiculous and are also against current trends downward in oil and coal use, and the growth of renewables.  We also see that testing and isolation works to slow the spread of  COVID-19, and few polities are doing nothing at all.

Combine these effects rooted in the difference between common language and rhetoric, and the language and rhetoric of science and modeling, add a dash of fear and political rhetoric, and you got a shit storm of sensationalism, blame, fear mongering, over-simplification and confusion.  The storm lays a blanket of shit on top of an already unknowable and complex situation that will play out on an ever changing board.

I’m not suggesting we should all be agnostics on the topics, giving up to marvel at the unknown and mysterious.  I would argue that we should understand more the rhetoric and structure of the science behind this, and learn how to make decisions and act to manage probable risks, bend the envelope of outcomes away from the worse case, and recognize that our actions impact our reality and thus previous models and predictions.  This is IMO, a much more productive use of our collective power than arguing over wether a prediction was right or wrong, or about a policy decision made by politicians was correct or not.  We’re all embedded in communities where we have resources and social power to act and influence — even if we may have not cultivated that knowledge and connection, we can rekindle it.

I also think we should start to imagine what a society that was resilient to two weeks or months of this kind of disruption would look like.  We’re a global economic system with circulation of currency, goods and people at massive levels of mixing — optimizing for maximum extraction of profit from minimal cost of labor was one of the drivers shaping our current system.  We have citizens with no margin to absorb the disruptions.

I think it's the last paragraph I found to be the most relevant to the MMM forums.  For me MMMs version of FIRE is about optimization, environmentalism, and financial independence.  If we can start talking about a resilient economy and what that meands, I think we will be moving in the right direction. 

I am also partial to @verfrugal 's Vermont influenced world view.  Being snowed in frequently might be good training for breaks in the break neck pace of maximum extraction of profit.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dandarc on April 17, 2020, 09:59:46 AM
With a highly communicable disease, you are also responsible for the health of all those around you too.

One sentence posts don't often make it here, but I think this one is perfect.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: maizefolk on April 22, 2020, 07:12:53 AM
This post from Finances_With_Purpose on how life has changed living in a coronavirus lockdown world, hopes for what FIRE life might actually be like, and gratitude.

It's made me less interested in investing in financial options, and more interested in setting up a lifestyle - garden, chickens, no ****ng neighbours.....

This situation has made me thankful above all.  Thankful that we have secure jobs.  Thankful that we set that type of lifestyle beforehand.  (And sad to hear friends in tiny urban condos and apartments, like we were not many years ago, who are struggling.)  Thankful that we have savings.  (Our A/C unit died the week we began working from home.)  Thankful that we no longer commute: we sleep more, exercise more, and take daily nature walks surrounded by birds, deer, and forests.  Thankful that I'm wired to consume information and think strategically, so we made some additional preparations before things even began getting crazy, as soon as this situation seemed possible: it was so cheap to do (just bumping forward food costs, really) relative to the likely pain if we didn't.  (So now I'm thankful that we haven't even dipped yet into our *real* emergency supplies.)  Thankful that now our relatives are mostly safe and isolated, just as we are.  Thankful that, as this began, we were able to take in a suddenly-jobless relative to shelter the storm.  Thankful for God, and for our church family who we visit with (digitally) regularly.

Tomorrow night, I'll be doing the same thing I did yesterday tonight: sitting by a campfire after a long evening surrounded by close family and surrounded by nature, watching the stars.  Before that, I'll pick some fresh fruit that we've grown--now the only fresh and healthy stuff that we're reliably getting--and try out a new type of fruit pie.  In the past month, I've been able to do more physical labor and build more productive things than I had in almost an entire year before that, with all of the commensurate rewards, and still be even more productive at work. 

If anything, I am hopeful that this is a good preview of what actual early retirement will look like: more freedom, more productivity, more enjoyment, more exercise, more health, and more leisure.  I wouldn't mind that at all. 

Sure, we could have done a few things better: we might have bought more bonds ahead of time (I had been thinking about adding significantly to our position) or had more cash sitting there to pile in at market lows (wherever they end up being), but there's nothing in the world that I can complain about right now.  Or even anything I regret about our situation thus far. 

I'm reminded daily of how little I have to complain about and how much I have to be thankful for.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: deborah on April 25, 2020, 01:45:39 AM
I really liked this post about weathering COVID 19 and the associated economic ramifications...
I firmly be-leaf you will be able to weather this storm :-)

I very well understand how you're feeling - this has thrown a major wrench spanner into my plans as well. Sabbatical is over, time to get back to work - whoops, pandemic and worldwide depression! Didn't see that coming. Who knows what this will do to my long-term plans? Nothing good. Who knows what it will do to the economy? Again, nothing good. But all we can do is the best we can. We're both set up very well compared to most people our age. We may have to adjust our plans, but we do have sensible plans and we will complete them or update them one way or another. We knew all along that our plans could be affected by the world at large. We just didn't know how. Money is about the only thing I'm NOT worried about. As long as you keep healthy and keep your parents healthy, the rest of it is likely to work out fine - because you're better prepared than almost everyone else, and even in a financial disaster you'll have it easier as a result.

Of course you can't stop yourself from worrying about this stuff anyway. I know. I find that it helps if I just take it one day at a time. The big stuff is out of my control, but I can keep myself safe and try to stay calm and talk to my friends. And I can do that tomorrow, and Sunday again, and Monday too. And we'll deal with whatever happens when it happens, because our preparations have made us able to take on the worst case scenario.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: oneday on May 03, 2020, 03:23:20 PM
Emphasis added.

was added to a WhatsApp group of cousins (1st and 2nd cousins)...

during some topic chat, I mentioned I'm planning on retiring around when my youngest goes to college (in 12 years). I'd be ~54. Responses were majority negative, from mild to disgust.

Many of my cousins are entitled and have EOC, and work for their parents, or they married into money, while my bro and I are successful without grants and loans from Bank of Dad & Mum.

I politely wished them the best and noped the fuck out of that group chat. One cousin keeps on trying to add me every month to the group.

My brother asked me why I keep on leaving the group. I said I didn't ask to join, hence I left, and I have nothing in common with our cousins. The less I know, the happier I am.

My wife wonders how I'm not materialistic and am an outcast; she's happy that I focus on my family and building the little green army.

Just mute the group. No reason to offend people by leaving over and over.

His cousins are vocally upset at his retirement plans and he should be concerned about coming across as offensive?

No need to sink to the level of the rudest person around.

I'm rude? You said he was offending people by not wanting to be in the chat group.

And if you think my little comment makes me the rudest person around, you haven't spent much time in this forum.

Lol, they weren't calling YOU rude. They were just saying that the rude cousins don't justify a rude response.

Maybe yes, maybe no.   It all depends.

If it's out of character for them to be rude, let it go.

If it's routine for them to be rude, it's time to establish boundaries.  Those boundaries might be as gentle as

"I'll ignore it, they don't know better."
"I would appreciate it if you refrained from doing that again."
"You forgot to be polite, I expect you to do better next time."
"Be nice to me and mine or I'll show you up for the asshole you are."
"I don't want to hear from you again until you learn manners."
"Good riddance, I want nothing more to do with you."   
"Here's your restraining order.  Violate it at your peril."

Obviously, it's rarely appropriate to go to the upper end of the scale and even more rarely appropriate to leap to it.

It all depends.

What I have learned is that a repetitive, frequent pattern of INTENTIONAL rudeness is a form of willful abuse.  And no one should have to put up with that shit.   I've also learned that ignoring intentional rudeness/abuse is the functional equivalent to giving consent to further treatment like that.   "Silence implies consent" is the old maxim and it applies here.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dandarc on May 11, 2020, 08:43:39 AM
clarkfan1979 on the phases of interacting with your "normal" coworkers / friends:

To me, the weird dynamic occurs in three phases.

Phase One: you avoid buying stupid things like status symbols that do not help your net worth. The most noticeable things to others is that you avoid the fancy car and fancy dinners. You are encouraged to do these things from others, but politely "opt-out". This typically results in people assuming that you are poor. People make fun of you, but it's light-hearted, so you do not take offense.

Phase two: other people get confused when your primary house is not a shit hole and then a couple years later you buy a rental house. You still do vacations but it's with credit card points. Instead of jokes, you start to get questions. How are you able to afford this when your car is only worth $3,000? Well, because I spend less money on liabilities, I have more money to spend on assets. It's pretty simple. Well, that is cool that you can do that, but I could never do that because.... (fill in the blank)

Phase Three: You get anger from co-workers because you start opting out of projects at work that do not interest you. Co-workers are struggling to pay their bills and cannot afford to get fired, so they take on all the shit jobs.  Instead of jokes from others, you get sarcastic comments along the lines of, "must be nice."

I had a college professor share a similar story to his class and I didn't believe him at the time. He was good friends with a co-worker for about 30 years. They were the same age, had similar careers and made the same amount of money. His friend inflated his lifestyle and he did not. After 30 years the friendship ended because my professor had too much money (10 million) in his late 60's. According to the other person the friendship was not sustainable because he had become an "evil rich person" and they could not affiliate with such a person.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Gremlin on May 27, 2020, 01:56:26 AM
Some really fine work from mathlete...

We've talked a lot about emotional leverage in this thread in terms of people ostensibly "controlled by fear", but spent a relatively smaller amount of time talking about what is in my view, more abundant emotional leverage.

People (myself included) like being right on the internet. Some people (myself not included) do this by adopting and dying by contrarian takes to the point of silliness. Examples include;

-Deciding that a source they previously derided, like the CDC, now has it right when they come out with an estimate that we like better
-Making a majority of their posts on a forum about a single contrarian take
-Selectively deciding to feign concern for food insecure African grandmothers

You guys ever notice how much time we spend on the Imperial College study? That is so obviously because it's a big number that probably won't come to fruition. Never mind that it was caveated by twenty pages of work. Never mind that it was only one of now dozens of white papers put out on the virus. Let's go ahead and use it to discredit the notion of trying to quantify the impact of assumptions to support decision making.

You ever notice how little time we spend talking about the statement from late March by Dr. Fauci that we could see between 100K and 240K deaths? Unless something drastically changes, the US death toll will probably fit comfortably in that interval. At least in the first (hopefully only?) wave.

You ever notice how much time we spend on presumptive asymptomatics vs. the reporting that excess mortality may be greater than reported COVID deaths? It's because on balance, we're emotionally leveraged more towards one side than another.

Statements like, "We should make policy decisions based on better data" are truisms. No one would disagree with this. But where is this better data? Or more specifically, where was it in late Feb/Early March? The answer is that it didn't exist. We had deaths and we had limited testing data. We can study that to make educated guesses about IFR, R0, and presumptive asymptomatics. Of course the possibility was always there that the latter two metrics were higher, meaning the IFR could be lower and still support the number of deaths we're seeing. But no one effectively made an empirical case that this was more likely than not.

While I don't agree that IFRs in the neighborhood of 1.0% are completely out of the picture (see antibody studies), I'd be thrilled if the CDC's latest estimates based on scenario testing are accurate. Because it probably means fewer deaths and opening up sooner. Who could be against that? But what does that mean in the context of three months ago?

It means that the cost of inaction was merely hundreds of thousands of US lives instead of over 1 million.

You see similar, anti-intellectual attitudes in elections polling. People reduce a very complicated system to, "Polls said Clinton would win/Brexit would be defeated. Polls are useless." I would love to make wagers with these people. We put money on 100 election results. They can leverage media coverage and other heuristics, but must black out polling data. I get to use the polling. I would clean up.

Similarly, if you're offering me the practice of statistical inference and empirical modeling, I'll take it every damn time.

When scientists publish research or white papers or build models, they open themselves up to criticism. As they should. They are and should be held to a high (but not unreasonable) standard. When people make comments on the internet about how this is no deadlier than the flu, or talk about how Swine Flu killed more people, they're not opened up to very much critics because no one holds them to any standard or expectations as at all. I'm eternally grateful when public policy is driven by the former, rather than the latter.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Spud on May 29, 2020, 12:25:31 AM
A post from Ananas that made me think and reflect:

On an anonymous internet forum I can share some of my own thoughts on this, because I am someone who benefited enormously from generational wealth. We weren't rich when I was a small kid, but became quite wealthy during my teenage years.  I think there's a major difference in being the first recipients of generational wealth or further down the line. I live in a Nordic welfare state and will soon turn 40.

Personally I have received a large inheritance and will probably receive another within the next 20 years. One of my parents died about 20 years ago and their inheritance passed to me and my brother. Most of that inheritance was part ownership of the family company, which my father built. The company business is unfortunately in a sector of the economy that has no long term future, so my father took the decision to sell the company about 10-15 years ago for a healthy amount (10-15mil. euros)

I was 18 when I received the first part of the inheritance, which was about 1 mil. euros in liquid assets and then the ownership of the family company.  About 10 years later, when the company was sold, I received another 1 mil. euros in liquid assets and the holding/investment company that I own with my brother had assets of around 3-4 mil. euros. That had grown to about double before Corona hit.  So my own assets are about 3 mil. euros and 50 % ownership of an investment company with about 6-8 mil. euros capital.  On top of that my father has another similar amount in his investments, which I know the contents of, so its likely that I will inherit some millions more at some point in the future.

What impact has this had on my life? (in completely random order)
- Is this enough money that would make me a super rich person who flies on private jets etc? No, but it has made my life secure from just about every possible negative downside of normal life in a capitalist system. With the exception of a bad gambling or drug habit, I don't think I will ever even spend even as much as I gain on average every year and even a negative return of -20% or whatever Corona will end up with, will not leave me worse off.
- I spent the age from 19 - 27 drifting around, studying, playing computer games, traveling some and then going abroad to study and live for a year. I have 2 masters degrees (Social sciences and law) the first I made with minimum effort and the second I did with gusto and finished in 3,5 years (normal study time would be 5,5 years). Studying is free here, which is nice and something that should be the norm everywhere.
- I work for a living and earn enough to pay all my monthly / yearly expenses. I did decide when studying that I would work in a place that helped people less fortunate than I am. I studied to be a lawyer, so I currently work for a Union representing workers when their employers don't pay the salary, fire them without cause etc. I used to work for the legal aid office, but I couldn't handle the emotional baggage of family cases (divorce + fighting about the kids).
- I don't really have any career goals and sort of float around. If I get bored of my current employment, I will probably just change jobs. I might move to a more court litigation type of role since I find myself liking that. I think of retiring at around 50 or something, maybe when my kids are teenagers. If possible I might change to a part-time job, so I have more free time.
- I also take all the holidays that I can. I live in a Nordic welfare state so I get 5-6 weeks of holidays a year by law. On top of that I usually change the holiday bonus into more holidays, which gives 2-3 weeks extra depending on the employer. On top of that my current employer gives overtime pay or equivalent time off, since this job is quite seasonal I usually wind up with the equivalent of 2 weeks of extra holidays. So this year I will have 10 weeks of paid holidays and might take 2-3 weeks unpaid holidays, if its possible.
- I'm a happy taxpayer and find it disgusting that a lot of rich people spend their time complaining about having to pay taxes on income. I would rather we have a robust welfare state than me having a bit more money.
- There is a sort of existential ennui to my life, that I'm sort of trying to manage. I have a hard time getting really excited about stuff. I can (within reason) buy whatever I want, so there is no waiting for saving up for something and no sense of accomplishment related to that. This is something I think people forget with inheritances.
- I have been looking for something new that excites me for the last few years. Earlier I loved travel, so I traveled a lot with partner, but now even that doesn't excite me as much. With kids adventure travel is not really possible. Never really was into 5* travel stuff, but more along the lines of lets go to Australia for 6 weeks, rent a car and stay at a motel / campground type of travel.
- I'm terrified of my kids becoming even more jaded and comfortable than I am with always having everything they want, so we try not to give them everything, but they are still at an age where its easy (not in school yet). I don't know how it will work out when they become teenagers. We also decided to live in a neighborhood, where not everyone is rich or wealthy, if that would help ground us and the kids more.
- As I get older, I care less about what other people think and don't really want to live in a place where I would feel the pressure to keep up with the neighbors.
I also don't want to only associate with other rich people. Most of my friends are comfortable upper middle class, from my childhood or from university. A few of them have some inherited money and a few are entrepreneurs, who might make it big, or might not.

I often feel that my life is on easy mode and I don't know if that is a good thing or not. I am happy answer any questions, within reason and keeping my relative anonymity.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on June 03, 2020, 06:51:24 AM
This lengthy post from @IslandFiGirl about her personal experience into FIRE is at the heart of what this forum is all about:

I always love reading other people's stories about FIRE, so I thought I'd share what mine has been like over the past 4 months since leaving my job.  I like to talk, so this will probably be long, fair warning!  (Not sure if this matters but I'm a single mom of 3 kids (2 are adults) in my mid 40's)

Leaving Work
I left my job on February 4th, 2020 after becoming completely, totally crispy fried and burnt out.  I was about as close to having enough money to FIRE as I thought I could get without going insane, so I decided it was worth my mental (and physical) health to get out of there before I completely melted down.  (I managed a 911 dispatch center and had been there for 15 years and although I loved the job in so many ways, I was tired of being the public's punching bag, and was tired of being on call every stinking minute of my life!)  Giving my notice was by far the scariest part.  I stressed so much over the fact that I was "leaving my people" behind and what would they EVER do without me, how could they manage, this was such a betrayal!  HAH!  How wrong I was!  If I can impart any wisdom to anyone...here it is.  They can do without you, they WILL replace you, they will get along, it will be FINE.  Live your life for you.  That's the advice I had to give myself and I'm so glad I took that advice because here I am 4 months later, with no panic attacks, no work stress, it's great!  Anyway, after giving notice, I only had to deal with 2 weeks worth of questions from EVERYONE...Why are you leaving?  What will you do next?  That part was hard for me because I really didn't want to tell anyone anything but people want to know!  At first I said I was keeping my future endeavors to myself...people didn't like that.  They wanted to know!  When I gave my notice, I told my boss I was leaving for a new opportunity...I didn't mention that the opportunity was to do whatever the hell I wanted and not work!  Eventually I just said I was taking some time off to spend with my family because 2 of my kids would be moving on to their adult lives this year and I didn't want to spend the last few months I had with them stuck at work for 12-14 hours a day.  Thankfully the 2 weeks ended and I had my last day of work, which was kind of emotional because all of the people I had worked with for the last 15 years did a final call for me over the police radio, all saying goodbye and thanking me for my service.  It was very sweet and unexpected but it didn't stop me from running right out of that building like my ass was on fire!  I can laugh about it now, but after getting home from work on my last day, I got a text from the interim manager asking if I could possibly work a shift tomorrow since someone had called in sick.  HAHAHAHAH, NO!  No, I could not!  I just quit this job, remember? Somehow they managed.

First few weeks after FIRE'ing
For the first few weeks after leaving work, I woke up super early.  Like 4:30 to 5:00am.  I didn't have anywhere to be so I tried to learn how to sleep in.  That didn't really work, so I just went with it and figured at some point, I might start waking up later.  I went to the gym almost every day, sometimes twice a day.  I wanted to lose weight, but somehow it wasn't really working.  Maybe I forgot about the eating less part of losing weight, haha!  The transition was a little difficult.  I think I was still stuck in the mindset that I should be working or doing something with my life.  Or that I thought someone might tell me that I should be working or judge me and that I would have to find a way to defend my choices.  I know that people always say you should retire TO something rather than AWAY from something, but hey, these were my circumstances and I was doing the best I could.  My big plan was to buy a truck and a small travel trailer and get out and explore, and this was going to be easy because summer was coming and I'd only have one kid left at home, so coordinating all of this would be easy, right?  During those first few weeks (and even now) I was also feeling some guilt.  Not some...a lot of guilt.  I had saved money for a long time, but a good portion of my money came from an inheritance from my parents who had died within the last few years.  I was really struggling with what a jerk I was being for just using that money to live off of when they were dead and couldn't enjoy it for themselves.  They both had retired and died almost immediately after retiring.  It was so heartbreaking to know that they couldn't go on any more cruises, no more fun trips...they worked all their lives and it ended so abruptly.  I had nightmares every night, in fact, I still do, but not quite as frequently.  My recurring nightmare is that one or both of my parents somehow come back to life and I had to scramble to explain that I had sold their house and give back their money and explain why I had it and why I was so selfish to think I could use that money to live on when they needed it.  It's still something I struggle with, but I am doing what I think is right for me and my family and I can only hope they would think that what I'm doing is good.  Ok, Enough sad stuff...

How quickly plans change!
I was just starting to think I could settle in to being fired, started making plans to go camping and have adventures, carefully watching my budget, when I started hearing rumblings of a pandemic.  I usually don't get too worked up about things but around the first week of March I felt like this would be a big deal, so I went out and spent about $1,000 on groceries.  During that week my next door neighbor moved out and left a perfectly good fridge outside his house for free, so I snagged that and filled it up too.  During this time, my daughter's college boyfriend was in town visiting her from his Cruise line job and they got engaged.  Super exciting time!  When he was scheduled to go back to work, they told him not to come and he ended up losing his job, so now I had an extra person living with us and another mouth to feed.  My budget was blown instantly...I stocked up on food, medicine, anything I could think of in case things went bad, but I was grateful to have the money to do this and happy that I didn't have to go to work during scary times.  It didn't take long for my oldest daughter to lose her job and suddenly nobody in the household had a job.  Now I was supporting a household of 5 people and I was getting nervous, especially when the stock market took the first big hit.  I didn't allow myself to look at my accounts, knowing it would make me sick and scared, so I just decided that I had enough money and we would be ok.  This strategy proved to be effective.  If I've learned anything from here it's to set your plan and stick with it, if you set it up right, outside influences shouldn't effect you much.  Live frugally and you should always have enough.  That about sums it up...even though the pandemic stock market hit initially set me back about $95k, I'm now back to within about $4k of where I was at when I fired.  I'm soooo glad the pandemic happened a month after I FIRE'd though because I am not sure I would have had the guts to leave knowing my investments were losing so much money.  Pandemic living has evened out here.  At first it was hard having an extra person living with us, but after some time, we have adjusted, and I think it probably has brought us all closer together.  I'm glad I got to spend this time with my daughter and her fiance before they move away this summer, I feel that it has made our bond stronger for the future, and for that I am grateful.

Money, bills, health insurance, oh my!
As soon as I left work, I got to work on getting health insurance.  I decided that no matter what, I was not going without insurance, I've seen too many people get into deep doo doo because they didn't have it and I didn't want to get some terrible illness or injury and wipe out my savings.  I ended up getting no subsidies on the marketplace because I qualified for Medicaid.  I didn't want Medicaid and didn't feel I needed to be on that so I went ahead and purchased my own insurance for about $350/ month.  I hated that it cost that much but a lot of docs do not take Medicaid around here so I decided to buy the insurance.  Peace of mind is what I really bought, and that is ok with me.  I have to say it's really weird to not have a paycheck hit my account every month.  I've been using credit cards to pay bills so that I get the points from the cards.  I don't really like this method though, and I think this month I will just go back to paying cash for things.  Having to pay the credit card balance off every month is not a huge deal but I don't like the idea of owing anybody anything.  It's unnatural to me and doesn't feel good, even with the tiny perks I get from the cards.  I also think I spend a bit more knowing I'm using a credit card.  All in all though, I don't have many bills and even though the pandemic hurt my budget for a little while, it's not near as bad as I thought it would be.  I wanted to track everything so I could say, oh, I spent this much on food and this much on this or that, but it's become exhausting.  I know myself and I know I am careful with money so even though I have a general idea of what goes out every month, I don't obsess over my budget like I used to.  It just became too exhausting to worry about it.

Fun!
As spring approached and the weather got better, all I could think about was having fun outside!  I love warm weather and couldn't wait to get out on the water with my paddle board.  Wanting to have fun is usually what makes me spend the most money.  This time was no exception.  I sat here in my living room thinking of all the fun I'd like to have on the lake and realized I wanted a new toy!  An inflatable paddle board.  I did tons of research and found a really good one and knew I had to have it, an inflatable fits in my car so easily, so it is so much better than a hard board that you have to strap on top of your car.  After I bought the board, I realized I needed an electric pump...and a cooler...and a special quick drying towel...and a waterproof phone case...and another cooler.  I could see myself quickly getting out of control so I decided to stop spending money and just be happy with this toy!  If I let myself, I would keep finding new cool things to buy, so it was time to nip it in the bud!  Not long after that, I decided I wanted to build a shed in my backyard with my son.  Neither of us have a clue what we are doing, but I bought plans for the shed, bought the wood, borrowed some tools and we went to town.  The shed is still in progress, but we are learning a lot...mostly what not to do with things like nail guns.  Needless to say, safety is first and foremost in our minds after the nail gun incident of 2020, when my son's pinky got nicked with a nail.  Whoops!  I am not sure if I am not doing much outside the house because of the pandemic or because I am more of a homebody.  It's hard to tell.  But I end up spending a lot of time in my comfy chair in the backyard, watching the butterflies, birds and squirrels, sprucing things up, watching the fire in the fire pit and grilling food.  I spend at least an hour every day studying the Korean language, it's something I learned back in my Army days and I try not to lose that knowledge.  It's only recently that I have had the time to study, and it's nice to be able to understand it.  I meet up with one or two friends on occasion and we typically just talk and eat or go hang out at the lake and fish.  I can't say I've done anything terribly exciting, but again, this is during an odd time.  Nothing is normal during a pandemic, I guess.

Future plans
On occasion I will think about getting a job, maybe something part time, just for fun.  I did commit to not working for at least one year to really give myself a chance to just chill and find out what I'm all about, so I'm not going to think about that too much until next year.  If my youngest daughter is not able to get scholarships for college, I may consider going to work at the University in a couple years to get a discount for her.  We shall see.  But mostly what I think about is how awesome it is to not have answer to a boss or a schedule and how can I keep doing this for as long as possible.  If that means working sometimes to keep from depleting my stash (stache?) I can manage that.  But full time work, I don't know if I can ever stomach that again. 

Goals
My biggest goal was to lose weight and improve my health, and I'm happy to report that I have finally figured out what works for me and I've lost 20 pounds since February.  My gym has reopened and I'm so happy to get back there to see people and socialize and workout and just finally be able to have more options to focus on my overall well being.  I feel like removing the stress of work has helped me be better able to plan meals, shop, cook more often (almost never go out to eat now), and just be available to focus on feeling good and doing good things for myself.  Everybody in my family benefits when I am doing well and it has been soooo worth it to put effort into me for once.

Friends, Connections, etc.
I've always been kind of on the fence about social media.  At times I find it strange, the things people will post, the humble bragging, the dirty laundry being aired, the cattiness, back biting, I don't really like it.  However, it seems there has been a huge shift in the way people deal with each other and not having a social media account has kind of made it where I'm obsolete with a good portion of my friends.  I seem to get left out of a lot of things.  I always wonder if I should try to use it again, make a facebook account, so I can better connect with people, but I remember how it was the last time I used it about 5 years ago and I didn't like how you could so easily post something to someone, but not really get more in depth with them, and I don't want to have that superficial type of thing with people again.  It's food for thought.  I have a few best friends that I talk to frequently and that is satisfying, so maybe one doesn't need social media at all. 

After having been FIRE'd for 4 months, I can safely say, I like it.  I don't need to be defined by a job.  I don't need to impress other people or conform to how they think I should live.  If I am able to I would like to continue this lifestyle and I'll continue to find ways to hang on to it. I wish I had figured out a way to do it sooner.  I love that the possibilities are endless and if there's something I want to do, I can probably figure out a way to make it happen.  I highly recommend this and wish I could convince everyone I know to do the same!  Thanks for reading my long long long story!  :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Mrs Brightside on June 04, 2020, 10:15:25 AM
I loved reading all of these. Can we pin this thread to the top of the Welcome section?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Ladychips on June 17, 2020, 11:33:07 AM
Today I have two posts that made my little heart sing.

One by @tooqk4u22  and one by @FIRE 20/20 (from the 2019 FIRE Cohort):

Wow, I just realized that two days ago was my 1st anniversary of not working.    It went pretty fast and something like this:

June- Sep:  Spent a lot of time enjoying the summer, friends and family with a little bit of regional travel. 

Sep-Nov:  Back to kid craziness with school and all three in travel sports.  During days did a whole bunch of house projects that were always on the list but no time.

Dec:   Holiday season - a lot of friends and family time, more kids travel, and over indulging.

Jan-Feb:  Not much, winter gloom, more kids stuff, recovering from too much socializing and indulging. Planned and paid for a great spring break vacation in April (wah wah)

March-Now:  Pretty much the same as everyone else - not much, social distancing, home schooling, spending down 50% from same time last year (a lot due to canceled/delayed kids travel sports) Did a bunch of outside projects. 

Overall not too interesting but very satisfying and not stressful at all.  I confirmed that I am different than most people we know bc being mostly isolated without spending was rather nice IMO, obviously this excludes the virus itself and the impact it had on so many people.  I am just referring to the homebody aspect of it.   While my DW enjoys my company she did not feel the same way as she is a very social person who does like more of the typical consumerist ways.

Two things that I still finding interesting are:
1.  How everybody continues to ask me some form of "When are you going back to work?", "Have you found anything yet?", "What's your plan for work?"
    -  Mostly I just reply "Not sure" or "Looking for something different that resonates better with me" or "when I have to"  because I don't like telling people I am not bc I have enough.  I would rather people not have an idea and question my sanity (some have by the way both directly and behind my back).   But now its over a year I guess the farce that I am still open to work may be obvious to all but the dumbest or most self absorbed individuals.

2. I think I still have burnout syndrome (sort of a PTSD) from work/career because there is nothing that interests me if it means not controlling my schedule (aside from my family that I can't control) or reporting to someone or held to some timeline.   Whatever.  An example was I crafted some things and they came out well that I actually got several requests for some.  And if I did it I I could probably make a nice profit if I broke it down hourly, but then I would have to DO IT, DELIVER IT, LISTEN TO PEOPLE THAT MAY NOT LIKE THIS OR THAT A LITTLE.  Nope, not interested. Which is funny because I like making stuff, but just on my timeline.   


That's it for now.


Wow, I just realized that two days ago was my 1st anniversary of not working.    It went pretty fast and something like this:
...

Thanks for the update @tooqk4u22 !  I had planned to write an update but never got around to it.  Here's mine, using your format.  My last day was around April 26, I think:

May-December- On our last day we flew to see a few concerts, then after we returned we mixed about 2 weeks of downtime with a few visits to see out of state family. We were a lot more social than normal.  We had friends and family stay with us while they visited, and we went to see a few friends and family members.  We also had local friends over for dinner a lot more than usual because weren't seeing them at work.   I started tutoring math at the local library for 1st semester. 
January - mid-February - We took a 6 week vacation to New Zealand.  It turns out we had perfect timing to blow through almost our entire annual travel budget.
mid-February - now COVID isolation.

I've added a number of things to my normal routine that I wasn't able to do while working.  I'm finally learning a foreign language.  I'm re-learning piano.  I've been able to stick with at least 30 minutes a day on each of those tasks pretty consistently.  I haven't gotten out into nature as much as I had hoped.  My restaurant trips have gone from rare to never, although COVID had a little to do with that.  I'm also reading a lot more than I was before, although it seems like that just turns me on to more books so the backlog is even larger than usual. 

The main lessons I've learned are:
1.  I'm still the same person.  Things I wasn't interested in before I am still not interested in even though I have more time.  Only activities that I really wanted to do but didn't have time for have stuck.  Tasks that I put off before I still put off, even though I have plenty of time to do them.
2.  Volunteering has become vastly more important to me than I expected.  I signed up out of a feeling that I should be contributing in some way, but I've gotten a lot more personal satisfaction out of it than I thought I would.  I can't recommend highly enough that FIREes try to find some kind of volunteering opportunity.  It's so much more fulfilling than I thought, and for me it was just 4 hours a week (pre-COVID).  I was planning to add 2 additional days of literacy tutoring to the mix, but COVID nixed that. 
3.  I FIREd with a plan to start consulting to pick up a little income, but FIRE is so much better than I expected that I'm never going back unless the situation is absolutely dire.  I would *much* rather pare my expenses than ever work again. 
4.  It's a cliche, but I don't know how I ever had time to work.  My daily activities full up all of my available time and more.  I'm never bored.  I didn't retire to something as so many people say you should - I really FIREd to get the obligation to work off my schedule even though I had a fantastic job.  It was the obligation that I hated even though the work paid well and the environment was good. 
5.  I am much more sanguine about my money and the markets than I expected I would be.  The market drops this year haven't bothered me in the slightest.  Some of it is the conservative approach I took to FIRE, with a low sub-4% withdrawal rate plus back-up plan on top of back-up plan, but some of it is that it's so clear to me how much I don't want to go back to work that I know I'd be happy to reduce spending significantly to stay FIREd.  For me, being FIREd on a shoestring budget would be better than working with lots of luxuries.  I suspected that might be the case, but it's a much stronger feeling now that I know I'm extremely happy at home with my partner just doing my thing. 
6.  I am incredibly grateful to everyone who went before me.  MMM, @madfientist , LivingAFI, the Trinity study authors, posters on this forum, etc.  When I found out about FIRE I had been saving about 25-35% of my income, but I was able to get that up closer to 60-70% after I saw how much stupid spending I was doing.  That probably chopped a decade of work off my life.  Finding out about things like safe withdrawal rates, Roth IRA ladders, ACA and tax optimization, and a DIY mindset have given me many extra years without the obligation of work 5 days each week.  I never could have done this on my own, and I'll be forever grateful for all the people who made this possible.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: deborah on June 28, 2020, 02:21:50 AM
On whether you agree with MMMs approach
I guess this depends on what your definition of "approach" is. For me the MMM approach is about being mindful of the environment, being mindful of consumerism, and making changes to the typical wasteful relationship people have with money in order to save a much larger percentage of our income. This solves the two big problems of time and money that allows us to concentrate on happiness and things that we value.

It's a bit difficult to argue with that approach. People may not wish to follow it, or live life in that way, but the fact we are all on this forum means we are thinking about this stuff and are actively working to make our lives the best that they can be and to spend more of our time away from the rat race. So we are largely bought into this, employing our own version of it, and of course may have been doing this long before MMM was around.

This doesn't mean we have to agree with every single detail or every post on how we go about this. How many people in real life, friends, family etc do we have where we agree with absolutely everything they say? Probably none. I do find the posts about salad and exercise preventing all illness and disability as way off the mark, but it is aligned with the overall chirpy, positive and optimistic outlook that the MMM character provides. Control the 'controllables' is essentially the message there but of course, there is a lot in life that is out of our control.

The 'face punching' phrase I've always interpreted as cartoon style face punching. When someone gets hit five times in a row in a cartoon, there is no pain, no damage inflicted, but it has snapped them out of whatever they were doing beforehand I.e. it's harmless, and a way of providing impact to the writing style. It grabs attention and pulls people in. So I was never really offended at this.

I found this site because I was looking at buying a new car. I was recently mortgage free and had always been scared of investing. I had been to a couple of showrooms and rolled my eyes at some of the sales techniques. Being mortgage free had significantly increased my cashflow but despite this freedom my general frugal mindset prevented me from buying and I thought I would research how to buy a second hand car. (I had only bought one car before and this was brand new). I stumbled across one of MMM's car articles, found the post interesting and then found the page with all the posts from the beginning of time. I quickly realised this was not a site offering advice on how to buy a car but something much broader. One of the first articles I read was the 'Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement". I appreciate there are other articles containing this subject matter, and that the information was available elsewhere but seeing the table of working years until retirement changed my life. It literally changed my life. Like boom! This information can not be unseen. Whether I like it or not my life is now headed on a different course than it would have been if the table had not been seen.

I continued reading more posts on the site. Although it only felt like a few minutes when I next looked at the clock it was 4am. I had 90 minutes before I had to go to work. I must have been reading the site for in the region of 8 hours straight. I don't think there are very many writers that would make me do that. I've never read a single source like that before with no appreciation of time. There was no rationing out of the articles over the course of a few days or weeks. I just had to keep reading there and then. I appreciate there was a lot of self interest there. I was hooked because of what this approach to life could do for me. I suddenly realised there was a way out of work having been conditioned to accept that we worked until 65. I instantly made a load of changes (I'm single so only me to buy in) and overnight established an 80% savings rate that I have maintained ever since (I found the site in September 2017). The first decision was to cut my mileage and keep my existing car until it was at least 20 years old. So I am still yet to buy a second hand car :-)

Of course that table that got me hooked is based on the 4% rule. As it takes considerable time to reach FIRE I have kept reading and learning. I now see how brilliant that post is at pulling someone in and just making them aware that there actually is a FIRE number. From further research the 4% rule is not something I will be following. I don't disagree with anyone that does want to follow it. Some can be using 4% but have the ability to cut their expenses by 50% while others may only be able to cut by 5% and these are two completely different situations. So what actually does 4% mean? However I don't now disagree with the MMM approach just because I'm going to tailor a withdrawal rate to my own views on asset allocation and my own personal situation here in the UK. I'll do my own research and make decisions accordingly.

I was relatively frugal before my FIRE epiphany but this site has given me the confidence to invest. As a result I will have the opportunity to escape a full time stressful job 20 years early. I am very grateful to this MMM character. I don't see MMM or Pete as a celebrity. I'm not a 'fan' and in all likelihood we will never meet. I may not agree with everything on the main site but this random internet stranger that doesn't even know I exist has significantly impacted my life in a positive way, and not many can achieve something like that. Of course there are some wonderful people on the forums that I have actually got to know and interact directly with. The knowledge I have gained from them now far exceeds what I originally learned from MMM, but nevertheless indirectly introducing me to these people is another reason I have to be grateful to MMM.

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Linea_Norway on July 04, 2020, 03:24:44 AM
<quotes>
On the one hand, you are absolutely right. The advice to live below your means is the same regardless of your personal circumstances or characteristics.  But if that’s all there is, an endless exhortation to live below your means, there is no blog.  There is no forum. There is no need to say or share anything besides news of our victory laps...”Look at how great I am, earning a big salary that far exceeds my living expenses.  Woo Hoo!!”   But that’s not [only] what we do here.  Lots of what we do is share ideas for things we can do & build. And we’re able to do them without spending excess money because we are physically capable. We are able to create wealth because we have all the right physical ability. 
That blows to shit in a disaster. Whether these are accidents, natural disasters, chronic health issues, addiction or simply aging.  There is a point at which riding your bike to Costco is not viable because age related decline makes it unsafe. It’s not just personal finance that is shying away from addressing concerns of the sick & frail. That’s a universal phenomenon.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Some estimates are that 60% of us will endure an extended period of disability within our lifetimes.  It doesn’t just happen when you are old and already drawing a pension that covers all your living expenses.  Sometimes it happens at 40.  Or sometimes it happens to your child or partner.  The longer you live, the more you will see this.  And you will also realize how oblivious you might have been up until the point that your sibling dives into the shallow end of a pool, or your in-law develops MS, oryour nephew gets Covid and after 60 days in the hospital, much of that time on a ventilator, he is left at age 30, with what looks to be permanent limitations. All these things happened to my loved ones.
The spirit of the MMM community is that individuals have agency and can do things.  That we shouldn’t just leave ourselves at the mercy of what others (employers, government & charity) decide to hand to us, but that we approach our circumstances with an entrepreneurial spirit.  Doing what we can, sharing what we know and learned to make our lives better.  We genuinely help others to help themselves around here. 
So, no.  It’s not all the same as a niche for left handed people. 
I have a deck off the back of my house that is a few feet off the ground.  On one end there are four steps.  On another side, we had beautiful stone steps that we covered with a wooden ramp, made of the same material as the deck.  This was a convenience for getting a baby stroller in and out without having to lug it up and down the steps.  We built it with free, pressure treated lumber left over from someone else’s project.  It has served nicely when relatives who use walkers or wheelchairs have come to visit.  My neighbor is using a walker and now needs to get a ramp installed to get in and out of his home.  There are massive steel contraptions that get added onto houses and cost lots of money.  My neighbor came to see our ramp and how it fits into the design.  To build the same in their yard would cost a fraction of the price of the metal ramp.  It would likely be safer too, as it wouldn’t develop a slippery surface when icy or wet. This ramp is a simple thing that is going to permit aging in place.  Aging in place is increasingly important, both as the boomer population gets older and as the unique risks and injustices in care homes come to light in the wake of Covid19.  We should talk about that more.  We should talk about how it relates to personal finance.  And we should be sharing what we know about what we can do.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RWD on July 13, 2020, 08:32:01 AM
Excellent succinct post on how to maintain boundaries at work instead of reacting to poor conditions:

I'd rather establish my boundaries and make them fire me, than walk because I have a bad day. I've been surprised how negotiable work place rules are. Phrases like -  "I'm not doing that", "I disagree", "I made a judgement call", "there was not enough time", "you'll need to find someone else" etc. - they work great.

I suppose one day I'll find those bounds, making it a bad day. But it feels different to me, than walking around with an ultimatum on my shoulder 24/7.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Adventine on July 14, 2020, 01:06:21 AM
Excellent succinct post on how to maintain boundaries at work instead of reacting to poor conditions:

I'd rather establish my boundaries and make them fire me, than walk because I have a bad day. I've been surprised how negotiable work place rules are. Phrases like -  "I'm not doing that", "I disagree", "I made a judgement call", "there was not enough time", "you'll need to find someone else" etc. - they work great.

I suppose one day I'll find those bounds, making it a bad day. But it feels different to me, than walking around with an ultimatum on my shoulder 24/7.

I really need to keep this in mind, especially now that work demands have been increasing because of the pandemic.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: talltexan on July 14, 2020, 07:48:36 AM
I've often found myself handicapped in personal interactions because I believe in being ethically consistent.

I feel as though a professional setting demands respect of these kinds of ethical consistencies, however. Any thoughts?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BicycleB on August 19, 2020, 11:47:51 AM
Very inspiring posts by @SwordGuy on how to give Mustache-style. Some discussion is still ongoing in the original thread, Mustachian People Problems.


So, my MPP problem is that for me to give us as an example, I have to say, "Dude, we buy ENTIRE HOUSES to help other people out.   Three in the last 2 years, as a matter of fact."

Not sure they'll believe that.

I've only bought one entire house this year to help someone, and it's a good feeling. I don't tell people about it though.

It *is* a good feeling.    And I don't generally mention it either other than here, where I'm anonymous.
   

As some kind of real estate-based charity thing, or for a family member "here's the deed and the keys?"

One was for a family friend to get their rental property business jump-started.  I bought it and funded the renovation, they did bulk of the work.   Then I sold it to them for cost, $94,000, on 0% and no payments for 2 years, then a 30 year amortization for 3% the first year and 5% the remaining 29.   We have a handshake they'll refinance sometime in year 3, which will free up that capital to help someone else.   We set those terms so they could build up a repair kitty pretty quickly, plus they get all the sweat equity in the newly renovated property.   And, with 2 years of profitable returns under their belt, it will be easier for them to get more loans for more rental properties.    I'm pretty sure the person we helped get into the real estate business will help others get going in the future.   That's the kind of couple they are, which is part of the reason we picked them.

One was for a family friend that my mentally handicapped daughter thinks of as her grandmother (and vice-versa).   We bought a distressed house for $62,500, she fixed it up over the next 10 months until it was mortgage-ready, and then we sold it to her a few thousand below cost. (We ignored the insurance, taxes and utility costs.)    She got a much, much nicer house than she could have afforded otherwise as that sweat equity saved her about $25,000.   She's got a small 15yr mortgage.   That house will start her family on the path to having generational wealth to pass on.   A $100,000 house doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a solid start.   

The third was to turn into a half-way house, a group home for foster kids who age out of the system.   But covid caused a lot of delays and tradesmen in our area don't want to follow covid safety guidelines.  I like to be generous but I don't feel like dying because of it, so we're selling it at a loss and using it (plus the sale of our old home) to pay off the mortgage on our new home.   We'll be donating $1000 a month until we reach the same amount as we get for selling it, which will take about 54 months.   I think it will be fun sending charities or just good people who need help a check for $1k.  (It will be an anonymous check if it's to people.)

The original plan would have had the house cost about $75k after renovations (We have $10k already in it, hence selling for a loss.   The value of a distressed property really doesn't go up much until it's "done".)

Original plan for $94k plus $64.5k plus $75k = $233.5k worth of help to people that would only cost us $77k.   And if times were tough, we could have rented out the group home as a for-profit for a few years to recoup some of our investment before we donated it.    As it stands, it will end up costing us about $68k to give about $222.5k worth of help to others.    Not counting opportunity costs, of course, because we could have made money in the market had we invested it.

I don't think that charity has to be limited to just giving stuff and money away.  It can also be laser-targeted to help people leverage their situation into a better one by setting up very generous terms they could not otherwise get. 

When that $94k house gets refinanced, we'll have $94k plus whatever interest comes in in year 3 available to help someone else out with.   Maybe by then we'll have found another person who could use a jump-start in the real estate business.   It's the kind of thing that can transform someone's life for the better, which is what charity is actually supposed to do.    Or maybe we'll find another property that's good for a group home and set it up.    Or just donate it at $1k a month.

Anyway, that's how we put our charity dollars to work.

Hope some of you find it helpful in finding creative ways to afford way more charity than you otherwise thought possible.

...

We are really early in our $ saving journey and earning more money than ever (though small potatoes compared to many on this forum!) and it really has us thinking about how we can be generous. For so many years we were so tight, it feels amazing to be able to start giving things away.

Generosity doesn't have to be "big" like a house.   Sometimes what people need most is a generous spirit to shower them with friendship and affection.

Perhaps that’s a mpp, struggling to balance focusing on our own future security with the desire to be generous to those in need around us.
It is.   

I ran across two comments some years ago that stuck with me.   "Money doesn't change people, it just lets them be more of what they already are."       That and "Begin as you mean to continue."

Targeted help doesn't have to cost a lot of money.   It doesn't even have to cost money at all.   Here's an example.   My dad had passed away and my mom got sick.   I had to go fly to see her at the last minute.     She lived about 7 hours away.   That money was a sunk cost.

I had a friend who didn't have much money and who had wanted to visit her friends in the city where my mom lived.    Instead of buying a return plane ticket, I paid her to drive my car to my mom's city.   She spent the weekend with her friends and then we both drove home in my car.   I think I even saved $10!   She got needed cash in her pocket, she got a paid vacation, we had a nice chat on the drive home, AND it wasn't charity because she was doing me a favor by saving me money.  (I never mentioned it was only a few dollars.)    The opportunities are out there if you look for them.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FireLane on August 26, 2020, 10:39:43 AM
The venerable @Nords with a wise list of lessons learned from 18 years of FIREd life:

I think the biggest issue with planning for FI is making the time to do the planning... especially with all of the other distractions in the average workweek.

It’s hard enough to dedicate the mental bandwidth to the exercise, let alone to devote a significant amount of effort on it:
https://the-military-guide.com/the-fog-of-work/

I retired from U.S. military active duty in 2002, and I’ve been consistently unemployed for over 18 years.  Here’s a few big-picture perspectives that I’ve learned to appreciate during the last 6658 days:

1.  Your FI timescale moves more slowly than your working years.  Things that you would have blazed through in a week at work may take a month of thoughtful part-time effort during FI.  A month during your working career could be a year during FI.

This is your chance to experiment with different ideas and to develop a new set of habits.  If you rush around during your FI days checking things off your list and then kick back at 5 PM, you might be doing it wrong.

In our FI family we’ve taken the mantra of working on a project for 20 minutes a day.  (If you get into the flow, then a couple hours might be all right.  Or maybe you stop when you begin to sweat.)  Instead of planning for a day of work, we plan for a day of leisure interrupted by popping up from our indolence to do some work.  I start my mornings with the things I enjoy (like writing, surfing, and reading) before tackling the things which have to be done.

2.  When you were a young adult planning the next 10 years of your life, did any of it turn out the way you expected-- let alone on your timeline?

Then why would it work that way during FI?

Sure, make plans.  However reassess those plans every 2-5 years and come up with a new plan. 

I had no idea that I’d enjoy surfing as much as I do.  I knew that we’d want to travel, but I never thought that we’d do it for 4-5 months of the year-- and that we wouldn’t even (*gasp*) bother tracking how much time or money we spent on it.

3.  Everyone’s more physically ambitious about their FI goals.  You’re going to run that marathon, join a Crossfit box, build your home gym, hike the Appalachian Trail, and lose 20 pounds.

Except that during the first month of this plan, you overtrain and then injure yourself.

Refer back to the first point about slowing down a little and taking a more gradual approach.  You still need to do cardio & strength, but start slow/light and give yourself plenty of time to build up.  Pretend that you’re finally recovering from a chronic disease (“workplace stress”) and let your body set the pace without beating yourself up.

Anyway here is my somewhat anonymized "ideal Life" outline:
Work
Instead of “learn to do a thing and then get better at it”, I’d limit yourself to “try these things.”  If you’re not immediately hooked by something (which derails the rest of your list) then simply move on to the next thing and try it.  As you try stuff, your “Try It” list might actually get longer.

Whatever you’re exploring, you don’t have to be efficient or even very effective at it.  You just have to experience it and enjoy it.  You have plenty of time to decide about committing.  If it’s not a “Heck, yeah!!” response then I’d move on to something else.

If you are hooked by something, then do a deep dive into it on your own terms & timeline.  I’m perpetually amazed by how much I can research from Google queries and YouTube videos.

Volunteer before you sign up for a commitment, and insist on only 1-2 hours a day with 1-2 days a week.  If the people you’re working with want more than that, it’s unfair of you to agree to their terms and then burn out in two months.  You also don’t want to lock yourself into anything when you’ve just become free to explore the entire world. 

Living accommodations
I’ve lived in Hawaii for over half of my life, but we never expected that when we first saw the islands.  (It was just another homeport, and it wasn't even our first pick.)  As far as I can tell, I’m going to spend the rest of my life here for the climate and the culture.  I’ve gone back to my hometown and to the places where my parents spent the rest of their lives, and... nope.  I’m never living back there again.  If anything, my daughter & her spouse (and their baby daughter) are returning to Hawaii.

Every time we visit a new country, we find ourselves asking “Could we live here?”  In most cases the answer is “Yep!”, but it’s not Hawaii.  However we still need to do our due diligence in South America, Asia, and Australia.  Maybe I’ll find a better culture and even a better climate.

Don’t upheave your lifestyle when you first reach FI, but make the time to travel and explore.  If you’re seeking a new place to live, then spend a month or two there like a local instead of a two-week visitor.  If you want to explore a continent in an RV, then first rent one for a month. 

If you build a list of living criteria, then stay open to changing the list after you’ve seen 3-4 places.  You might not need to explore new places-- you might only need a new list.  I’ve really enjoyed starting with TheEarthAwaits and then coming up with new ideas.

You’ll evolve even after FI, and so will your criteria.  The “forever home” is a myth.  (Military families are particularly vulnerable to this fantasy, and it causes tremendous stress.)  If you find a place on your list, it’s all right to stay there for 10-20 years before exploring the rest of the list.  Even if you’ve found the ideal place, it’s all right to change your mind after a few years and go find a new ideal place. 

Physical Fitness
It’s a marathon.  Start by walking it.  Don’t overtrain, and don’t get hurt.

Consider whether you can do that thing for life, or at least have a Plan B.  I still tremendously enjoy taekwondo, but further knee injuries are not worth the price.  If I revert to coaching instead of competing, I’ll still risk hurting myself.  Instead I get enough of the competitive thrill from surfing-- and there’s no commitment to a team or a dojang.

I want to backpack Haleakala Crater again, but I can’t recover from the intensity quickly enough to endure the four-day experience.  (Let along avoid injury and a medevac.)  I’ll have to settle for afternoon hikes and maybe camping (but probably an AirBnB). 

Some days I can only handle an hour of yardwork (and an ibuprofen chaser) without adding an hour of surfing and another hour of repairing an appliance.  Maybe I’ll take a walk, but more likely I’ll spend the rest of the day with a recovery nap, stretching, and reading.

Home life
That seems like a very detailed and busy list.  Pace yourself.

In 2002 my detailed list was broken down into “very short range”, short range (a year), medium range (3-5 years), and “life.” 

Today the first two categories are in a calendar app of recurring items (we check it every month or few) plus milestones like “Sign up for Medicare” and one-time variables like “Start Social Security this year?”  The medium range is updated every few years (as my interests change). 

The life list has items like “Be a good spouse” and “Be a good parent.”  I’ve added “Be a good grandparent.”  I never really saw that one coming when I reached FI with a nine-year-old.

I’ve also added indulgent goals like “Be a good team member without showing leadership.”  (I’m still learning that I don’t have to optimize everything that I get involved in.)  Other goals include “Net worth higher than lifetime earnings”, “collect more pension than salary”, and “join the top ten of our college’s oldest living alumni list.”

A new item is “Get rid of stuff before your caregivers have to get rid of it for you.”

Dreams
Several years ago we traveled with friends who had a copy of the book “1000 Places To See Before You Die.”  We were wandering Italy for six weeks via a cruise ship and trains, and at every stop they checked the list.

That book darn near killed them, if I didn’t kill them first. 

My spouse and I really enjoyed the ship, and we put up with one of the cruise’s eight-hour shore excursions.  We spent way too much of the day being transported from one site to the next, and standing in line.  After enduring that one we opted for itineraries of a morning or an afternoon, or just exploring on our own.

During the train part of our trip we’d arrive at a town, and my spouse and I would want to relax on the beach (after a swim) or explore 1-2 sites.  We’d spend several hours of the day reading, writing, talking, or just watching videos.  We’d have one major goal (“visit the museum”), a few chores (groceries), and maybe a restaurant or pub.  After dinner we’d plan the next day in broad terms.

Our friends would rent a car and buzz all over a 50-mile radius to work the list.  They’d be up at the crack of dawn, grab a cup of coffee on the way out the door, eat three meals on the road, put 150 miles on the car, and get home at 8 PM... then start drinking.  Just being around them was exhausting.

Neither of us couples could understand why the other couple was living such a crazy lifestyle.  After that trip we needed a vacation.

As you’re pursuing a dream, break it down into smaller chunks to repeatedly test whether the dream is worth the work.  Do the parts you enjoy, and don’t feel obligated to endure the sucky parts just to get to the next enjoyable part.  I’d recommend “The Everyday Bucket List Book” by a friend who’s pursuing her own FI:
https://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Bucket-List-Book-Experiences-ebook/dp/B07T7HKB6W/
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mm1970 on August 26, 2020, 11:09:06 AM
Wow @Nords that was really awesome.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Nords on August 26, 2020, 12:06:54 PM
Thanks, FireLane & mm1970!

Maybe that's more of a book chapter than a blog post... and it's in my "Drafts" folder.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on August 27, 2020, 06:05:04 AM
That post (and many others) by @Nords supports my theory that there’s little correlation between posting frequency and post quality.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Nords on August 27, 2020, 08:33:42 AM
That post (and many others) by @Nords supports my theory that there’s little correlation between posting frequency and post quality.
Thank you!  I do much better with long-form evergreen writing... and answering questions. 

That discussion really made me reflect on what's changed for us over the years.  Those questions (and many other reflections) are eventually going to be a third book about financial independence for life, but first my daughter and I need to launch our book.  Then I'll update The Military Guide with all the changes from the last few years.  Most of that material is evergreen, too, but a few programs have ended and a few new ones have started. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Ozlady on August 28, 2020, 05:49:59 PM
That post (and many others) by @Nords supports my theory that there’s little correlation between posting frequency and post quality.
Thank you!  I do much better with long-form evergreen writing... and answering questions. 

That discussion really made me reflect on what's changed for us over the years.  Those questions (and many other reflections) are eventually going to be a third book about financial independence for life, but first my daughter and I need to launch our book.  Then I'll update The Military Guide with all the changes from the last few years.  Most of that material is evergreen, too, but a few programs have ended and a few new ones have started.


I agree !  That was one Great Post...i feel some of the points /issues can be further teased out... broader and deeper ...(esp. the Where to Live section...'cos we are exploring spending 3 or 4 months in South East Asia in Retirement :)

Footnote: Hubby just resigned (retired) two weeks ago (yay!) and i find myself nodding to some of your thoughts above...

Do call out if ever you are in Sydney...will buy you a meal:)) 

Gotta go..the weather is heavenly today !!!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: robartsd on September 08, 2020, 12:17:41 PM
For whatever reason, you are operating from an extreme scarcity mentality where you see happiness, success, and satisfaction as rare and limited resources that you don't really feel entitled to seek out.

They're really not.
They're only rare for those who are trapped on the hamster wheel needing to produce to cover their monthly nut. For the rest of us, it's a totally different game.

It's not a coincidence that industrious post-FI types tend to make a lot more money after they retire.

Working for pay is meaningfully different from getting paid for your work. You have a lot of work left in you. Go explore ways to do it that you can enjoy, and don't worry, because if it's good work, it will lead to money.

You have the amazing luxury of not really having to worry about exactly how much money, or exactly when, or exactly for how long you will earn, and that's what will open the most doors for you.

Don't worry, if there's value in the work you want to do, you will end up paid for it, and probably quite well.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on September 24, 2020, 12:05:14 AM
I also loved your rant about discomfort. That was really what I needed to read today.

On the idea of leaving [the US], it can seem appealing to those of us with sticky boat units. Why? Here's why. I'm already spending more energy than I realistically have to raise my kids during a pandemic in a country where people whine about wearing masks. Even here in Hippiestan I had people cough at me while I was out running because I covered my face with a bandana when our paths brought us closer than I'd like.

Even in "normal" times there is the potential for me to send my kid to school and never get her back because some dickless incel decides that shooting kids is a lofty goal. And what would my government do? NOT. A DAMN. THING. If I try to kick up a stink about it a group of paranoid assholes is going to doxx me and my family. If all of that doesn't happen? Substandard education. A society that prioritizes making a buck over literally anything else. Realistically no vacation time or sick leave. (HX actually got fired from his previous position for bringing up the fact that they wouldn't let him take vacation time, despite having accrued the maximum amount and asking 3 separate times. They wouldn't even let him take a day off when we had family in town and he was running a fever.) One accident could bankrupt us.

And don't even get me started on climate change, racism, sexism, and "anti-intellectualism".

So, now we should fight? I've been fighting. And I'm tired. I'm so fucking tired of having to fight my own government, the people who should be representing and fighting FOR me, in addition to the brainwashed idiots who've been duped into thinking that I'm the problem because I want better than this. I'm so fucking tired of it all. I'm trying to do it all and I'm breaking. People wonder why there's a mental health crisis and this? This is it. This is exactly why. We're being asked to do everything under worse and worse conditions, but to keep fighting the good fight! Your reward will come someday!

Now on top of the rest there's a legit chance for civil war. At the very least, this winter is going to be a very dark and very violent time in our country. No matter which way the election goes, there will be violence. People will die. Do I want to be part of that? Do I want to keep propping up this system with my money, my presence? Do I want to keep pretending that I have a say in what happens? What happens if the autocrat "wins"? What do we do if it becomes obvious the election was stolen, by a man who has no compunction about siccing the military (the same people he thinks are suckers and losers) at civilians?

I'm not saying I'm leaving. HusbandX and I have briefly, mildly considered going back to Alaska and even that would be a wrench. But these are all things that have gone through my head and arguments I've had with myself. What am I staying for? Is this who and what I want to support? Is this how and where I want to raise my sticky boat units? Will I actually get to raise them to adulthood, or will some tragic and entirely preventable tragedy take them from me? It's hard and, as I said, I'm tired. I know everyone is tired right now. There's so much going on, so much to be angry about. And the thing that's exhausting me the most is that I'm tired of being angry. I'm tired of everyone around me being angry.

You don't have to respond, and I'm sorry for hijacking your page. I just wanted to let you know what other minds are thinking.
Sing it, @SisterX!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: APowers on October 26, 2020, 06:31:59 PM
@Laura33 batting 1000 once again:

Butting in again:

First, google "revenge bedtime procrastination."  Tl;dr:  when the day seems out of control, the evening when everything is quiet feels like the only "safe," quiet time, so you avoid going to bed because that will just start the cycle all over.  This is also an emotional stress response.  So just forcing yourself up off the couch at a reasonable time isn't going to fix it until you deal with the underlying emotional pull.  Again:  you tamp down on this, that stress is going to force its way out somewhere else. 

Nightly junk food:  this is more evidence that you are reaching your limit.  We all can handle only so much self-control in a given day.  This pattern suggests that you've learned to be very controlled and well-behaved when others are around, but when they go to bed, you let yourself relax, and all that bad behavior springs back out and reasserts itself.  This is a really unhealthy pattern -- not just for your body, but for your mind, because the constant, nightly "failures" persuade you that you are out of control and incapable of changing anything. 

All of this is telling you that you have to change your daily patterns.  You need to find ways to lift the stress of everything that you have to do during the day, so that it's not coming out like Mentos in a Coke bottle as soon as the kids go to bed. 

Side rant:  this "superwoman" expectation is ridiculous and unhealthy.  No one has ever, until modern times, been expected to feed and clothe and educate multiple kids on their own, all the while managing the household and keeping a husband happy and nursing until toddlerhood and maintaining a girlish figure and keeping the pets alive and serving on the church committee and vacuuming in pearls, with a smile at all times.  That is complete and utter bullshit.  People hire help.  People send their kids to schools.  People take valium.  People rely on family to take the kids for extended periods so everything else can get done.  People take jobs so they can send their kids to daycare and have some peace and quiet and adult interaction.  People who don't have money or family support let the kinds fend for themselves (not that that's ideal, but that's what poor people did forever, and why public schools were such a Godsend).  If there was one thing I could change in this society we have developed, it's this absolutely abhorrent idea that managing all of this, on your own, is not just expected, but is in fact the bare minimum that is expected of a modern mother.  It is not reasonable, it is not healthy.  It is entirely destructive bullshit that is responsible for more absolutely unnecessary stress than anything else in this world.  /rant

My very strong advice for you:  STOP.  Just stop.  Stop trying to figure out whether to refinance; stop trying to break apart your Target runs; stop trying to figure out which of your three meal plans is the best.  The only way to make the treadmill stop is to jump off it.  Yes, there are a bunch of things you can optimize, and that's great!  But you need to take care of you first.  You have time to deal with the rest.  This is the time to triage, where the only effort you put in is devoted toward simplifying your life and removing unnecessary expectations.

I'm once again going back to the food idea, as that is a huge time suck, both mentally and physically.  You need to lower your standards for a while.  I love the idea of the giant Costco trays, or the "if it's Tuesday, it must be tacos" approach.  Another option:  www.cooksmarts.com.  I don't know anything about your other meal planning service, but I used this one when things were crazy because it (1) gives you balanced meals that are adjustable for dietary restrictions, (2) provides efficient cooking time and prep (e.g., you cook extra chicken on Monday to use in Thursday's dinner), (3) and creates an entire grocery list for you based on the meals you selected, which you can then edit to drop the things you already have.  There's even an option to have the selected groceries delivered to you (I didn't use that so can't vouch for it).  Oh:  and my family actually liked the food.  There are other services that do this, too, of course.  But the key is that if you're going to pay for a meal planning service, you want one that does as much of the work for you as possible.  And that includes the mental work of deciding what to have on what night and developing the grocery list. 

I want you to stop and think for a minute about what life would feel like if you didn't need to think about meals.  What if you spent 15 minutes a week on the app and a grocery list, and another 30 minutes transfering that grocery list for Walmart delivery?  What if you then spent 30 minutes at night fixing exactly what someone told you to fix?  How much of a mental weight would that lift off you?  And what if you used that "found" time to do something just for you, instead of diving into another item on your to-do list?  Say, go for a walk by yourself after your husband gets home, or to go sit by yourself on the patio with your favorite playlist and a glass of wine (or your beverage of choice)?*

Serious question:  what do you value most?  Top two.  Let me guess:  kids and husband?  I'm going to expand that to three:  your own well-being.  Now:  how much time and mental energy do you spend on everything that is not in the top three?  All of that is just a time-suck -- it is stuff that you are choosing to do for some reason or another that is taking time away from the things you actually value more.  So why are you spending so much time and energy on those things?  Life is always going to present you with options to do more and better, in every possible aspect of life; that's our cultural ethos, to have more and do better.  At some point you need to affirmatively choose to do less in areas that don't matter in order to be able to do more in the areas that do -- to seek out not the "best," but the "good enough"; to value the "be" as much as the "have" and the "do."  Figure out the things that matter most to you, and throw your love and attention and energy into those, and then do the minimum you can get away with on everything else.  And do it proudly and without guilt:  it's not that you are failing to do X, but that you are focusing your limited time and energy on Y instead of letting X distract you.  Bonus: that kind of life is more satisfying, because you're spending more time and energy on the things you value, and less on the things that other people want you to value. 

*I suspect you are now thinking of all the reasons why it won't work -- picky eaters, or you "like" to cook, or whatever else.  To all of which I say:  fuck it.  Seriously.  Is anyone going to die if they have Instapot mojo pork this week instead of whatever homemade delicacy they'd prefer?  Just try it for two weeks or a month.  No one will be scarred for life if they have to eat less-than-perfect meals for a couple of weeks.  And you might even be surprised at what you find (that mojo pork has become a staple in my house, btw).
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on October 27, 2020, 07:31:44 AM
Awww, shucks.  [blushes]  Thanks!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BicycleB on November 01, 2020, 03:27:26 PM
@WhiteTrashCash on what it feels like when your self-improvement pays off:

I was just thinking this morning: It feels good to be successful.

It's quite a feeling when you realize that you have proven wrong every person who didn't believe in you. When you become the one who got away for every relationship that broke your heart. When you can brush off problems that would break other people. It feels amazing.

It feels good to look back at the past as if it is a foreign place where someone else lived with little tangible connection to who you are today. When you realize that old you who was so lost and broken is now dead and gone and the only person anyone really knows is the new you who is confident and strong and capable of anything.

It's a good feeling when you know you can obtain any skill you want with the push of a few buttons and a little time. When knowledge that once seemed magical is commonplace and belongs to you. When you realize that nothing is really out of your reach.

It feels good for financial crises that once would have ruined you are merely minor inconveniences. When you have no trouble maintaining your lifestyle or obtaining the things you need. When people envy you for having your house together.

It feels good, man.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dandarc on November 03, 2020, 10:52:09 AM
@mathlete telling it like it is on the pandemic:

Most people have the incorrect take regarding the dichotomy between privileged white collar workers and essential workers. This was true months ago and it's true today.

Broke: "White collar workers who can WFH are out of touch. Not everyone has that luxury. They have to work and they have to be out in public. Therefore making any accommodations for this pandemic is silly.

Woke: "White collar workers are in a unique position to reduce their contact with society at large and bring the reproduction rate of the virus down to sub 1 levels. This protects not only themselves, but the essential workers who have no choice but to expose themselves to more risk."

My god, we're nearly back up to 1K deaths a day in the US. Excess mortality has persisted for 30 straight weeks. Life insurers are missing earnings. Cases are up. Hospitalizations are up. This is real. It's still here. It's still bad. And most importantly of all, there are examples of places doing a better job of managing it than the US has.

If you want to go out to eat at a sit down restaurant, then do it. But you're doing it because you want to and you're over it. That's it. There is no grander story to tell about the inevitability of the virus or the futility of precautions. You just want to go to Applebees. That's fine.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on November 11, 2020, 06:57:32 AM
@Malcat as usual.  https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/relationship-question-dealing-with-ex-girlfriend-who-says-she-misses-me/msg2731993/#msg2731993

Thanks to all of you for so many replies!! I read each and every one of them quite a few times. Furthermore, I was quite stunned that you guys managed to link this thread to my old one. Yes, you are right -- that was me.

I cut off all contact with her, and (as @Malcat put it) " stop engage in this nonsense". Sorry for bothering you with this s*** for the second time.

I feel like I have a lot to learn. I want to be confident and act properly. I still see value in receiving external feedback on my journey (again, shout-out to all of you!), thus I'll create a mini-blog as new thread here in the forum where I'll write about my life (still deciding on the most appropriate subsection for this). I'm not sure whether this is doing me any good, but I feel like it's a good strategy for progress. I also feel like I come across as being somewhat childish and maybe even emotionally not 100% stable -- but I purposefully use this very account/forum for my 'mini-blog' because I really want to improve. I don't want to live a miserable live. I want to strive.

Edit: Found the 'Journals'-section, seems like the perfect place for my...well.. journal :D

Dude, we all sound childish as we're learning things.

It's the willingness to sound childish that allows you to grow and mature. Never be afraid of sounding childish or clueless because it's the only way to have a future where you get to look back on it with wisdom.

I would rather sound childish and learn from others than stay childish and learn nothing.
Title: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Road42 on December 21, 2020, 05:08:29 AM
From the minimum wage hike discussion in the post about living paycheck to paycheck:


This is a really complicated problem as others in this thread have already commented on.

People have absolutely no clue how many jobs out there do not pay $15 /hr now. This article puts it at 43% of the country. https://tcf.org/content/commentary/making-economic-case-15-minimum-wage/?session=1
This isn't about getting people off the federal minimum wage (because almost no one is making $7.50), its about essentially providing a 30-50% wage increase to those making between 9.50 (advertised local starting pay at Five guys) and $12.00 (advertised local starting pay at Chik Fil A). Its for people across a broad number of employment sectors: the baker and the driver who supply the buns at your mega burger franchise, the warehouse people who are loading inventory that supplies almost all of the disposable goods you buy at the grocery or big box store, the migrant workers harvesting the lettuce or onions you buy, the unlicensed vet tech at your vet clinic, the lunch lady at your kid's school, the city/county clerk opening the mail at your local govt office, the medical assistant taking your blood pressure at your primary care clinic, the unlicensed pharmacy tech ringing up your meds at Walgreens.

Those wage increases will not go unnoticed by the consumer when they go to the Dr, the gas station, the craft store, the grocery store. As we witnessed with the pandemic, simply disrupting 1 segment of the work force has rippling effects across the economy. Costs for health care, food, rent, utilities, taxes and other things will increase with an increased minimum wage. Its the same reason that groceries at a Kroger brand store in California cost more than groceries at a Kroger brand store in South Carolina.

When economists talk about sales tax being a regressive tax, its because it predominately affects the poor. The poor spends nearly all of their disposable income (after rent / bills) on goods that get taxed, whereas Walmart billionaires spend a single digit percentage of their wealth on goods. So raising the minimum wage 30-50% will deplete the purchasing power of the poor quicker when they notice costs of goods and services rising. It also diminishes the purchasing power of the middle class, who did not see their $19-30/hr wages increase but now have a ___% (15 - 30??) more expensive time going about their daily lives. Without a corresponding social safety net (healthcare, housing etc), these changes will handicap a larger segment of the population, or just cause inflation that erodes the purchasing power of your new $15 / hr wage. Govt tax policies are needed to disincentivize high income disparity to CEOs and other highly compensated employees by introducing very tiered taxation and closing loopholes that shield their profits from taxation, otherwise companies are just going to continue to pass those cost increases on to customers. Legislation like this is hard sell in the US.

Most countries that provide a stronger social safety net have flatter wages. Only in America do tech bros and doctors make over $200k (hourly wage $90+), while the minimum wage is realistically $9. That's a wage disparity ratio of at least 10:1.  In the UK, doctors make £90k (£43/hr) while minimum wage pays £9/ hr. That's a wage disparity ratio of 4.8 :1. There is absolutely no way to raise wages here 30-50% for many without depleting purchasing power for others. Our relative lack of social safety net would plunge many more into food and shelter insecurity.The US economy would have to be restructured to provide a social safety net (never mind that we currently finance our limited social safety net with unfunded huge deficit spending).

Countries with higher wages and lower income disparity have much higher prices on discretionary items. In the UK, a big mac meal comes with what Americans would call a small fry / soda and costs about £7. The equivalent cost in the US (for a larger meal) is about $7. In Australia, where wages are even higher, a big mac meal is $12. A nurse in Australia making $35/ hr (standard wage) has a much harder time buying that meal and saving money than an equivalent nurse in the US making $35/hr. In the UK, where a nurse makes £15 / hr, that big mac meal is half their hourly wage. These higher costs in the UK/Aus are also borne out across multiple types of purchases.

Every single American on this board has had a quicker path to FIRE due to the structure of our economy / wage disparity subsidizing our cheap purchases. None of us have been able to remove ourselves from the economy and purely support businesses that pay above poverty wages because we do not have choice in many of the matters (we cannot affect what our landlords pay their handyman, what our contracted internet or trash utility pays their call center person). So lets all look at this from a practical stand point and ask HOW we can participate in a more fair economy, while acknowledging that it will affect all of our bottom lines. Those of you who have FIREd at currently inflated wage ratios need to recognize that privilege and realize how many more years it would have taken you at flatter wages in comparison, instead of just saying "I don't mind paying $0.41 more for a fast food burger". Its just not that simple. I don't have any real answers regarding restructuring the economy, I just want to point out that it it were that simple, we would have already solved poverty each time the minimum wage was raised.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on December 21, 2020, 06:57:07 AM
Dang, I just saw this months-old post from boy_bye today but man it's a good one
The question isn't whether some people lose weight when they commute by bike (I never did!) but why is weight loss always assumed to be a worthwhile and achievable goal for fat people.

As you state above, health outcomes can be improved by doing things like riding bikes and walking and getting other forms of exercise. This is true for the vast majority of people regardless of their weight. Most people of all sizes in the US especially would benefit from doing more exercise.

At the same time, we know that although exercise does correlate to healthier outcomes, it does not often correlate to long-term weight loss. Sometimes it even correlates to weight gain.

We also know that, quite often, when fat people do get out to exercise, we are subjected to abuse, ridicule, concern-trolling, people being like "keep going, you can do it!" and all kinds of condescending and hurtful shit.

So ... there's a health protocol called exercise, that everyone would benefit from, but only one category of people is shamed for NOT doing it, and that same category of people is also shamed when they DO do it. Who doesn't see how fucked up this is?

And none of it leads to weight loss for the vast majority of people (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12949). It may make them healthier, but by and large, it doesn't make them slimmer.

So if what we really care about is people being healthy and not just people not being fat, we should be encouraging everyone to have healthier habits, take a walk, keep trying to quit smoking, introduce more nutritious foods into their diets when they can ... but no, instead we just shit on fat people and talk about how lazy they are and how all the bad things that happen to them are their own damn fault. Sure. Because no one skinny has ever gotten sick and died.

THIS is the point I keep trying to make. You can't tell how healthy anyone is by simply looking at the size of their body. And to keep harping on fat people to sacrifice endlessly to change their body size when it's clear that this is not possible for the majority of us is simply cruel.

And yes, this is a topic close to my heart because I and most of the people I know have been discriminated against for my entire life. It's not "strangely aggressive" to stand up for myself and others when folks express ill-informed opinions that actually, materially hurt us.

When y'all stop saying uninformed, incorrect, and harmful shit, I will stop with my "strange aggression" that is actually rooted in just trying to survive in a world that has conditioned almost everyone to exclude me based on the size of my body.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled armchair epidemiology-ing.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Moonwaves on December 21, 2020, 08:18:12 AM
"The best post" is a very subjective thing and not everyone will agree on what constitutes one. FWIW I thought it was a good post.

With regard to discussing the substance of the post, I don't think this is the place for it. I generally go out of my way to avoid most of the topics regarding weight because it can be very triggering for me. So I'd like to respectfully ask you to move your post to the original thread or start a new one, please.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: sherr on December 21, 2020, 08:25:27 AM
So I'd like to respectfully ask you to move your post to the original thread or start a new one, please.

Fair enough, I removed it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Moonwaves on December 21, 2020, 08:35:07 AM
Thank you.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FireLane on February 02, 2021, 08:23:00 PM
@former player on hobbies and how you choose to fill your FIRE days:

I've been FIREd for 10 years.  I don't have the complete answer, but do have some thoughts.

My daily routine was imposed on me when I got a dog - there is this canine person depending on me to get up at a certain time every day, to feed him at certain times, to take him out for walks.  An app is probably cheaper and easier (but possibly less rewarding overall).

Your older self will thank your current self for moving your body every day.  Nothing extreme is required, just walking and stretching and lifting things on a regular basis. 

The point of a hobby is that you don't have to be good at it.  Work has to be done well because people are depending on it being done well, and are paying for it to be done well.  A hobby only has to be done as well as is needed for it to be enjoyable to do it.  Nobody has any right to criticise you for how you are doing other than yourself, and nobody else has to see what you are doing unless you want them to.  And in any case the more time you spend on it the better you are going to get.  So the only criterion for taking up a hobby is: are you going to enjoy it?  Nothing else matters.

My final thought is: you don't actually have to do anything, beyond a basic routine and a bit of daily exercise.  You have earned the right to do nothing else.  You have earned your way out of the Protestant work ethic and you no longer have to fill every minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run.  You can spend the morning reading and the afternoon napping in a hammock and there's nothing wrong with that.  That is particularly the case if you are new to not having to work: you need a period of decompression.  Work is an institution and we all become institutionalised by it to a greater or lesser extent, and as someone freshly released from that institution you can take the time to smell the flowers and work out later whether smelling flowers is enough or something other way of passing the time has taken your fancy.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BNgarden on February 19, 2021, 06:48:31 PM
Really useful tips for dealing with others following the death of a loved one, from @Anon-E-Mouze
I'm sorry for your loss and can only imagine that COVID is making things especially difficult.

In terms of high-level practical advice, I am going to draw on the experience of my father when he had to deal with all the logistics/admin after my mother's death. On the one hand, he is a super-organized / rational / put it in a spreadsheet kind of guy, and that really helped him deal with stuff. He is also often empathic and has a long fuse, and that helped, but occasionally everything would boil over when someone wasn't acting rationally or helpfully. I think that both sides of his personality helped him deal with things, and when things got messy, he extracted some lessons.

So here goes:

1. Put your to-dos in some kind of list (spreadsheet or otherwise), identify those that are the absolutely highest priority and do them asap. For the rest, knock off one or two a day.

2. Keep a diary of interactions with people (including family who might be trying to take stuff, or just are being tricky). Keep in mind that if you do Zoom calls for some of them, you can make a recording and then take notes from it later. Write down commitments made (by others and you), timing, additional information needed, etc.

3. Write down a script of what to say when someone acts or says something inappropriate. The script will help stop you from going off the deep end, and at the same time you'll be able to express the concern that you have. Frame it in terms of the impact that someone's words or actions have had on you, rather than imputing motives to them. Don't apologize but help them see your perspective and set your expectations for them.

4. When you are dealing with the "experts" who handle situations like this (even if they don't always seem like experts), remember to ask at the end of each conversation "Is there anything else I should know that we haven't discussed yet? Do you have any advice for me in terms of next steps?"

5. Some of the people reaching out to you who are close to you or were close to your relative likely are grieving or are concerned for you, but don't know how to offer sympathy or support. It's not your job to make their lives easier, but remember that you can make specific requests for help or support - and that will make things easier for you and them. Ideally, if you need help from a friend or relative, ask them if they can do "A" or "B". Giving them a choice allows them to pick the service or support they feel comfortable with. If that seems too much for you to do, but the person has offered to help, say "Why don't you suggest two or three ways that you think you can help me, and I'll let you know which of those would be the most useful right now."

6. Take five minutes every day to recall a happy memory about your experience with this relative.  And take a few minutes at least once a week or so to think about how someone involved in dealing with all of this has been helpful to you, or has honoured your relative. It's hard to be grateful or have positive memories when life is so difficult but exercising those "gratitude" muscles will help you feel better.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FIRE 20/20 on February 26, 2021, 09:35:52 AM
From @nereo , discussing the importance of things other than just numbers in ensuring that your FIRE plans are safe enough:


Do you some specific real-world examples of these "layers of safety"? Having side hustles is pretty clear but when you say "social capital, family network, and mobility" what does that translate to in particular besides something like "my friend or family can help get me a job" (I would presume this isn't the first thing you'd necessarily be asking if you get into a tight situation while FIREd though...?)?


Sure.  I;d wager that the two biggest threats to most forum-member's retirements isn't their WR, but are external 'very bad things' happening to them or their loved ones.  I'd put having to care for family and having acute medical conditions as the top two (at least for US members). In both cases there are things one can do which will have a much larger effect than "lots more money".  In the dependent category, it's important to ensure your parents, children and siblings are in good places, and that the relationship isn't parasitic but mutually beneficial.

As for 'social capital' - part of that is developing a healthy and robust social network.  If you are a jerk in real life people are unlikely to go out of your way to help you, but a robust network of friends can help in so many ways and under so many circumstances. Those sorts of networks can take years to build with very little monetary cost, but it's much harder to emulate with fist-fulls of cash.

Mobility can be a pretty powerful layer of safety.  At the extreme there are people who have a huge % of their net-worth tied to their homes, who might be unwilling to sell, and who have made no mortgage (and subseuquent low mortgage payments) a key component of their ER.  That's all fine as long as things stay relatively stable, but life is filled with disasters (floods, forest-fires), both natural and human-made (a family member in need). Sometimes you just have to get out Dodge - permanently. Here a renter or someone with a low% of their home as their NW have a huge advantage.  Geoarbitrage can be an important layer of safety - but it only works for those willing and in a position to actually move.

And of course there's side/supplemental income. That's anathema to many in the FIRE community, but for many just keeping that door open can mean the difference between a solid retirement strategy at 4%WR and a rock-solid WR at an even higher (e.g. 5%WR).  What that means is different for all of us, but it may be as simple as keeping certifications up to date and a network of contacts (another part of the 'social network' i mentioned above).  For others it's far less practical unless they branch out considerably from their main career.  Layers of safety doesn't mean you will have every layer - but hopefully you will have several.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: teen persuasion on March 10, 2021, 07:34:46 AM
Very astute post from Frugal Toque:


https://www.npr.org/2021/03/09/974830177/what-the-300-a-month-child-benefit-could-mean-for-a-family-on-the-edge

This article profiles some lower income families, but could someone explain to me WHY THE HELL the government would give extra money to a family making $100,000 per year, much less $150K per year which is the cap for this program?!

Not sure, but I think people in your country really look down on poor people.  More so than in other countries.

A policy that targets the poor is often very unpopular and policy debates get dragged down into discussions of supposed "Welfare Queens" and such.  Minimum wage debates often derail into makings long lists of people who don't deserve more than $7 an hour.

If the policy targets "more responsible people" as well as the poor, the policy might pass more easily.

Toque.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mspym on March 13, 2021, 01:40:01 AM
This is a beautiful and concise explanation
It's not about spending as little as possible, it's about wasting as little as possible. It takes trial and error to identify the waste.  But you can choose for the process to be fun.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on March 13, 2021, 05:08:58 AM
This is a beautiful and concise explanation
It's not about spending as little as possible, it's about wasting as little as possible. It takes trial and error to identify the waste.  But you can choose for the process to be fun.

Once again Malcat manages to distill paragraphs of things I’ve been trying to explain into fewer than 30 words.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Wolfpack Mustachian on March 13, 2021, 09:16:04 AM
This is a beautiful and concise explanation
It's not about spending as little as possible, it's about wasting as little as possible. It takes trial and error to identify the waste.  But you can choose for the process to be fun.

Wow, very well said.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MoseyingAlong on March 24, 2021, 03:18:20 AM
I prefer the person I am becoming - who were you? who are you becoming? I am seriously interested - as I am wondering about the process and how I will change when I actually pull the plug and decompress after FIRE. I think in ways - FIREing forces you to really look in the mirror.

For me personally - it is very easy to derive purpose from the urgency of work. An ever increasing net worth becomes the indicator of my value. Since the productivity treadmill only accelerates, work defines more and more of how I live. Always - "do more, better". The best hours of my week consistently go to the job, leaving scraps for my home life.

The obvious benefit of stopping, my best hours are now mine.

The unexpected - workplace culture defined who I am as a person. If I thought I could do 10 things in a day, I'd try to do 11. If my wife was talking too long, I'd start doing something in parallel with her conversation. When I put the time in to exercise, it needed to be at 100% effort, until I was wrecked. If someone made a mistake, I wouldn't be happy until the mistake was fixed, they knew it was wrong, and it could never possibly happen again.

Living that way is idealized in corporate America. Without continual reinforcement from work, much of it is fading. I am losing the constant sense that I am inadequate. There is no ongoing competition with my peers, no race to see who is going to fall behind and fail the team first. I no longer lay in bed ruminating on (impossible) work problems, waiting to pass out from exhausting myself.

Instead - I am doing much less in a day, but am often fully present. The calendar and clock aren't dictating my life. My productivity is way down. I am happier for it. I was in a state of constant stress, but in denial to the degree of the problem. It is enough to live my simple life. That sense is incredibly freeing.

This emerged when I took FMLA last year. In a matter of days, what I can only describe as euphoria set in. It faded as the return to work approached. I started to dread re-entering corporate culture, but resolved to remember how I'd been living. I made my best effort to preserve that perspective. I tried to form new work boundaries. The effort was an utter failure. Knowing what life could be, I was out of there 2 months later.

Having stopped permanently, it's now clear my ego was still anchored on status afforded by my position and salary. It's funny, because I would never self-describe as a person who values those things. By any outwards appearances, I do not.

Yet, I had internalized work success as the measure of life success. Letting that go is good for me. It's taking some time. I still find myself drifting to ideas for getting money - how I can both not work and see the net worth grow? I wonder - Maybe it was just a bad job for me, and a new place would be different? Etc.

There is a constant temptation to return to the old way. Due to work being my top priority for decades, it is what I am best at. My personal development is heavily imbalanced. I can barely put air in my car tires, but I am a great employee.

Fearing sequence of returns risk, I've purposefully taken 18 months living expenses as cash, to give all those thoughts time to evolve. I want to discover who I am without a job. If I take on something new, I want it to nurture that person. I wouldn't view new work as a failure, but a return to that old lifestyle would be very disappointing.

This really resonated for me and is an extra kick to continue my plan to stop paid work later this year.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on March 27, 2021, 07:30:00 PM
Once again, @Malcat knocks it out of the park:

I think for some reason it gets harder as adults.  Up through college, it was natural and easy to make friends, even though I'm introverted like you (and, FG I suspect).  But I got married in college to a more extroverted and frankly more fun person, and so my friend-making skills and opportunities withered.  After a few decades, I'm back trying to learn how to do it again - maybe figuring out the difference between youth and older ages in that regard would help.

It really isn't harder, it's actually very easy, it's just that the circumstances that build friendships are harder to come by in adulthood, whereas they are EVERYWHERE when you are younger.

It's actually stupid easy to make friends once you figure out the ingredients for human bonding, then it's just a matter of engineering those scenarios with other people, and viola! Friends!

The key to human connection is to overcome challenges together. This creates a natural cooperative state of mutual vulnerability and collaboration. Everyone is vulnerable when they are actively being challenged, and facing a challenge with another person triggers the "in group" instinct of depending on and bonding with that person, whether you like them or not, funnily enough.

That's why it's so easy to make friends when you are younger, you're all facing the same challenges: school, growing up, being broke, dealing with parents, dating, etc. It's all one giant, vulnerable, shared challenge.

Adults make the logical mistake of trying to bond with people through leisure, which does exactly fuck all to create bonds. Inviting someone over for dinner will result in spending an entire evening engaging with their curated social mask. But if you invite them over to experiment together with tackling some crazy difficult recipe you've both always wanted to try, then BAM, it's like making friends in middle school. There's nothing like fucking up a souffle together to feel connected to someone.

Courses, volunteering, team sports, etc, are all decent avenues to generate this kind of interaction. I'm still close with the MS society volunteers I worked with nearly 20 years ago, because we KILLED ourselves making those events happen. My current volunteer executive committee have become some of my most trusted friends, and we have very little in common in terms of lifestyle and values.

So basically: do something difficult with people, and be willing to be vulnerable while doing it.

Most adults are out there dying to make new friends. They're feeling just as intimidated as everyone else.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: rpr on March 27, 2021, 08:36:54 PM
What an insightful post on making friends, @Malcat. Never thought about it that way. And when I look back at some of my experiences, it actually seems to have worked that way.

Thanks for sharing -- @Dicey
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: change_seeker on March 29, 2021, 02:28:17 PM
@Malcat

Thanks, I have shared with my wife who has really struggled with making new friends in her old hometown.  I've made some great friendships through an organization called Men's Encounter.  We spend the weekend focusing on the spiritual side of our lives, but the means to doing so is by men being vulnerable and sharing really tough stories about their experiences.  I came out of that weekend with closer friendships than I had after six months of being back in town.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: OtherJen on March 29, 2021, 06:16:48 PM
@Malcat

Thanks, I have shared with my wife who has really struggled with making new friends in her old hometown.  I've made some great friendships through an organization called Men's Encounter.  We spend the weekend focusing on the spiritual side of our lives, but the means to doing so is by men being vulnerable and sharing really tough stories about their experiences.  I came out of that weekend with closer friendships than I had after six months of being back in town.

Does your wife sing? I have made some of my dearest friends through choirs. We've kept each other sane throughout the pandemic via Zoom and group chat, even though we haven't sung together for more than a year.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: marty998 on April 01, 2021, 07:17:51 PM
@Malcat

Thanks, I have shared with my wife who has really struggled with making new friends in her old hometown.  I've made some great friendships through an organization called Men's Encounter.  We spend the weekend focusing on the spiritual side of our lives, but the means to doing so is by men being vulnerable and sharing really tough stories about their experiences.  I came out of that weekend with closer friendships than I had after six months of being back in town.

Does your wife sing? I have made some of my dearest friends through choirs. We've kept each other sane throughout the pandemic via Zoom and group chat, even though we haven't sung together for more than a year.

I can't help but think of the choir in Schitt's Creek :)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: DadJokes on April 05, 2021, 11:58:12 AM
@Malcat

Thanks, I have shared with my wife who has really struggled with making new friends in her old hometown.  I've made some great friendships through an organization called Men's Encounter.  We spend the weekend focusing on the spiritual side of our lives, but the means to doing so is by men being vulnerable and sharing really tough stories about their experiences.  I came out of that weekend with closer friendships than I had after six months of being back in town.

Does your wife sing? I have made some of my dearest friends through choirs. We've kept each other sane throughout the pandemic via Zoom and group chat, even though we haven't sung together for more than a year.

I can't help but think of the choir in Schitt's Creek :)

Oh Danny Boy....
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dougules on April 12, 2021, 03:57:30 PM
More @Malcat wisdom.  This one really resonates with me at the moment.

This is a good point. Maybe I need to split them apart, dignity until sunset and rum after sunset or some such.

Talked with Germany. Their goal is going to be to get a complete offer to me in the next two months which aligns well with the other two potential offers. I find that the longer I go without interacting with the folks in Germany, I start to fall into a convincing view that a within-US move is the right way to go. Then, whenever I interact with them I come away thinking a move to Germany sounds amazing and that I'm confident I could handle whatever challenges would be involved in making it happen. Not sure which of my two minds is more predictive of my long term goals/happiness/life satisfaction. More weeks of dithering. Heh.

I know this feeling well.

When it happens, I'm often able to identify that one mind likes an option because it feels safe and the other likes an option because it feels exciting.

Thinking safely is very valuable when you have a lot to lose, but once you have security and flexibility like you do, the challenge is to shift away from that hedging/protecting pattern of thinking that got you your success in the first place, and nurturing that adventure/possibilities pattern of thinking, which was the whole point of achieving financial independence in the first place.

The best way to tell what your gut is pushing for is to follow the impulse that scares you. If you didn't really want it, it wouldn't be scary. Of course deciding to move to Europe would be scary to anyone, but that's the thing, it would only be scary to the people seriously wanting to do it, because everyone else would just see it as a hassle and just not want to do it.

Like, I would LOVE a chance to go live and work in Europe. However, it just wouldn't work with my health needs right now. So if DH was offered a job there, I wouldn't have any of that fear or anxiety about the possibility, I would just have to say "oof, that sounds amazing, but it wouldn't work, so we'll have to pass".

When there's very little risk on the table, the anxiety you feel about an exciting option is often directly correlated to how excited you are for it. Likewise, the "this feels right" feeling of a "safer" more predictable option often reflects how uninspiring that option is.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: CowboyAndIndian on May 20, 2021, 07:24:07 AM
@secondcor521 hits it out of the ballpark on the topic of having good relationship with your kids.

It's early days yet, but my DS26, DS21, and DD19 and I have a good relationship.

Lots of good advice already.  Some of these may be repetitive but I'll try to hit on points not yet mentioned:

1.  Don't try to shoehorn them into your dreams for their lives; let them become whomever they become.  When my kids were young, I sort of thought they would be chips off the old block.  In a few limited ways they are, but they are also quite different from me and their mom and each other.  It is utterly fascinating to get to know these people.

2.  Respect them.  Answer their questions honestly.  Listen to them.  Extend trust to them as long as they continue to be trustworthy.  Consider that their opinions and perspective and decisions might differ from yours.

3.  Be involved.  Attend every thing they're involved in.  Drive them to school.  Make their lunches.  Go to the games, the concerts, the engineering competitions, the plays.  Be there.  If you do this and the respect thing (see previous point) very once in a rare while they'll come to you and talk to you about their friend who is suicidal, or about sex, or drugs, or whatever.

4.  Don't "should" them.  Guilt trips are not a good way to parent them, and most people, including kids, resent them.  I always had a good reason for why I asked them to do something or expect something of them and willingly told them that at the time.  "It would be wise to get good grades so you have a better chance of getting into a good university so you can become that mechanical engineer you want to be" not "You should get good grades"  "Sex can sometimes result in unwanted pregnancies or STDs" not "You shouldn't have sex"  "I don't drink because it gives me headaches, I can't sleep, and I don't like how I feel drunk, and I don't drink so much that I can't make good decisions.  Plus DUI is dangerous, deadly, and expensive." not "You shouldn't drink underage."

5.  Be honest.  Don't sugarcoat and say "Yeah, apply to that expensive college" and then when they get in awkwardly explain that you can't afford it.  Don't tell them they should like Grandma even when she's annoying and a worrywart.  Don't tell them you'll think about buying them a pony or taking them to Disneyland if you have no intentions of thinking about it and already know the answer is no.

6.  Say yes on the stuff that doesn't matter so that on the rare times when you have to say "No" they'll be more likely to accept it.  (Plus the respect and honesty and all that jazz above helps.)  Wear your socks to bed?  Sure.  Put purple food coloring in your milk?  Why not.  Put bows in the cat's fur?  Whatever.  Steal/lie/do hard drugs/get married at 17?  Nope.

7.  Let them get to know you.  This may be part of #5, but you can share with them what's going on in your life as long as it's not done in a way to where they feel obligated to help you when they're still kids.  "I had a rough day because a client was being difficult, but we figured it out with some creativity, persistence, and listening."  "I can't figure out how to do this tax thing yet.  But I'll figure it out.  Maybe I'll ask a friend of mine."  This way they can see the real you.  Also, you can demonstrate to them at least your way of how to live life.

8.  Let them own their decisions, accomplishments, and their failures as much as possible.  I brag about my kids all the time, but it's their accomplishments, not mine, and I always give them the credit.  This is probably a sore point for me vis-a-vis my Dad, but I don't think he really ever meant to appropriate our accomplishments - he was just a really proud Dad who wasn't afraid to brag on his kids to everyone.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: merula on June 01, 2021, 07:54:55 AM
@SwordGuy had several excellent points in a minimum wage discussion, but I especially liked how he prioritized people in a capitalist system.

If capitalism is INCAPABLE of providing employment at a decent wage for everyone willing and able to work, then it either needs to be supplemented by taxes to support those it cannot hire -- or we need to replace it with a system that provides a decent living for everyone willing and able to work.

I personally believe it's CAPABLE of doing so and just chooses not to.   

And if some businesses cannot afford to charge enough to support those decent wages, then we the people have decided those businesses aren't important enough to us, so good riddance to them.   Capital can then invest in those businesses that CAN support decent wages.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: markbike528CBX on June 19, 2021, 09:18:47 PM
Have a hard time to make a decision to retire. Although I know we have enough money for most things we want to do, but more money is better.

There is no such things as the money that I will never be able to spend. I can always find ways to spend money, and quickly.

So where is the STOP sign in "... Beyond"?

It's when you start thinking about time instead of money.  You could have written:

"Have an easy time to make a decision to retire. Although I don't know how much time we have left for most things we want to do, but more time is better.

There is no such thing as having more time.  I am always spend my time, and quickly."

Nice post @secondcor521          @flyingaway nice setup.   There are loads of people who feel the way you do. If not, OMY would not be a commonly accepted acronym.   Forum member Omy being a former example.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Sanitary Stache on July 02, 2021, 08:29:12 AM
I came across this post from @Paper Chaser while scrolling the new unread posts page.  It is a good reminder to acknowledge our current positions in life when making a familiar decision. And also of the concept of enough.  Which is also the title of a Jack Bogle book with similar philosophy.

A big part of the MMM ideology is the concept of "enough" and living simply. It's about removing stress that comes from chasing more money. This isn't the "maximize wealth at all costs" forum. It's the "grow wealth enough such that it can allow you to ditch stressful situations fueled by consumeristic living so you may enjoy the lifestyle that you want" forum.

OP's been doing this for a couple of decades. They have very low debt and are sophisticated enough to be considering 1031 exchanges on income properties. We don't know many details about the whole financial picture, but it's probably going pretty ok for them. Debt is a tool that should be used responsibly to grow wealth and unlock happiness. If you're already wealthy and happy, then I'm not sure I see the need for it outside of greed. So the question boils down to what is "enough" for the OP? If they've already got "enough", then why bother with more stress trying to chase dollars they don't need?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: markbike528CBX on July 08, 2021, 04:24:18 PM
I think MMM’s lack of posting is the cause of slowing growth / participation. It’s kinda weird to me, because, per his own words, MMM started his blog as an environmental social movement. Upon becoming extremely successful at doing exactly what he set out to do, he promptly slowed down to near stall speed.

I get it. Life gets in the way. Kids need all our time. Divorce happens. Side projects distract us. Internet stalkers and solicitors are annoying. But then again the megaphone that Pete built to do good is being under-utilized, and a lot less good is occurring as a result. People unwisely see nothing fresh going on and move elsewhere - often to consumerist / financial gambling websites or, even worse, that mulching mower of independent thought called social media.

I can’t tell Pete he should live his life for the benefit of internet randos, but there are lots of people in this world working their arses off trying to convince people to turn away from the waste of life and ecology that is consumerism, and they aren’t succeeding because they don’t have a platform like this, or Pete’s writing talent. He’s walking away from the chance to start an actual mass movement, involving millions of people, and transforming many of the stupidest things about our country / world.

Burnout is real, and it’s understandable if Pete has already written all he has to say and has a best life to live rather than repeating himself forever. But maybe he should hand off the blog to capable, trusted, and passionate hands. Run a banner ad to pay an editor’s salary. Let a group of new contributors make their names here. Switch from writing to organizing meetups and local groups in the physical world. Any of these is a preferable alternative to letting the world’s most important blog wind down. That would be a major loss.
Very much my sentiments. 
If you have a bully pulpit, and using it hasn't gotten you negative blowback in the past, mostly fact the opposite, you should use it.
For good reason, there isn't a bat signal for MMM / Pete, but @ChpBstrd 's post sort of needs it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: shelivesthedream on July 10, 2021, 01:47:29 PM
Please would you go back to the original thread if you want to discuss a post quoted on here?

For the latest: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/a-lack-of-new-converts!/msg2869358/?topicseen#new
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dougules on July 14, 2021, 03:14:47 PM
@mspym on not getting caught up in ruminating on negative thoughts which is a problem for people affected by depression. 

The Ezra Klein podcast was super good for my brain. I am slowly working my way through The Happiness Trap and it is also blowing my mind a little, in a good way. The whole recognising a thought as a thought? Not struggling or engaging with them, just acknowledging 'oh there's that story again?' super useful. Like I don't know why I haven't been applying techniques from meditation to my daily life?

Oh yeah, mindfulness is a real superpower.

I basically bullied my entire family into mindfulness meditation. They're all much more sane now. DH went from kind of high strung to the most easy going person I know. I call it "marriage on easy mode".
I have spent so many years wrestling with "is this thought true or not?" when "is this thought helpful? Does it help me be the person I want to be?" is so much more powerful and useful. Which feels like I have just thrown my whole world view up in the air and it's completely rearranged itself.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MainstreamContrarian on July 17, 2021, 05:38:19 PM
Okay, first, you really need to change your mindset about what it means to communicate your needs and boundaries to your employer.

The fact that you're even calling it an ultimatum and feeling like quitting is a threat is a BIG part of the problem.

Communicating your needs and limitations is just part of being a.responsible staff member. And people leave jobs all the time, for all sorts of reasons, so this should not be treated as a threat.

Now, you may have shitty management who are terrible at listening to your concerns and who do treat people quitting as some kind of insult, but crappy management shouldn't change how YOU approach your job, or what YOUR professionalism looks like.

So yes, talk to your management about how your current work conditions are completely unsustainable for you. That's not an ultimatum, that's just responsible communication and that *is* your responsibility to communicate.

Your potential leaving isn't a threat, it's the natural consequence of you continuing to perform in an unsustainable way.

Now, if you do your part to communicate effectively that your limits have been exceeded and that your current situation is unsustainable, then they will either value you enough in your role to accomodate you, or they won't and that will communicate to you that they are okay with you leaving.

If they're okay with you leaving because they expect someone to be sustainably able to do what you've been doing, then fine, you have every right to leave a role that isn't a good fit for your skills and capacity.

Suffice to say, you have clearly internalized A LOT of work bullshit. That's not a criticism, pretty much everyone does it until they learn not to. Boundaries and effective professional communication are a learnable skill. I HIGHLY recommend that you seek out resources to learn how to better protect yourself and better maintain your boundaries within the workplace.

It's not actually your employer's job to prevent you from experiencing burnout, it's your job to communicate the limits and boundaries that are being pushed too hard and burning you out, and their job to assess if you are valuable enough to try and retain.

I've had some staff where I would happily bend over backwards to give them whatever they need to thrive, and I've had other staff who I just waited to get a resignation letter from because I was fine with them leaving.

So if you aren't valuable to your management, then no one will care what you want or if you leave. They'll just be happy that you worked yourself into the ground for them until the end and didn't make too much of a fuss about moving on.

If you are valuable to your management, then they will care about the possibility of driving you out, and you should emphasize this value and negotiated more appropriate work conditions, or a sabbatical, or both.

In business, no matter what your role, you need to think and act like the executive of your own business, a business that has one resource: you, and that resource is subcontracted out to one client: your employer.

Your client (employer) has control over the role, but the executive (you), has control over the resource (also you). Your primary responsibility is to serve YouCorp, not ThemCorp. You have to keep the YouCorp executive happy, and you do that by doing as well as you can while contracted out to ThemCorp. However, if the only resource YouCorp has starts burning out on an unreasonable contract position, then the executive needs to step in and manage the situation with the client, because burnout can ruin the resource.

So approach this situation as the executive of YouCorp, not the subordinate of ThemCorp. You are the only resource you have, you have to manage that resource responsibly.

If you don't know how to think, communicate, and manage like an executive, then learn. As I said, these are learnable skills.

Great advice for business and career, as well as personal relationships.  Nailed it Malcat!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: secondcor521 on August 19, 2021, 12:59:32 PM
As someone who grew up spending weekends in cabins in the woods, I find it interesting that cabin life has become a fetish among cubicle workers. I can't go through the checkout at Lowes or the grocery store without seeing some magazine promoting the idea of luxury log homes, with flannel-wearing models on the front porch sipping coffee and seductively looking at one another.

This behavior, a bit like RV'ing, is marketed as the proper way one relieves the stress and meaninglessness of life. You too can be at peace mentally, engaged in your own life, and surrounded by loved ones, if only you buy or build this object made of manufactured products. And if you can't do that, buy our Cabin Porn Magazine or watch our HGTV show for a virtual lap dance from a pile of pine logs. 

To rent such a place on occasion is unthinkable! No, you must go six figures into debt to own a building that will sit abandoned for months at a time, because how can one wear flannel and sip coffee on a porch with the knowledge that one will have to vacate the premises tomorrow? Better to commute an hour-and-a-half each way to work, driving past your dirt-road neighbor Tyler's front-yard collection of rusting riding lawnmowers protected by vicious dogs. That's a worthy tradeoff for the good life, or so the media says and we believe it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: oneday on September 04, 2021, 11:31:45 AM
This really resonated the other day, @neo von retorch . Thanks for your insights.

Quote
my life doesn't have a clear purpose

Given your reading and thoughtfulness on this topic, I'm probably not giving you anything new, but I think what we like to call "purpose", beyond being something we choose for ourselves, is essentially what we'll be able to look back and be satisfied having spent our finite life energy and time doing while alive.

Probably why we struggle with this is because of a bunch of thoughts that might conflict, like does it have to be something significant, having an effect on others or a lot of people, making things better for people I care about, or people in general? Do I have to enjoy doing it or just enjoy the contentment I feel afterwards? Will I judge myself harshly if I don't commit firmly enough to doing something I've decided is important, even when I won't always love it?

But I also think - this is a goal or path or set of habits I'm setting for myself. There is no right answer or judge overseeing the proceedings (except me!) So I also want to enjoy the process of deciding on a purpose! Or even the process of failing to find a "serious" purpose, but finding a lot of things I want to spend my time doing!

You seem to do very well at creating a platform, a framework upon which you could do anything. You keep yourself/health and your necessities/resources  plentiful and prepared and capable of performing the things you'll want to do. (And you enjoy that, too!)

What we end up thinking is important is really a hot stew of our personality, all the whispers of society and culture and family and friends, all the education we've absorbed, and the dreams and desires we've formed from ether. So your purpose is some manifestation of being true to who you've become so far (or, at least, perceive yourself as being). And your platform gives you a lot of options, perhaps even paradox of choice. But even just trying a bunch of things is an admirable and lovely way to utilize your platform and spend your life energy. Whether it ends up being a cone that later focuses your energy more specifically is not really important (unless it really is to you, or it becomes important as you continue growing.)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Tass on September 12, 2021, 03:42:48 PM
I come at it from a totally different direction.

My best life is frugal, so it's pretty self perpetuating. In fact all of my healthy habits are self perpetuating when I'm in a great place in my life: I eat well, exercise, sleep well, stay in touch with friends and family, and don't feel any urge to spend and own more for the sake of spending and owning more. When life is good, it's good.

So instead I register a consumerist urge as a signal to check if something is off in my life. It's a warning sign that there's some lack of balance and that I'm trying to meet and unmet need through spending.

Early on though, it wasn't so automatic. I found listening to ChooseFI podcasts when I cooked really helped me stay in the groove of the FI community mindset.

One thing I learned along the way is that you can't spend your way to your best life, and attempting to actually blocks your ability to build towards true happiness.

Living your best life takes work, it takes thoughtfulness, it takes effort to really reflect on what you need to be fulfilled, and creative thinking as to how to achieve it. Spending creates shortcuts, but in taking those shortcuts, you miss what matters.

Picture it this way, the path to happiness is a long, challenging hike through beautiful mountains. It's cheap or free to get access, it takes time and effort to get to the end point, and you may get lost along the way. Spending is more like jumping in your car, driving around the mountain, and then patting yourself on the back that you got to the other side faster.

Meanwhile, if you had hiked, you would have seen beautiful sights, your body would have exercised, your mental health would have benefited from being in nature, and you would end up on the other side of the mountain feeling peaceful, contended, proud, and satisfied with how you spent your time. Had you driven, you would miss out on the entire point of going to the mountain.

Spending short circuits your process of figuring out what you really need to thrive, it's a shortcut that gives you an artificial hit of satisfaction, and distracts you from your needs as opposed to actually meeting them.

So whenever you feel a spendy urge, take it as a signal that you have some kind of important unmet need, and the challenge is to get to know yourself well enough to understand what work is *actually* needed to meet that need, not just what purchase will quiet it down for a little while.

Your best life isn't found on the other end of a credit card transaction.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on September 28, 2021, 05:32:28 PM
One of the best explanations on personal biases and why they cannot be avoidable (but managed). 


These biases are actually a byproduct of the brain *being smart*, they're a result of rapidly sorting and aggregating data efficiently. It's what allows us to think as fluidly and rapidly as we do. That's why you can't eliminate the effects, because without the process that generates them, we would be slow and stupid.

But the processing produces hiccups in logic sometimes, but we've never been rational creatures, so it's never actually been an issue for our function, we just like to think we're rational, but we never have been and never will be.

The key isn't to fight the biases or try and force ourselves to be more rational, they key is to understand the impacts of the biases and manage them.

The answer to the stupid tricks your brain plays isn't to try and be smarter, it's to understand and use similar stupid tricks.
Gratitude journaling is objectively stupid. There's no rational way that listing the things I'm grateful for every morning isn't cheesy, dumb, stupid nonsense, and yet, it consistently works even if you think it's the dumbest hokey-ist, shit ever.
Likewise, standing in a superman pose for a few minute is also dumb fuck, fucking stupid, and in no rational world should doing that make anyone perform better at anything, it's dumb, plain old dumb. But it works.

The "smart" thing to do about being a rather irrational being is to accept that you are, in fact, contrary to all perception, a rather irrational being, and just learn the equally irrational seeming techniques to manage that irrationality.

There's a very simple explanation for all of this, which if you can wrap your mind around it, starts making perfect sense.
Humans *think* we're rational, because the only part of our brain that can consciously think, is, in fact, pretty rational. So everything we're aware of feels rational. Neat. Okay.

Except, what we are aware of isn't, in fact, what's in charge of our emotions and behaviours. Those largely come from parts of our nervous system that we aren't consciously aware of and typically not in control of. So most of what we experience just happens, and then our conscious mind tries to make sense of it. Hence, we rationalize.

Here's a great example, which really helped me understand this when I was a neuroscientist.
Back when we used to split people's brains due to seizures, the person basically had two conscious brains in their heads. The body still functions as a whole, totally normally, just the two awareness parts are now separate. So it's one person, but two very different conscious brains experiencing the same life in two totally different ways.

The kicker? Only one side has language, the other is mute. Now, if you talk to the communicating side, but show only the mute side something hilarious, the whole body starts laughing. The mute side knows what's funny, but the communicating side doesn't. However, because the body is laughing, the communicating side will believe that something you said was funny. It will insist that it finds you hilarious, no matter how boring you are.

Now, let's broaden this picture. The vast, overwhelming majority of human emotions and behaviours come from subconscious processes. You don't actually consciously choose the majority of what you do, nor *any* of how you feel. You just experience it, and then your conscious mind layers a rational explanation overtop of the experience.

So we are constantly rationalizing, not behaving rationally, because the parts of our brain and nervous system that actually drive our behaviour and feelings aren't parts that our conscious brain even has access to. In reality, we're just constantly trying to keep up with understanding why the hell we do the things we do.

Physiological studies have shown that people physically feel fear and *then* consciously respond to that physical sensation and perceive the experience as fear. So how you consciously perceive fear, is actually just your brain interpreting what your body has already done.

This is a big reason why so many people are terrified of dental needles. The freezing contains epinephrine, which temporarily, artificially creates an experience in the body that's identical to fear. The brain senses this rise in heart rate, and rationalizes that the needle and the pain it caused is the source of the body's response. Then next time, the brain anticipates that a VERY fearful stimulus is coming, and voila, you have someone who has rationalized a level of fear of dental procedures well beyond anything even remotely rational.
It's not a rational response, it's a "rationalized" response.

The less people take their own explanations of themselves seriously, the more they accept that their own mind is ridiculous, but ridiculous for very effective reasons, the less they fight it and the more effectively they can work *with* the system.

It's the people who insist on trying to be "intelligent" and "rational" who are the biggest victims of their own absurdity, because they think they can overpower it with intellect. If they truly understood how the system worked, they would recognize that that's pure nonsense.

The most effective people are the ones who learn to work *with* the flying spaghetti monster who is actually running the subconscious show. Our conscious minds are all just stressed out managers trying to keep the talent from self destructing. We're not in charge, we just clean up the messes and try to give guidance.

The hardest thing to "rationally" understand is that the part you are aware of is not actually "who you are".


https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/mustachianism-around-the-web/the-science-of-your-stupid-first-world-problems/msg2893965/#msg2893965
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dandarc on September 29, 2021, 07:42:33 AM
We should re-title this thread "Malcat's MMM Forum Content, Abridged"
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on September 29, 2021, 08:00:56 AM
We should re-title this thread "Malcat's MMM Forum Content, Abridged"
I know we're not supposed to comment here, but I just can't help myself. A-fucking-men!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mspym on October 22, 2021, 04:16:59 PM
Sol popped up to drop this wisdom about charity and DAFs

My one piece of advice is to give yourself a hard limit on annual disbursements from the DAF.  We still find it difficult to give away money as fast as is necessary, because the DAF is such a convenient place to stash it and forget it.  For example, we try to give away at least 10% of the total balance plus half of all new contributions each year, lest the fund grow too large.  I try to remind myself that it is not like my other investment accounts, and I do not want it to get bigger over time.  It's supposed to be a flow-through intermediary account only.

Charity deferred is not charity at all
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Ladychips on October 24, 2021, 06:22:02 PM
Seeing Sol's name made me smile.

This is a post from quite some time ago but I just saw it today.  I deleted most of the original quote because I thought this response was on target regardless of the situation...

...  It has been a little bit expensive, but in the end, I think it is well worth it!

Thanks for the update! Don't worry about the cost, this is why we save money: to make difficult situations go away.

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: maizefolk on October 24, 2021, 06:35:56 PM
This is a post from quite some time ago but I just saw it today.  I deleted most of the original quote because I thought this response was on target regardless of the situation...

...  It has been a little bit expensive, but in the end, I think it is well worth it!

Thanks for the update! Don't worry about the cost, this is why we save money: to make difficult situations go away.


I like this one! As much as I try to save money in my day to day life, whenever a situation comes up where I do have to spend a lot (and things would be messy/bad if I didn't have it to spend) it always makes me feel incredibly grateful that I have the resources to draw upon and it just means I'll have bad savings numbers for the month, not the disaster it could very easily be if I were living paycheck to paycheck.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Extramedium on October 25, 2021, 12:49:54 PM
This is a post from quite some time ago but I just saw it today.  I deleted most of the original quote because I thought this response was on target regardless of the situation...

...  It has been a little bit expensive, but in the end, I think it is well worth it!

Thanks for the update! Don't worry about the cost, this is why we save money: to make difficult situations go away.


I like this one! As much as I try to save money in my day to day life, whenever a situation comes up where I do have to spend a lot (and things would be messy/bad if I didn't have it to spend) it always makes me feel incredibly grateful that I have the resources to draw upon and it just means I'll have bad savings numbers for the month, not the disaster it could very easily be if I were living paycheck to paycheck.

Hear, hear!  When writing a big check for a home or auto repair, or for medical/surgical/veterinary care, I remind myself (after wincing) of how these are the moments of life we prepare for with frugality and investing.  These hiccups aren't anomalies of life, they're ordinary features of life, and the ability to absorb them is like a superpower.  I've been poor, and in debt, and it helps to think of those times when I didn't know how I would get out of these jams that I can now do simply, with some of the money I've saved.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dandarc on October 29, 2021, 03:14:49 PM
Kind of regret having posted in this thread, but if I hadn't I might not have seen this paragraph from the_gastropod explaining exactly why crypto is so awful:

<snip>

This is very common behavior, for whatever reason, in crypto circles. I, frankly, find it a bit troubling. Not only because it's kinda cult-like, and makes you make really bad arguments. But because cryptocurrency is inherently very political. At its core is—in my opinion—a rather gross extreme form of anti-state libertarianism. I don't think it's a stretch to draw a direct line between that particular philosophy and some of our more... embarrassing recent political situations. I think "investing" in cryptocurrency and parroting its (bad) talking points is actively helping to spread this dangerous ideology, and is therefore harmful. I find it upsetting that it's gotten such a grip on people, because, hey, you can maybe earn a few bucks while helping to destroy democracy!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FI45RE on February 25, 2022, 09:11:08 AM
Hopefully reviving this thread, as it tends to get lost from time to time.

On FIRE-ing young and feeling rudderless, @ChpBstrd says:

"Great job financially!

I think a lot of us want to exit the workforce because it so often lacks intellectual stimulation and because the status symbols one gets along the way are so meaningless. Unfortunately, we live in a society where pairing work and its cousin consumerism are considered The Only Way to accomplish great things. Thus the 60-hour-week corporate director with his 4,000sf McMansion and luxury SUV feels quite accomplished for simply doing what s/he has been told to do by everyone else. Next thing you know they're drinking every night to get their brain to stop protesting the shallowness of it all. Deep down they know their work doesn't matter, their fancy objects will end up a layer in a landfill, and they will end up just as dead as the panhandlers they pity.

I sincerely doubt that you encountered many people in Silicon Valley who spent their days reading classical literature, raising their own food, making art out of fallen leaves, talking philosophy with friends, stargazing, or deep-diving into a series of topics with no monetary incentive. These aren't "achievements" in the way most people see it. An "achievement" is something that awes other people because they can't do it. It's not enough to enjoy a walk in the woods; one must win the cross-country race! It's not enough to have a home; the home needs to be bigger than most people can afford! It's not enough to experience the joy of teaching oneself an easy tune on the piano on a lazy afternoon; one must be able to play several pieces from famous composers!

The illusion of achievement affects all things. Some of us extend our parents' approval of good grades into a lifelong quest to impress others. I have no other explanation for Rolex watches, giant houses, or Cadillac SUVs or the people who sacrifice everything to obtain them.

Now that you don't have to work every day, it's time to consider peeling back the layers of values that you accumulated by default or from other people.

What would be important in a world where there were no promotions, nowhere you couldn't decide to be, no worries about other people judging you for wasting time or talent, no fake signposts saying "satisfaction this way!"? You've basically left your old planet and found yourself on an alien world where all your assumptions are invalid.

Maybe soon you'll see that the old values around "achievement" you worked so hard to pursue were not actually goals; they were restrictions. You had been herded onto a well-worn but narrow path so quickly that you never became aware of other possibilities. Your FI status allows you to stop for a minute and look around, but the blinders are still on. Is it OK to say "I'm going to spend the rest of my life fucking off" or is it wrong to waste the talent and resources that other people need? Is it OK to define achievement as a subjective thing, rather than as something recognized by others? MMM decided his idea of a good time was carpentry - a job typically done by people with a high school education. Is he an "underachiever", and should anyone care what they are labeled? Outside of the high-cost areas where only careerists can afford to live, there is a whole world of people pursing different values - some self-defined, and others just as herd-mentality as the careerists. And of course, many people spend their whole lives shopping for a way to be meaningful.

In the end, it is adult humans who define what it means to be meaningful, and who define what it is that is worth working hard or suffering for, whether they are defining it for themselves or as a way to influence others. The deep mindfuck is realizing that you're as qualified as any other human to be a value-definer. Even deeper is when you realize how effortlessly and unconsciously you've accepted the value set you've been handed.

The actionable advice in this situation is to write down the things you think you value right now at a very high level, and then begin relentlessly criticizing them. You need to put your assumptions on trial, to see what survives and what doesn't. Pick apart "achievement". Look at how vague terms like "goodness" and "beneficial" are. How is "meaningfulness" defined for an ape living for a very short time on a floating speck of dust in a universe with at least billions of galaxies? Teach yourself to ask questions at a higher level than practicality or corporate strategy. Unless you decide to simply do what you're told in some new way, the question of meaning is beyond the practical analysis that got you this far."

Here's the original thread (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/post-fire/26-fire-and-don't-know-what-to-do-with-the-rest-of-my-life/)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Focus_on_the_fire on February 25, 2022, 09:32:31 AM
Thanks for sharing Malcat’s post. It was one of the best reads I’ve had in a long time.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FireLane on February 28, 2022, 07:20:56 AM
@clifp on life lessons learned from 23 years of early retirement:

May will mark year 23 of not getting a paycheck, I was 39 at the time.  I'm almost always content, and some days happy. Still, I would have done some things differently.
Since I never miss a chance to pontificate, I'll be happy to do so.

Psychology
1.  FI is a number, RE is a state of mind; don't confuse them
2.  It is much better to take early retirement to do something than to not do something (i.e. work)
My dad retired early to build a wooden airplane, another guy wanted to bike across America, another couple helped save the family farm. Developing the next Minecraft, writing a novel, or climbing mountains are good.  Pretty much any sentence that starts. I want to retire early, in order to spend more time doing my passion of XYZ is fine.  Generic things like traveling more, spend more time with kids; are not so good.
3. For most people retirement will result in lower highs and higher lows
It is really hard to replace the sense of accomplishment, be part of something greater than yourself, the internal and external validation that you get from finishing a big project, getting a promotion and nice raise from work, or a company award.  Completely a marathon, planting a garden, finishing a long computer game, all give me a sense of accomplishment, but external validation is pretty minimal.
My best weeks were weeks I was working, on the other hand, I never had a bad month since I've retired, but
plenty of months while working that was pretty unhappy.
4. Life is too short to work at a job you hate, that goes double if you are FI. If you are under 50, seriously consider taking a 3-12 sabbatical/leave of absence in lieu of retiring early. If your company won't let you, then you quit and take it anyway. Taking a 12-month leave of absence from Intel, was the smartest psychological and financial thing I did.  There is a decent chance you'll decide you just needed a break or a different job.
5. Make sure your spouse/SO is really onboard
6. Work provides a place for social interactions/finding friendship (I suppose this may have changed post Covid) Your working friends, won't have time to play. Finding activities, volunteering to take the place of work is really important.

Financials:
7. There are no rules; just guidelines. 4%SWR, use Index funds, don't market time, stick to an AA, ain't the 10 commandments.
8. Before violating the guidelines get a 2nd opinion, here or at a place like early-retirment.org.  The perspective of knowledgeable folks is very valuable. I'd say I took forum advice about 1/2 the time I ask over the last 20 years.
9.  Manage your own money especially while you are young. It can be hard to learn about the details of investing while you are working, much less of an excuse when you are retired. The ROI is very high.
10.  Even if you don't do your own taxes make sure you understand the system, and the important phaseouts, for ACA, tax rates, capital gains etc.
11.) LeanFire for someone under 50, in today's world where financial assets are overvalued is extremely risky. A big part of why I've enjoyed my retirement is that except 2008/9 I've never been stressed about money. OMY is one thing for somebody with assets over $3-5 million, it is prudent, IMO for someone with assets under a million.
12) Think carefully about your backup plans, like "I'll just go back to work if the market tanks."  In 2009, after the market crash, and the dividends on more than dozen stocks I owned were cut or eliminated, I found that my income was less than my expense for the first time ever. My backup plan was to go back to work if my assets dropped below a certain level.  Well, it turns out that 2009 was shitty time for anyone to be looking for a job, much less a tech/marketing guy with skills a decade out of date.  My backup plan was worthless, luckily the bull market bailed me out.
I have a friend who lost over a million in the tech crash of 2000-2002, he is still living paycheck to paycheck.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MustachioedPistachio on April 19, 2022, 09:21:58 AM
@never give up on the luxury of FIRE and free time.

It seems awfully extravagant to "pay" for so much free time.
In a nutshell you've just described exactly what FIRE is. You're completely correct. It's extremely expensive to pay for free time in terms of the opportunity cost of earnings we forego. When someone retires two years, five years, ten years, twenty years early, think how much earnings are left on the table. We do this though because we value the time more than we value the additional money. I love this concept because it strikes hard at the very core of what we define as enough. That 'enough' word is the antithesis of modern consumer driven lifestyles and it is vital for anyone pursuing FIRE to define what 'enough' means for them. Without grasping this concept, we have no hope of understanding our relationship with money and consequently we'll be unable to home in on a FIRE target number.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Wolfpack Mustachian on April 19, 2022, 03:49:44 PM
@never give up on the luxury of FIRE and free time.

It seems awfully extravagant to "pay" for so much free time.
In a nutshell you've just described exactly what FIRE is. You're completely correct. It's extremely expensive to pay for free time in terms of the opportunity cost of earnings we forego. When someone retires two years, five years, ten years, twenty years early, think how much earnings are left on the table. We do this though because we value the time more than we value the additional money. I love this concept because it strikes hard at the very core of what we define as enough. That 'enough' word is the antithesis of modern consumer driven lifestyles and it is vital for anyone pursuing FIRE to define what 'enough' means for them. Without grasping this concept, we have no hope of understanding our relationship with money and consequently we'll be unable to home in on a FIRE target number.

Wow, great encapsulation of FIRE!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RyanAtTanagra on April 20, 2022, 11:44:58 AM
@clifp on life lessons learned from 23 years of early retirement:


Financials:
12) Think carefully about your backup plans, like "I'll just go back to work if the market tanks."  In 2009, after the market crash, and the dividends on more than dozen stocks I owned were cut or eliminated, I found that my income was less than my expense for the first time ever. My backup plan was to go back to work if my assets dropped below a certain level.  Well, it turns out that 2009 was shitty time for anyone to be looking for a job, much less a tech/marketing guy with skills a decade out of date.  My backup plan was worthless, luckily the bull market bailed me out.
I have a friend who lost over a million in the tech crash of 2000-2002, he is still living paycheck to paycheck.
A lot of people on these boards are too optimistic about their ability to get employment during a recession, probably because they've never had to do it.
Most recently during covid lockdown I was unable to work. I had considered layers of backup plans for the possibility of my not being able to work (though I never considered that I would be unable to work while still healthy).
Every aspect of my backup plan to protect cash flow failed -- while they were good plans, the situation was so strange that none of them were viable.

1. I could not get a roomate. (Introducing covid exposure risk)
2. I could not give up my apt and move to my rental house (govt blocked evictions for any reason include non-payment of rent)
3. There were no other job options as things were closed down.
4. I couldn't even spend my emergency cash. No business would take it (because fomite fears).

Because I had chosen my larger investments in dividend stocks that had not cut dividends in previous recessions, that cash-flow continued. But it wasn't -- and isn't yet -- enough to live on exclusively.

Please click over to the original linked thread to continue that thread's conversation, to keep this one clean.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: 2Cent on April 21, 2022, 02:47:44 AM
Posting to follow. Really cool to have a place where the collective pearls of wisdom from this forum are gathered.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: oneday on April 29, 2022, 04:28:44 PM
Oh for Pete's sake, treat yourself as if you matter as much as the rest of your family.  Just quit.  Take the time you need to de-stress and figure out what you want to do next.

When I am fretting about something -- particularly when I know I'm not being rational about it -- the thing that helps me most is to play out those "worst fear" scenarios. Telling myself not to worry is useless, because my Inner Bag Lady is strong, and attempting to brush off her concerns just makes her more determined to be heard.  The only thing that shuts her up is to call her bluff, look the possibilities dead in the eye, and force myself to see that the worst-case scenario is just fine. 

So you take time off, maybe have another kid.  What if the job market goes in the shitter?  OK, well, your husband is still making more than enough to cover your living expenses.  But he's on a contract -- what if it isn't renewed?  Well, you have $900K and expenses of $35K/yr.  How many years can you scrape by on $900K to tide you over?  How long was the Great Depression?  You've got enough to see you through more than twice that, even if neither of you earns any money at all.  And if you somehow manage to run through your 'stache, you have a paid-off house you could sell, which would easily cover many additional years in an apartment.  But we'd have to give up child care!  Well, that's not ideal, but it's only a few short years before the job market recovers and/or your kid goes to kindergarten -- and there are all sorts of other solutions, too, like trading off time with friends, sharing childcare time more equitably with your husband (who is unemployed in or Parade of Horribles and thus has ample time available).  But then what if you can never find a job in your chosen field?  At your level of expenses, you guys could work as baristas and get by; really, with $900K in assets and your expenses, you'd basically be working to cover child care.  Etc. etc. etc. 

You guys have worked your asses off and saved a ton of money to get where you are by your ages.  And you clearly have excellent habits if you are making well over $100K and still living on $35K.  All of that effort has paid off:  it has bought you the freedom to step off the treadmill for a while.  So use that freedom -- you've earned it.  And trust that those same skills and abilities that got you here will see you through whatever comes after.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dee_the_third on April 29, 2022, 05:43:37 PM
Hey, this is a great thread. PTF.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mspym on May 02, 2022, 03:05:17 PM
A nice reminder about the markets
I would recommend OP finds a new hobby. Contrarian opinions are nice, but if you believe we're all doomed all the time then maybe find your tribe and get some fresh air once in a while. Life is short, arguing with people on the internet won't improve your chances of FIRE success.

Sometimes what I need is a nice reality-check clip upside the head, and 2B1S can be counted on to deliver.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: oneday on August 03, 2022, 07:27:38 PM
Today's contribution is a two-fer:

@sui generis provides the wisdom & @rockstache shows me how great it really is:

I hope you can have the best of both worlds, but on the off chance that you do have to make a tough decision, I'll also say that research shows people do make the best of their situations after making whatever decision they make. In the sense that, years from now whatever you do you will find reasons that that worked out well for you.  I guess this sounds weird and not super helpful in advance, when you actually have to make a thoughtful decision.  But once you've done your best on the decision, know that you will maximize the pros of whatever decision you did make and compensate for the cons as best as possible and will still be able to be happy.  While I mentioned the job I regret leaving above, I should point out that I only shared the cons of my decision.  In the holistic view, I still have more than enough money to comfortably FIRE and I never would have met my husband if I hadn't left that job.  So even if I regret leaving it, if you asked me if I'd do it differently, I probably wouldn't!  I am hopeful that, even if things don't go as hoped in your case, you'll at least be able to say the same in a decade or two.
This really really speaks to me right now and makes me feel hopeful about some decisions I have to make soon. Thank you!


@TheGrimSqueaker is so quick-witted, I just love that (plus it's true!):
stealth wealth

Lol, why have I not heard this before?

Because we're just that discreet about it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Cannot Wait! on August 03, 2022, 08:18:10 PM
My brother who was a military officer was taught (in the heat of battle), "Make a decision,  then make it the right decision".
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: the_hobbitish on August 05, 2022, 09:43:25 AM
posting to follow
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: mspym on September 13, 2022, 12:34:43 AM
From the thread on climate change - this is some really good and easy to implement advice
I'm going to have an even smaller ask than @Malcat. Malcat's reply to your post is that you haven't yet found the type of action/activism, that works for and is sustainable for you and that you'll need to find it. Maybe you will.

But I'm going to propose an even easier thing for you to do. Not activism. Not advocating for change. Instead, I'd argue the the simplest, easiest, highest effect to lowest effort ratio thing you can do is:

Every time you catch yourself talking other people out of trying to change the world for the better, stop.

Maybe it really is it's hopeless and exactly the same quantity of human suffering and misery will occur if we try to achieve change or if we don't. But maybe the difference between 2.5 and 3.0 degrees of warming still matters and that the difference between 2.5 and 3 degrees of warning is still a set of outcomes we have the power to influence.

If I'm right, trying to discourage other people by telling them it is hopeless is actively causing harm to the future. If I'm wrong, none of it matters anyway, what is to be gained by trying to talk people out of having false hope and into despair?

I want to be clear I'm not trying to pick on you individually. This strain of "not only do I give up, but I'm going to try to talk anyone who hasn't already given up into despairing too" thinking pops up a lot in climate discussions much more so in the past five years. I find it extremely counterproductive and I struggling to understand people's motivations in advocating for it.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: nereo on October 13, 2022, 06:11:14 PM
This absolute gem from @Laura33 focused on what retirement means and how it can be viewed by our children

You know, there was a thread about this a couple of years ago that would be worth reviewing if you can find it. 

To me, the short answer is that the question itself is based on a false premise, i.e., that the "work" in "work ethic" means "leave the house for 40-80 hrs/week to work for pay."  That's just wrong.

Kids watch how you live and what you value -- and they determine what you value by watching what you do.  If they see you regularly taking care of the house, cooking food to put on the table, spending weekend days doing chores around the house or some sort of productive hobby, maybe volunteering for some cause that you care about, they will learn that you value taking care of stuff that needs to be taken care of and using your time productively.  If you are open with them about your finances, your salary, your savings, etc., they will learn that working at a paid job can be an important value, too, because it gives you the $$ you need to do all of those other things.  But it is only a part of the picture.

Moreover, paid work is not even the most important part of the picture.  I mean, if you work 60 hrs/week, then watch TV every night and weekend, are you teaching your kid the value of work?  They're not there to see you put in the effort when you're in the office; all they're probably learning is "work is super exhausting, and boy I don't want to do that."  If you want your kid to learn a work ethic when you're out of the house doing invisible stuff for 60 hrs/week, you're going to need to spend a lot of time at home talking about what you did that day, what was good, what was bad, the challenges and successes and disappointments -- they need visibility into what "work a paid job" actually means. 

But even then, kids get 10x more from what they see than from what they hear.  So rather than chase a red herring ("how can I explain to my kids how important it is to work when I don't have paid employment anymore?"), focus on what you actually do for all those various hours when you're around your kids.  That's what matters.  Are you engaged, are you challenging yourself, are you responsible about getting things done even when you don't want to, do you put effort in to making the world a little better for someone else, etc. etc. etc.  That's what "work" actually is -- and that's the kind of "work" kids can see, understand, and get excited about.*  And, conveniently, it's the kind of work that you can in fact do even more of once you FIRE and no longer have to worry about that pesky paycheck.


*As my kids are moving toward late HS/late college, I have shown them both MMM's "Shockingly Simple Math."  DS looked at me like I was out of my mind -- to him, the reason he is going to go to college and get a job is because he wants to build robots and learn cool stuff; saving huge amounts of money to quit that sooner was completely counterintuitive, because he's in it for the work itself, not the money.  I had to reframe the issue as having the financial freedom to take the job you want vs. the job that pays the most; then it clicked in.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on October 14, 2022, 07:21:08 AM
Awww, thanks @nereo
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: deborah on October 18, 2022, 03:14:32 AM
On why not to declutter
STOP ORGANIZING!

Here's my theory on everything from Ikea to Marie Komodo - or whatever her name is. If your house is neat and tidy and everything is organized and put away, then it looks like there is all kinds of extra space for you to fill with "stuff." This leads to a deadly consumeristic cycle in which you buy stuff to fill the excess space.

On the other had, if your home has shoes all over the entryway, towels draped over teh bannisters, a sofa no one has room to sit on, etc. ad nauseum, your home feels like it is bursting at teh seams, and the only solution is to de-clutter by getting rid of stuff. See - a neat house leads to spendypants activity while a messy one not only frees up time in your day, it also leads you to buy less junk.

Or something.

I'm still not cleaning off my desk. You can't make me. You're not the boss of me.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on October 24, 2022, 03:19:59 PM
Great post from R@63 over in the book club thinking about nutrition from the food's perspective. Very fun!
Just a few thoughts.

N=1 is always a good idea.  Your body and its history are unique.


From a biologist's viewpoint:

Alkaloids* are plant responses to insects, they are toxins  Unfortunately we like them.  Caffeine is a good example.  We are just a lot bigger than insects, so the dose is lower.  Nicotine is also a plant alkaloid.  In concentrated form it is also toxic, and is easily absorbed through the skin.  Back when it was a commercial insecticide there were always deaths and near-deaths from spills**.

Plants don't like predators eating their seeds.  If their main seed predator is a mammal (like us, cattle, horses, etc.) then they are more likely to contain chemicals that are not good for mammals.  If the seeds are more likely to be eaten by birds, then the chemical defenses are more likely to be aimed at birds.  Same for insects as main seed predator.  Not guaranteed safe for mammals, odds are just a bit better.

Still on seeds - fruits are a plant's methods to move their seeds to a new home, with fertilizer.  So ripe fruits where the seeds are protected are enticing not damaging.  This has 2 implications - unripe fruits have seeds that are not ready to be released to the world yet, so the plant will make those unripe fruits unappealing - nasty tasting, poisonous, etc.  We get around some of that with cooking.  Second, the seeds inside those yummy fruits have some sort of protection so they don't get digested when the fruit is eaten - they are too small or too large to be crushed by teeth, they taste bad, they are toxic.  After all, almond flavouring is partly cyanide, so almond seeds are edible but peach and apple seeds are poisonous, just a difference in the amount of poison.    All of this to say, ripe fruit is better than unripe fruit and seeds are all potentially iffy to dangerous.  Of course people can develop sensitivity to fruits and seeds, look at strawberries.

And even fruits that we think are OK may not be.  Grapefruit interacts with some meds - I read recently that it inhibits the action of the cytochrome P45 enzyme in the liver, the enzyme that does a lot of metabolic detoxification.  So the cP45 enzyme doesn't do what it should do to a medication, a lot of medications are inactive as they are taken and are activated by the liver.

I would say that plants invented chemical warfare, except they didn't, bacteria did (think botulism as just one of many examples), followed by plants and fungi (aflotoxins in grains and peanuts are a major health issue).   Prey work hard at not being eaten, so anything we want to eat has protections against us, unless it is a very domesticated food that we have bred the protections out of.  Like canola oil, mostly.  Of course one of the big jobs of our liver is to detoxify all these protections.


Dairy - the original casein molecule gene had a mutation relatively recently.  A2 casein is the original, A1, is the mutation.  A lot of people who react to dairy, when it is not a lactose intolerance, are sensitive to A1.  So casein products and regular milk can all trigger them, while they may be fine with A2 milk.  Or if they are sensitive to all caseins (and/or whey) then they lose dairy.  For some people they are fine with ghee and not butter because of the milk solids.


*illustrative story - agronomists were looking for a coffee species that was naturally low in caffeine  They found one but it was high in other alkaloids and the coffee tasted horrible, alkaloids will do that.

** When I was a grad student I met an older chemist whose lab partner, back when they were grad students (so the 1920s or 30s), had spilled concentrated nicotine extract on himself.  Went into convulsions and almost died.  Fortunately it wasn't quite enough to kill him before his liver detoxified it, and he was OK.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RetiredAt63 on October 24, 2022, 05:05:56 PM
Great post from R@63 over in the book club thinking about nutrition from the food's perspective. Very fun!

Wow, my post is in the company of so many great posts.  I didn't expect that post to make it here. ;-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on October 24, 2022, 05:39:49 PM
Your marble bust and acanthus leaves are in the mail ;)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: RetiredAt63 on October 24, 2022, 10:59:03 PM
Your marble bust and acanthus leaves are in the mail ;)

I trust you packed them carefully.     ;-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FireLane on November 20, 2022, 03:17:26 PM
I nominate this post from @MissNancyPryor in the class of 2019 thread:

I passed 3 years retired this fall, and it has been excellent.  I am 53 now and I still get the "What DO you do all day?" question now and again, spoken with a snide tone that signals disapproval of my wasted life. 

"Whatever I want to," is my short answer, having abandoned all effort to elaborate.  I used to try to explain but now I have come to see the absurdity of the question. 

If someone can’t fathom how to spend their time at a relatively young age 50, do they expect a magic answer to that question when they are more physically and mentally eroded at 65?  Do they think answers simply appear from the mist with a social security check? 

If the answer at 65 is, “travel,” or “throw away my alarm clock,” or “finally concentrate on my health,” how about doing all of that 15+ years earlier?
       
The reason people ask is simply that they don’t have enough money saved to quit early and it probably never occurred to them that they could.  If any of the incredulous people won the lottery they would have plenty of answers about how to spend their time and would quit their day jobs guilt-free.  The answers about what to do would magically appear and they wouldn't think to scold others about obvious character flaws and lack of work ethic. 

I saved up my own lottery prize and am now spending it.
 
In my career I was resentful of handing over my days to ungrateful overlords and I was boundlessly curious about literally ANYTHING ELSE I could do with my time.  I admit it, I didn’t retire TO anything.  I retired FROM meaningless bullshit, and it is marvelous. 

The answer is clear.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Ladychips on November 20, 2022, 04:11:23 PM
I nominate this post from @MissNancyPryor in the class of 2019 thread:

I passed 3 years retired this fall, and it has been excellent.  I am 53 now and I still get the "What DO you do all day?" question now and again, spoken with a snide tone that signals disapproval of my wasted life. 

"Whatever I want to," is my short answer, having abandoned all effort to elaborate.  I used to try to explain but now I have come to see the absurdity of the question. 

If someone can’t fathom how to spend their time at a relatively young age 50, do they expect a magic answer to that question when they are more physically and mentally eroded at 65?  Do they think answers simply appear from the mist with a social security check? 

If the answer at 65 is, “travel,” or “throw away my alarm clock,” or “finally concentrate on my health,” how about doing all of that 15+ years earlier?
       
The reason people ask is simply that they don’t have enough money saved to quit early and it probably never occurred to them that they could.  If any of the incredulous people won the lottery they would have plenty of answers about how to spend their time and would quit their day jobs guilt-free.  The answers about what to do would magically appear and they wouldn't think to scold others about obvious character flaws and lack of work ethic. 

I saved up my own lottery prize and am now spending it.
 
In my career I was resentful of handing over my days to ungrateful overlords and I was boundlessly curious about literally ANYTHING ELSE I could do with my time.  I admit it, I didn’t retire TO anything.  I retired FROM meaningless bullshit, and it is marvelous. 

The answer is clear.

I second this nomination, especially the bolded part.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Zikoris on November 20, 2022, 05:47:49 PM
I nominate this post from @MissNancyPryor in the class of 2019 thread:

I passed 3 years retired this fall, and it has been excellent.  I am 53 now and I still get the "What DO you do all day?" question now and again, spoken with a snide tone that signals disapproval of my wasted life. 

"Whatever I want to," is my short answer, having abandoned all effort to elaborate.  I used to try to explain but now I have come to see the absurdity of the question. 

If someone can’t fathom how to spend their time at a relatively young age 50, do they expect a magic answer to that question when they are more physically and mentally eroded at 65?  Do they think answers simply appear from the mist with a social security check? 

If the answer at 65 is, “travel,” or “throw away my alarm clock,” or “finally concentrate on my health,” how about doing all of that 15+ years earlier?
       
The reason people ask is simply that they don’t have enough money saved to quit early and it probably never occurred to them that they could.  If any of the incredulous people won the lottery they would have plenty of answers about how to spend their time and would quit their day jobs guilt-free.  The answers about what to do would magically appear and they wouldn't think to scold others about obvious character flaws and lack of work ethic. 

I saved up my own lottery prize and am now spending it.
 
In my career I was resentful of handing over my days to ungrateful overlords and I was boundlessly curious about literally ANYTHING ELSE I could do with my time.  I admit it, I didn’t retire TO anything.  I retired FROM meaningless bullshit, and it is marvelous. 

The answer is clear.

To be fair, a lot of people are just genuinely boring human beings, and when they eventually retire they just watch 12 hours of TV a day. Pretty depressing, but not uncommon. I imagine a lot of the people incredulous at the idea of retiring early have that future.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: maizefolk on November 20, 2022, 08:14:45 PM
That's a really good one. Thank you @FireLane
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MissNancyPryor on November 20, 2022, 10:02:29 PM
Aw, shucks.  Thanks to all for the nod. 
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ender on November 22, 2022, 08:31:36 AM
I think I read it here - someone recently had a post about how the wife was the primary earner, taking care of the family, etc.

Her husband basically didn't contribute.

But at social gatherings, everyone talked about the husbands career and focused on him.

Does anyone know what post I'm referring to?

edit: found it from @caleb

I know several women in my life who work, pay most of the bills, clean the house, and take care of the kids. Meanwhile their husband owns a lawn business or works part time or something and spends most of their time just playing games and fishing and bragging about all their free time.


Ha!  Not to derail this thread further, but I feel like that ^ guy deserves his own caricature/meme, the small business dude version of Karens and Chads.  Call him Jeff.

Jeff owns a small business.  Preferably very seasonal.  Lawn service, pool cleaning, maybe light road construction.  Something unlicensed, with lots of machines, but rarely hand tools.

Jeff has all the gear.  Whatever the latest tool is on the market, he has three.  His pickup is never more than two years old, and he rotates between custom fabbed trailers to pull around. 

His pickup is definitely a business expense, and his fishing boat may or may not be titled to the company.  From his family cell phone plan to his daily drive through lunch, he keeps his receipts for the costs of doing business.

He has recently built a shop with an office, complete with two recliners, a beer fridge, and a 84" flatscreen.  He tends to work lots of Sundays in the fall.

Jeff is at work 12 hours a day all year, making sure to leave right as the kids are getting up so that his kids see his work ethic.  He bills from May to September.  Nearly all of that money "goes back into the business."  Last year he reported an income of $11,000. 

Jeff is married to Katie.  Katie is a nurse who started out with an associates degree and gradually bootstrapped her way up the payscale through a BS and now an MS through night school.  She's currently the charge nurse, and she's running the math on whether a DNP is worth it.

Katie pulls night shifts so she can be available for pickup, dropoff, and other kid needs during the day.  She also picks up all the available overtime to cover the spring break trip to Florida.

Katie carries the family's health insurance.  She has a union pension, and contributes to a 401k.  She has very quietly opened a 529 for each of the kids even though Jeff insists college is a scam.

At family and social events, 90% of the work-talk is about Jeff's business.  It's great that he has accomplished so much to provide a nice life for his family.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Mr. Green on November 22, 2022, 09:05:10 AM
I saved up my own lottery prize and am now spending it.
 
In my career I was resentful of handing over my days to ungrateful overlords and I was boundlessly curious about literally ANYTHING ELSE I could do with my time.  I admit it, I didn’t retire TO anything.  I retired FROM meaningless bullshit, and it is marvelous. 

The answer is clear.
I feel like this was us too! 5+ years later and I still don't feel like I FIREd "to" anything. I attempted that in the beginning because I thought that would give me the best chance of success but both of the things I planned to do first bombed. Been bummin' around ever since and it's glorious.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: chasingsnow on November 22, 2022, 07:04:38 PM
PTF for all the sage wisdom in this thread!!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on November 22, 2022, 07:17:25 PM
PTF for all the sage wisdom in this thread!!
Spoiler Alert: I suspect Malcat has more posts quoted here than any other mustachian. By a mile.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Mr. Green on November 22, 2022, 08:20:39 PM
PTF for all the sage wisdom in this thread!!
Spoiler Alert: I suspect Malcat has more posts quoted here than any other mustachian. By a mile.
The title could almost be changed to "The best post from Malcat I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was.."
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on November 22, 2022, 09:12:52 PM
PTF for all the sage wisdom in this thread!!
Spoiler Alert: I suspect Malcat has more posts quoted here than any other mustachian. By a mile.
The title could almost be changed to "The best post from Malcat I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was.."
Indeed!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Metalcat on November 23, 2022, 06:46:27 AM
PTF for all the sage wisdom in this thread!!
Spoiler Alert: I suspect Malcat has more posts quoted here than any other mustachian. By a mile.
The title could almost be changed to "The best post from Malcat I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was.."
Indeed!

IDK, it's been a long time since I was quoted here.

I'm just a forum has-been now, lol.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Loren Ver on November 23, 2022, 10:55:31 AM
PTF for all the sage wisdom in this thread!!
Spoiler Alert: I suspect Malcat has more posts quoted here than any other mustachian. By a mile.
The title could almost be changed to "The best post from Malcat I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was.."
Indeed!

IDK, it's been a long time since I was quoted here.

I'm just a forum has-been now, lol.

It is good to get your sage wisdom out early, that way to can coastFIRE if you want to ;)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ender on November 23, 2022, 12:02:14 PM
PTF for all the sage wisdom in this thread!!
Spoiler Alert: I suspect Malcat has more posts quoted here than any other mustachian. By a mile.
The title could almost be changed to "The best post from Malcat I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was.."
Indeed!

IDK, it's been a long time since I was quoted here.

I'm just a forum has-been now, lol.

It is good to get your sage wisdom out early, that way to can coastFIRE if you want to ;)

I think you mean postFIRE? or is it post-postFIRE?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Dicey on November 23, 2022, 12:08:01 PM
PTF for all the sage wisdom in this thread!!
Spoiler Alert: I suspect Malcat has more posts quoted here than any other mustachian. By a mile.
The title could almost be changed to "The best post from Malcat I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was.."
Indeed!

IDK, it's been a long time since I was quoted here.

I'm just a forum has-been now, lol.
That's because you were only posting in your journal for a time. It makes my heart happy to see you venturing out a bit more into forumland lately.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: former player on December 08, 2022, 06:50:28 AM
PeteD01 replied to this statement:
Quote
[author redacted, posted in the Christians! What the fork? thread on Christianity and gay marriage if you really want to know]
All simply to avoid offending and slightly inconveniencing someone who now has to go to the next cake shop down the street.
Should the cake shop owner be forced to create a Nazi cake, a penis cake for a child's 10th birthday, a "yay I got away with murder" cake? Service isn't being refused based on who the customer is, as was the case in Jim Crow, but what he/she is asked to produce.

Posting here for the clarity of his reply:

Ok, let's dissect this a bit starting with the imaginary customers ordering such cakes:

1) Nazi cakes are typically ordered by Nazis

2) penis cakes for a child's birthday, are ordered by child molesters

3)"yay I got away with murder" cakes are typically ordered by murderers

4) Wedding cakes for gay weddings are typically ordered by gay couples

What you are doing here is creating an association of Nazis, child molesters and murderers with gay people. This is hate speech that is trying to elicit disgust in the recipient and direct it towards gay people.

(This post modified to remove any possible confusion as to what is being posted and why.)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on December 08, 2022, 06:57:07 AM
some trouble with your quote tags I think...
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: ATtiny85 on December 08, 2022, 08:24:59 AM
some trouble with your quote tags I think...

among other things
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: roomtempmayo on December 17, 2022, 09:46:12 AM
From @TreeLeaf 's tale of dishwasher woe:


Well...We're kind of cheap...and figured out that Chipotle forks can withstand the dishwasher heat, even on the sanitize cycle. So part of our fork collection is comprised of chipotle forks in addition to our normal stainless steel forks. Welcome to my world.

One of these chipotle forks became dislodged from the silverware tray in the dishwasher and came into contact with the dishwasher heating element, which melted the fork clean in half.

The handle half of the melted fork then made it's way through the bypass of the main filter, through the coarse filter which looks like it is designed to stop just this sort of stray half melted chipotle fork situation, then lodged itself directly into the intake tube to the chopper blades with the melted part of the handle stuck in the tube.

This was enough to slow down the flow rate from the pump enough to stop the upper control arm from spinning, which resulted in extremely poor cleaning performance.

After removing the half melted chipotle fork the dishwasher now cleans dishes perfectly.

I'm not sure what to say here.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BicycleB on December 17, 2022, 01:04:46 PM
From @TreeLeaf 's tale of dishwasher woe:


Well...We're kind of cheap...and figured out that Chipotle forks can withstand the dishwasher heat, even on the sanitize cycle. So part of our fork collection is comprised of chipotle forks in addition to our normal stainless steel forks. Welcome to my world.

One of these chipotle forks became dislodged from the silverware tray in the dishwasher and came into contact with the dishwasher heating element, which melted the fork clean in half.

The handle half of the melted fork then made it's way through the bypass of the main filter, through the coarse filter which looks like it is designed to stop just this sort of stray half melted chipotle fork situation, then lodged itself directly into the intake tube to the chopper blades with the melted part of the handle stuck in the tube.

This was enough to slow down the flow rate from the pump enough to stop the upper control arm from spinning, which resulted in extremely poor cleaning performance.

After removing the half melted chipotle fork the dishwasher now cleans dishes perfectly.

I'm not sure what to say here.

I think @TreeLeaf has demonstrated the edge of the domestic optimitization curve. Well done, TreeLeaf, and congrats on a successful repair.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: oneday on December 18, 2022, 09:59:59 PM
My happiness lens is shaded by the experience of my father, who lived the life of ten people, but finished it in pain with limited mobility. The wisdom I got from him through observation and talking really transformed what my expectations were around FIRE, happiness, and having decades of freedom to live.

Planning is wonderful and I love feeling like I'm working toward something. BUT, I have found that for the person who is able to always live in the moment and be happy in that moment, they will look back on their life with fulfillment no matter what it is they accomplished. My dad's happiness revolved around accomplishments and when he became disabled it took him two years to realize he could be happy while limited to a house in the city for the most part. Observing him, I realized that I could shift my frame of mind to seek happiness in just existing, being, rather than doing. It's a challenge, and I'm far from perfect at it.

That doesn't mean stop doing. Make plans, have adventures. I certainly will until I can't anymore. But I still try to bring myself back to "am I happy right here in this moment?" String a bunch of those together no matter what is happening and you realize what's happening doesn't matter, and it's freeing in its own way.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: chasesfish on December 19, 2022, 08:37:59 AM
PTF
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BicycleB on December 23, 2022, 02:20:48 PM
Below is the first post of a new journal by @lilkidjesus. Six posts in, the overall tale is Mustache drama of a high order, well told. Don't read this unless you accept that you will soon read the others! Anyway welcome to the forums, LKJ.

Seeing as I’ve really enjoyed reading the journals that others have shared with the forum, and how much I’ve appreciated the insights, perspectives, and humor of my technologically co-located kindred spirits, I’ve decided I would try my hand at some navel-gazing at this point in my journey.

Part One: The Beginning

I was born to two fantastic humans in a suburb of Salt Lake City known for mining and methamphetamine. Mom was an accountant without a degree, and Dad was a mechanic that had dreams of one day becoming a firefighter. The year was 1985.

My early childhood was idyllic to my thinking, without the distractions of excess, and the lack of creativity that likely comes with prescribed or easily-accessible overstimulation. Both of my parents worked, and so the four of us would often be left to our own devices for an hour or two after school, where we indulged in regular kid activities like building forts out of the sofa cushions, nimbly jumping to the safety of sofa cushion platforms whenever the floor was proclaimed to be lava, or jousting across the living room on our sofa cushion steeds.

Mom would return each evening, make us a meal from the rotation of a few she knew how to prepare, and subsequently read to the four of us, one at a time, for a half hour each. If it was summer, the other three would fight over the real estate in front of our window-mounted air-conditioner, while they waited their turn for Mom’s attention. As an adult, I have always been distinctly impressed with her decision to give her time that way without fail after a long day at work.

As I started elementary school, Dad became the firefighter he had hoped to be, leaving behind his mechanic job, while still being Mr. Fix-it for all of our neighbors. With this bump in salary came the first lifestyle upgrade that I remember witnessing as a child. My parents added a third bedroom to the house (likely because the four of us incessantly complained about sharing one bedroom), and they decked out our living room with financed new furniture, a financed big-screen-TV, and a financed sound system that my dad immediately felt compelled to demo for all of our neighbors.

Listening to Dad talk to Mom about how easily it was going to be to pay off all of the new luxuries now that they had a healthy bank account eventually led to me wanting one of my own. As they tell it, on my eighth birthday, when given the choice of gifts, I asked for just that – my own savings account – and in it, my parents deposited fifty dollars.

Less than a year and half later, my older brother and I found ourselves atop our fancy new sofa testing the limits of the stereo speakers. My brother had a habit of frequently watching the intro to Top Gun (you know, the part where all the planes are all taking off while Kenny Loggins belts out Danger Zone), and he would crank up the volume until my parents put a stop to it. On this day, however, Dad just let it ride. While my brother and I rocked out, the furniture company showed up to repossess all of the toys Dad had purchased to celebrate his new job. Seeing what his sons were doing, he kindly asked the dudes there to pack everything up to please take the TV and the speakers last. They obliged, and we watched Tom Cruise have a crisis of confidence while Dad watched his boys, likely having one of his own.

These were some of my earliest lessons about money.

Age: 12
Savings: ~$0

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Purple_Crayon on December 24, 2022, 06:28:36 PM
Thank you kindly for the shoutout, @BicycleB, and for the friendly welcome! Glad to hang out among friends.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on January 03, 2023, 09:45:07 AM
@Villanelle.  I have seen this time after time.  My DH's natural response to frustration or hurt is to get angry -- and even though he's not angry at you, he's generally not pleasant to be around, which makes things twice as hard for me, as I have to manage him on top of the problem itself.  And yet he wonders why DD won't ask his advice or talk to him about important things (and why I don't immediately turn around and tell him what she tells me) . . . .

It's been touched on in this thread, but I think it bears repeating.

One of the myriad reasons women don't report assaults, is that they are afraid of the reactions of men in their lives.  One of the very last things a girl or woman needs as she processes her own reactions to that event is to then have to manage the reactions of men around her.  How often have we heard dads and boyfriends and husbands and male friends say, "I'm going to kill him!," in reference to a male perpetrator?

Suddenly, a woman or girl processing her own trauma has to deal with talking down a man in her life from doing something stupid.  Or she has to stress about her situation causing a man in her life to get in serious legal trouble, and all the guilt that goes along with that.  "I got raped, and my dad ended up in jail because of it."   Or, "we were getting mugged, dad tried to fight back and got shot trying to protect me, and now he's dead because of me." 

These are strong factors when a woman decides to keep her assault to herself.  A man who exhibits that kind of reaction to a theoretical assault doesn't feel like a safe person with whom to share you were attacked, assaulted, drugged, groped, stalked,  or otherwise harassed. Because you know there's a very good chance that it will become necessary to manage him, rather than deal with the aftermath of the incident.  It may feel like a supportive approach, but it is not.  And it makes the incident more about the man than about the woman who was actually attacked, which strips her of power and agency in a time she most needs to feel those things.

It can be easy to get defensive when you hear stuff like this.  Blah blah, toxic masculinity is just a trendy liberal pet project, man can't do anything right, etc.   But it is a stark reality for women, and setting aside ego to listen to women who have BTDT can allow you to be a better ally and support system for the women in your life.  If your reaction to even theoretical crimes against the women in your life has anything to do with reactions that might get you in trouble--guns or fights or vague violent statements-- you show you probably aren't a safe place for them to go. And that makes everyone less safe.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Malossi792 on January 10, 2023, 06:49:15 AM
@ChpBstrd distilled the whole MMM phenomenon into one really cool paragraph:
Sounds like you're making the right moves after a couple of years of gambling.
(Shortened)
6) Really it's a game of preventing lifestyle inflation. If you can't stand living in a smaller house than your peers, driving a cheaper car than your peers, having a more basic fashion sense than your peers, etc. then you'll never catch up to your own escalating spending. There's a reason why most 40 year olds have practically nothing to their name, and it has something to do with spending. You need to decide right now to be an outcast or iconoclast of sorts, or else you'll get pulled into the lifestyle most people live, which makes FIRE impossible.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: grantmeaname on February 02, 2023, 04:47:27 PM
Some days it sure does feel like the next two years are going to go slowly. Then I start down the rabbit hole of…”ok, 109 weeks left, and I have 6 weeks of vacation banked, so it is 103 weeks, and then I will earn 11 weeks of vacation, so it is 92 weeks, and there will be 4 weeks of holidays, so that is 88 weeks…and maybe I will take off two weeks of “slick leave” as mental health days, so that is 86 weeks…”

Hopefully I can maintain sanity until the time comes! Any suggestions about managing the mental aspect welcome!

Hey. You asked for suggestions, so here's a brutal Face Punch for you that might help.

Never, ever, ever wish away years of your life.

You will never be this young again, you will never have these days back, you will never again have some of the opportunities that you will have over the next few years.

You will regret if you sleepwalk through years of your life just because they don't look exactly the way you want them to.

You aren't in prison, you are living the very life that you have chosen and built for yourself. If your job is so miserable that you can't live your life to its fullest right now, then quit your job and do something else.

If your job isn't life-ruiningly miserable, then sure, it's absence will be really nice, but it is NOT a prerequisite for you to start living your best life and fostering the key components of truly enjoying your life NOW as it is.

DO NOT live for tomorrow. That's just failing to live. And it will set you up for not knowing how to live once you are retired.

I personally retired and then very soon after lost my ability to walk properly. Two years later I'm crippled in bed with a broken femur and making plans to break the other one. Life doesn't always just cooperate nicely with being exactly how you want it to be.

But guess what? I've still lived an awesome life in this time and spent all summer having a massive and life-changing adventure. You don't need life to be ideal in order for it to be optimal.

So consider this a kick in the ass to start living your best life now and stop thinking crazy thoughts like "I just want the next two years of my relative youth and vitality to disappear."

Like seriously, what the actual fuck?
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: AlanStache on February 02, 2023, 07:32:20 PM
Some days it sure does feel like the next two years are going to go slowly. Then I start down the rabbit hole of…”ok, 109 weeks left, and I have 6 weeks of vacation banked, so it is 103 weeks, and then I will earn 11 weeks of vacation, so it is 92 weeks, and there will be 4 weeks of holidays, so that is 88 weeks…and maybe I will take off two weeks of “slick leave” as mental health days, so that is 86 weeks…”

Hopefully I can maintain sanity until the time comes! Any suggestions about managing the mental aspect welcome!

Hey. You asked for suggestions, so here's a brutal Face Punch for you that might help.

Never, ever, ever wish away years of your life.

You will never be this young again, you will never have these days back, you will never again have some of the opportunities that you will have over the next few years.

You will regret if you sleepwalk through years of your life just because they don't look exactly the way you want them to.

You aren't in prison, you are living the very life that you have chosen and built for yourself. If your job is so miserable that you can't live your life to its fullest right now, then quit your job and do something else.

If your job isn't life-ruiningly miserable, then sure, it's absence will be really nice, but it is NOT a prerequisite for you to start living your best life and fostering the key components of truly enjoying your life NOW as it is.

DO NOT live for tomorrow. That's just failing to live. And it will set you up for not knowing how to live once you are retired.

I personally retired and then very soon after lost my ability to walk properly. Two years later I'm crippled in bed with a broken femur and making plans to break the other one. Life doesn't always just cooperate nicely with being exactly how you want it to be.

But guess what? I've still lived an awesome life in this time and spent all summer having a massive and life-changing adventure. You don't need life to be ideal in order for it to be optimal.

So consider this a kick in the ass to start living your best life now and stop thinking crazy thoughts like "I just want the next two years of my relative youth and vitality to disappear."

Like seriously, what the actual fuck?

Had I read that this morning I probably would have rage quit at 10am and been RE right now :-p 
Not sure if I would be in a better or worst position tonight! 

Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Malossi792 on April 12, 2023, 01:45:21 AM
Many FIRE devotees are too focused on escaping work, and don't have a clear plan of what they're going to do with all that time when they get there. Once you have the position of strength in negotiating your working conditions (FU money), you can work fewer hours, at better rates, with people you enjoy associating with. The most powerful bit of the FIRE strategy is "save most aggressively when you're young so that it has more time to compound." Get that step sorted out, and then you have the freedom to choose between RE, or working more and getting rich.

Retiring early makes sense if you have a vision that requires maximum flexibility and time off. If you want to backpack around the world or homeschool multiple children, that's a good reason to retire. If you want to reskill into an entirely different form of work (or take on work that isn't as lucrative), FI buys you that freedom, but you're still likely to be earning some money. If you just want to travel, hike, or hang out with friends more often... you can do all those things while you have a job. The problem preventing those things isn't work, it's internal.

As far as environmental costs are concerned, there are a lot of things you can spend more money on that aren't imposing any environmental costs. In fact, a lot of fancy expensive things can be better for the environment. Get richer and you can move to a more expensive walkable neighborhood. You can pay a premium for things that were produced in more sustainable ways, or were made locally and didn't need to be shipped across the ocean on a carbon-belching container ship.

I think FIRE had it's moment, and most people realized that FI is the best part, and RE is only really worth it for
  • people who really, really hate their jobs, or
  • people with really clear (and generally somewhat eccentric) visions for what they're going to fill all that time with
.
For most people who achieve FI and don't want to live in a van or run a weird Catholic/Mormon homeschool operation, the real path to living your best life is to use that leverage to
  • downshift into some kind of related work role with fewer hours and greater flexibility, or
  • take on some other kind of work that provides lower compensation, but is deeply meaningful/enjoyable.

Work gets a bad name around here, but the idea that work provides a sense of meaning and purpose is not something to be scoffed at. There are lots of great jobs in the world. Once money is no object, it becomes a lot easier to get one of those desirable and competitive jobs. Lots of people are attracted to FIRE because they were pushed by financial desperation into jobs they hate. Well once you're not financially desperate, you can get a job you don't hate. For the big FIRE content creators, they found flexibility, reduced hours, and sense of purpose in providing educational content on the internet about lifestyle and personal finance. Now they're trying to figure out what to do with that money.

I think FIRE is attractive to people who received lots of guilt/shame messages about money as children. If you were conditioned to believe frugality is a virtue and opulent spending is shameful and/or stupid, and then you grind your way through school to get a high-paying career... Well then the FIRE approach lets you exemplify those "virtues" you internalized as child without ever confronting the internal scripts around scarcity. Then someday you realize you're rich and you never exercised the muscle of spending money well to make your life more beautiful. Will second @BeanCounter that Ramit Sethi's stuff is a great counter-balance to the scarcity mindset.
Pure gold here.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: roomtempmayo on April 12, 2023, 08:10:25 AM
Great post, @Log .
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on April 12, 2023, 08:42:11 AM
Many FIRE devotees are too focused on escaping work, and don't have a clear plan of what they're going to do with all that time when they get there. Once you have the position of strength in negotiating your working conditions (FU money), you can work fewer hours, at better rates, with people you enjoy associating with. The most powerful bit of the FIRE strategy is "save most aggressively when you're young so that it has more time to compound." Get that step sorted out, and then you have the freedom to choose between RE, or working more and getting rich.

Retiring early makes sense if you have a vision that requires maximum flexibility and time off. If you want to backpack around the world or homeschool multiple children, that's a good reason to retire. If you want to reskill into an entirely different form of work (or take on work that isn't as lucrative), FI buys you that freedom, but you're still likely to be earning some money. If you just want to travel, hike, or hang out with friends more often... you can do all those things while you have a job. The problem preventing those things isn't work, it's internal.

As far as environmental costs are concerned, there are a lot of things you can spend more money on that aren't imposing any environmental costs. In fact, a lot of fancy expensive things can be better for the environment. Get richer and you can move to a more expensive walkable neighborhood. You can pay a premium for things that were produced in more sustainable ways, or were made locally and didn't need to be shipped across the ocean on a carbon-belching container ship.

I think FIRE had it's moment, and most people realized that FI is the best part, and RE is only really worth it for
  • people who really, really hate their jobs, or
  • people with really clear (and generally somewhat eccentric) visions for what they're going to fill all that time with
.
For most people who achieve FI and don't want to live in a van or run a weird Catholic/Mormon homeschool operation, the real path to living your best life is to use that leverage to
  • downshift into some kind of related work role with fewer hours and greater flexibility, or
  • take on some other kind of work that provides lower compensation, but is deeply meaningful/enjoyable.

Work gets a bad name around here, but the idea that work provides a sense of meaning and purpose is not something to be scoffed at. There are lots of great jobs in the world. Once money is no object, it becomes a lot easier to get one of those desirable and competitive jobs. Lots of people are attracted to FIRE because they were pushed by financial desperation into jobs they hate. Well once you're not financially desperate, you can get a job you don't hate. For the big FIRE content creators, they found flexibility, reduced hours, and sense of purpose in providing educational content on the internet about lifestyle and personal finance. Now they're trying to figure out what to do with that money.

I think FIRE is attractive to people who received lots of guilt/shame messages about money as children. If you were conditioned to believe frugality is a virtue and opulent spending is shameful and/or stupid, and then you grind your way through school to get a high-paying career... Well then the FIRE approach lets you exemplify those "virtues" you internalized as child without ever confronting the internal scripts around scarcity. Then someday you realize you're rich and you never exercised the muscle of spending money well to make your life more beautiful. Will second @BeanCounter that Ramit Sethi's stuff is a great counter-balance to the scarcity mindset.
Pure gold here.

You totally beat me to it!  This was fantastic.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Log on April 12, 2023, 02:53:55 PM
Aw thanks y’all (:
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on April 20, 2023, 08:07:56 AM
@Metalcat as usual.  This one hits a little close to home.

Thank you :)

My dad's place is in peaceful suburb not far from Boston. I think it would be pretty restful, especially because the in-law suite has a separate entrance so I would get some privacy. I've also been talking to my suburb-of-Philly friend a bit more about me moving in. He asked if I wanted to house-sit for a month this summer while he takes his family overseas, so that could be a good test run. The parks non-profit still hasn't gotten back to me when they said they would, so I nudged them for an update. I think what I decide to do re: taking a train out West, or breaking my lease and living with my dad or friend will hinge on what their answer is. 6 months isn't a long time, and like you said JAYSLOL I can use that time to get my license, maybe a car, and hatch a concrete exit strategy without burning through my savings. If I don't get it, I either go back to the temp agency or straight up break my lease and move in with my dad or friend like Metalcat suggests.

I'm having feelings of doubts/second thoughts about my decision that I'm trying to cope with. The survivalist in me (who is very loud and very frantic) is panicking about voluntarily throwing away a completely secure job (they never fire anyone), a solid paycheck and full health insurance coverage. This is the rationalization that kept me here for so long: the job is, by definition, dealing with a ton of unbelievable bullshit, but so are a lot of jobs, and this one isn't likely to get pulled out from under me. I know that other jobs with benefits exist, and that trading my daily happiness and mental health for financial security is not exactly the best trade-off, especially when I don't have any chronic health issues that require regular health insurance usage. I guess because this is the first job I got that provided that security, it feels like it's going to be extremely difficult to find something else that will, but maybe that's an old script like Metalcat said.

So I'm trying to remind myself that I don't really know what else is out there and I'm only able to imagine what my limited experience has shown me. That I get one shot at this life, and I know for sure that this isn't what I want to be doing with it. That money isn't a reason to live. That happiness can be found in many places, and it's up to me to find it. That I can't cling to a stable-but-unhappy life just because it feels "safe." That safety is an illusion. That my friends love and support me and were overjoyed when I told them I put in my notice. There isn't anyone in my life (including you kind people!) who thinks this is a bad decision. Even reminding myself of all these things, I feel totally unmoored, but of course I do--I'm making major life changes.

Last summer I saw an old friend that I hadn't seen in many years. She was asking where I was living and what I was doing for work, and when I told her, she had this utterly baffled, disbelieving look on her face and bluntly asked, "Why?!" I was a little insulted in the moment, but I couldn't stop thinking about it: Why? Why am I living here? Why am I doing this job? The fact that I didn't have an answer besides "basic survival" was disturbing and stuck in my mind up until now. It felt like I didn't have reasonable options, but maybe it's just because I didn't/don't know what options there are.

This isn't survival instinct. It's the natural bias to perceive whatever you are doing as the safer option. 

No matter how bad, toxic, or risky someone's current situation is, the stupid human brain applies a "safety" premium to it that makes it feel really risky to give it up.

This is the basis for fear of change.

In reality what you have done is take a guaranteed risk of being unhappy and traded it for an unknown risk. But the truth is you are perfectly capable of creating a safer future for yourself by eliminating the known risk of being unhappy doing what you were doing.

You aren't craving actual safety, you are afraid of the unknown and raving certainty.

The more psychologically flexible you are and the more comfortable you can be with the unknown, the better you will actually be at building a more robust, secure, and happy life for yourself.

The number one risk most people take in life is being afraid of the unknown.

Being willing to not know what the future holds is NOT the same as being aimless or reckless. In fact, it's the opposite.

Because you've never done what it takes to build a happy, healthy, optimal life, you don't yet trust yourself to do what it takes. You worry that the best you could do was the life that made you unhappy. You don't yet *know* that you can do that.

You have to actually start doing it to build the faith in yourself that you can.

This is literally how you approach any new challenge in life. You have to face that you don't know for sure if you can do it, but you put in your best effort and try, and if you are determined enough, and the goal is obtainable, you will very likely succeed.

Right now you're like a freshman at college terrified that you might fail. Everyone who has completed college thinks your fears are naive and quaint, but to you, they feel real.

Well, that's how happy people are looking at you right now. Staying in your old life would be like a highschool graduate avoiding college because of fear of failure. You've already made the decision and now you're just intimidated by it, but anyone who has been there thinks that fear is kind of cute because the chances of you failing to build a happier life compared to being miserable is pretty low if you just put in the work.

I am very comfortable with uncertainty. In fact, if my life is exactly the same in 10 years, I'll be pissed. Lol.

This past year I had to agree to a surgery that could possibly result in above the knee amputation. That unknown was scary, but I trust myself so much to make my life great that I knew I would still have a great life. No matter what happens, I know I have the skills to cultivate a full and happy life.

I have that faith because when push came to shove, that's what I did. When things that felt safe were taken away or I had to walk away, I always found a way to learn from it and make my life better and happier.

Building a happy life is a skill you have to learn. You learn it by doing.

If you waste your life doing shit that isn't happy or healthy, you never get to learn this skill. You may have no clue how to build your best life. That's normal, you haven't learned how to yet. Get on learning that.

But sticking with what doesn't work and failing to learn that isn't "safe" at all.

That's like staying in a horrible marriage because you don't believe anyone decent will ever love you. That's not safety, that's familiarity.

It's going to take effort to figure out your best path forward, but effort is way more enjoyable than festering.

Think of it this way, imagine you are horribly unhealthy, weak, out of shape, obese, and your doctor has told you you have type 2 diabetes. Continuing to live your unhealthy lifestyle is comfortable but going to destroy you. Overhauling your entire lifestyle is intimidating and you have no faith that you can even do it. You've read about people trying to lose weight who have ended up heavier in the end.

But sticking with the unhealthy routine you know is guaranteed to destroy you. Figuring out how to build a healthy lifestyle is a matter of getting the right information, the right supports, and putting in smart forms of effort.

You're only going to end up worse off if you don't seek out the right supports along the way and don't figure out what skills you need to succeed. Your biggest risk is to over complicate it.

You have everything you need to figure out how to build your best life. The biggest barrier to that was your previous job. The whole world of possibilities is open to you now and there is SO MUCH MORE security in having options than in being stuck with something that is actively bad for you.

Familiar DOES NOT equal safer.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FireLane on May 05, 2023, 07:27:43 AM
I nominate this post by @ChpBstrd on America's economic outperformance:

I suspect our questioning of the value of economic growth would sound crazy to a person 100 years ago, when only rich people had indoor plumbing, electricity, or telephones, when a typical person had only 4-5 sets of clothes, and when the growth of American children was actually stunted by chronic malnutrition and deep material poverty.

Back then, the problem was not enough goods available to meet everybody's needs. We've thoroughly solved that problem. For the past 20 years the most exciting growth markets have been in the categories of time-wasters (iphones, social media, streaming, gaming), status symbols (SUVs, pretty trucks, McMansions, fashion), and luxuries (travel, restaurants, hotels, video doorbells, sweets).

Now our shortages are time, family cohesion, social cohesion, meaningfulness, clean air, clean water, clean soil, and attention. From a modern perspective, it seems fair to ask: Why we aren't producing more of these things, and why we are still so singularly focused on producing (and consuming) more Wal-Mart shit?

The answer is that the things we lack cannot be sold to us, and we look to advertisements to set our life's ambitions.

In a related article they point out that, adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), average incomes are higher in Mississippi than in France (!)  https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/04/13/the-lessons-from-americas-astonishing-economic-record (https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/04/13/the-lessons-from-americas-astonishing-economic-record)
But who among us would rather be a Mississippian than a Frenchman? The Mississippian could lose everything if they need hospital care, they have minimal retirement security if stock markets don't cooperate, they are at many times greater risk of death by homicide, their food is unhealthy, and because of the way their society is structured much more of their income must be spent on transportation.

The French are rioting because they might have to retire at age 64 instead of 62. The Mississippian will be lucky if they can retire years later than that, but unlike the Frenchmen at least they think they have it made.


Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: roomtempmayo on May 05, 2023, 08:30:33 AM
Fantastic post, @ChpBstrd .  The contrast of Mississippi and France cuts right to the fact that having a good life isn't the same as having more money.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: deborah on May 14, 2023, 06:44:46 AM
From the FIRE = Privilege thread
I think that there are many factors beyond our control that allow us to achieve FIRE or not. We were serious early about living on only one of our incomes because we'd lived through a bad recession that directly hit us. However, I didn't become absolutely hair-on-fire about frugality until one of my co-workers (younger than me) died in front of all of us at the office and I realized that death could come for any of us at any time. Was this how I wanted to die? Never seeing my husband because I was spending all my days and nights at work?

My co-worker who died never had a chance to pursue FIRE. Unbeknownst to any of us, she was supporting a large extended family of people (mostly children and teens) because she was the only one in her family that had been lucky enough to get a good job that paid for her education and then promoted her. When she died, suddenly there were a lot of members of her family who couldn't afford to feed themselves and pay rent, much less dream of FIRE. And the company life insurance wasn't going to produce money quick enough. We banded together to get as much money as we could to her family.

Her example haunts me. She was the epitome of not privileged: African-American from a very poor area of the country with a thick accent that made it difficult for her to do the things that help one get ahead in corporate America. She was also quite sick, though we didn't realize it at the time. We were just puzzled by why she fell asleep inappropriately at times. Her life was far, far harder than I realized from the outside and I felt terrible when I was finally aware of what she was dealing with and just how impressive she was.

She did not reap the benefits of her hard work, but two children (not hers, she never had children) that she helped put through college will. The children that she kept alive and on the straight and narrow will. She could never have FIRE'd and in my arrogance before her death I wouldn't have understood why. She was quite, quite frugal. Frugality doesn't equal FIRE. Intelligence doesn't equal FIRE. Mindset doesn't equal FIRE.

She was not "the masses." I'm not sure anyone actually is. But yes, I do think that the ability to FIRE is the outgrowth of a a variety of advantages not available to everyone. It probably does mean that we can't understand everything others face, even as empathic people.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: BicycleB on May 14, 2023, 01:05:07 PM
From the FIRE = Privilege thread
I think that there are many factors beyond our control that allow us to achieve FIRE or not. We were serious early about living on only one of our incomes because we'd lived through a bad recession that directly hit us. However, I didn't become absolutely hair-on-fire about frugality until one of my co-workers (younger than me) died in front of all of us at the office and I realized that death could come for any of us at any time. Was this how I wanted to die? Never seeing my husband because I was spending all my days and nights at work?

My co-worker who died never had a chance to pursue FIRE. Unbeknownst to any of us, she was supporting a large extended family of people (mostly children and teens) because she was the only one in her family that had been lucky enough to get a good job that paid for her education and then promoted her. When she died, suddenly there were a lot of members of her family who couldn't afford to feed themselves and pay rent, much less dream of FIRE. And the company life insurance wasn't going to produce money quick enough. We banded together to get as much money as we could to her family.

Her example haunts me. She was the epitome of not privileged: African-American from a very poor area of the country with a thick accent that made it difficult for her to do the things that help one get ahead in corporate America. She was also quite sick, though we didn't realize it at the time. We were just puzzled by why she fell asleep inappropriately at times. Her life was far, far harder than I realized from the outside and I felt terrible when I was finally aware of what she was dealing with and just how impressive she was.

She did not reap the benefits of her hard work, but two children (not hers, she never had children) that she helped put through college will. The children that she kept alive and on the straight and narrow will. She could never have FIRE'd and in my arrogance before her death I wouldn't have understood why. She was quite, quite frugal. Frugality doesn't equal FIRE. Intelligence doesn't equal FIRE. Mindset doesn't equal FIRE.

She was not "the masses." I'm not sure anyone actually is. But yes, I do think that the ability to FIRE is the outgrowth of a a variety of advantages not available to everyone. It probably does mean that we can't understand everything others face, even as empathic people.

+1. @Metta, thanks for having posted this.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Malossi792 on June 07, 2023, 12:53:27 PM
First, this is absolutely the place for you.  I know this board often feels like it is full of highly-paid professionals who can easily put aside 75% of their income, but some of the strongest, most helpful contributors have never made a ton of money, and yet still manage to save and have satisfying lives. 

Second, I very much encourage you to read as many of the original MMM posts as you can.  You don't have to agree with everything or want the same life Pete has.  But there is an infectious sort of optimism in there that I think you need very much.  You sound like you are not particularly happy with your life.  I think what you need to realize is that the life you have now is a choice, and if it's not working for you, there are many, many, many other options out there that are completely within your power.

E.g., do you actually like your job?  $40K is a crap salary for someone with years of training and experience.  If you love the work and people so much you are willing to live on the salary, great -- that's a perfectly reasonable choice.  But if you're staying put because you feel stuck and are scared of leaving what feels safe, then it's on you to make a change.  There are many fields that will pay you as much or more that don't require years of training or experience.  Dive into the research, find a career counselor, brainstorm your options with your friends or SO, etc.  Hell, there are people here who make far more than you by teaching English abroad in in places that cost a hell of a lot less to live than wherever you are.  Or if you don't want a job change, look for a side hustle -- you can probably make some decent money on the side teaching English online.

Also, do you track your expenses?  It would very likely be helpful to do a full case study, detailing your income and expenses.  You'd be amazed at how much money people blow on stuff simply because they assume that's a normal part of life and a need, when in reality there are cheaper options, or maybe you don't need it at all.  I am particularly worried that you have any CC debt at all, given your income level, as the interest on that could well be bleeding a notable part of your leftover $.  There are also many folks here who can advise you on whether the retirement savings vehicles you've chosen are the best options given your current situation.

The key to all of this is realizing that almost everything is a choice -- but we, as a species, are very very good at justifying those choices as needs, and then whining about the consequences of that choice.  For example, your animals.  Having pets is a luxury, and getting rid of them is a very easy way to save what can be significant cash.  And yet I guarantee if I advised you to get rid of the pets, you'd get angry and defensive, because they're part of your family and probably one of the relatively few parts of your life that consistently brings you joy.  So I'm not actually going to advise you to get rid of your pets.  What I am going to advise is that you recognize that you are choosing to have pets instead of putting $XXX per month into retirement.  You can decide that that the tradeoff is worth it, but then you don't get to complain about not having that $$ for retirement.  You can decide that you want to stay in your current job because XYZ, but then you don't get to complain about how you make so little.  Etc. 

Every choice comes with tradeoffs; no matter which path you choose, you will have a finite number of dollars and a finite number of hours, and you can spend each of them only once.  The way to becoming more satisfied with your life is to recognize your own power instead of feeling like a victim of circumstances beyond your control.  Question everything -- your job, your location, your housing, your hobbies, etc.  Each of those things is a choice.  Look at the pros and cons of each choice as objectively as you can -- heck, post them here for input.  Then make the choice that provides you the most of what you want with the fewest negative tradeoffs.  And if that choice doesn't end up working, make another one.  Nothing needs to be permanent. 

Note:  your choices will not be perfect; no one does everything right the first time, and the future never turns out like we expect it to.  But we learn from screwing up, not from getting everything right.  So take a chance, make a change, see where that gets you, then adapt as needed.
Just @Laura33 being amazing as usual.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: roomtempmayo on June 11, 2023, 01:09:42 PM
@AMandM in the Money Mindset thread, with a good message for all of us who were raised by post-materialist hippies or are just naturally skeptical of consumerism.

Quote
To me, the key is to understand that money is a tool. It's the most versatile tool available. It can be used to accomplish many different tasks: provide shelter, food, and education; improve or safeguard health; keep danger of various kinds at bay; increase physical and intellectual pleasures; alleviate others' suffering; and, of course, acquire stuff.

It's also the most misunderstood tool. Many people think (or act as though they think) that the only task money can accomplish is to acquire stuff, so to them money is just a temporary placeholder for stuff. In that view, "caring about money" equals wanting more stuff. And since "more stuff" is not exactly a noble goal, caring about money seems shallow. It makes sense to feel guilty in this context.

But you can break the money-stuff connection if you can be clear about the actual tasks you want this tool to accomplish. Then, if you are satisfied that they are worthy tasks, hopefully that can help reduce your guilt.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on June 16, 2023, 09:42:45 AM
Damn.

Karl Marx said that politics is the question of who works for the benefit of whom. In his era, it was a downtrodden serf class working for the benefit of the nobility and clergy. Our era upends this logic though, with people working for what they think is their own benefit.

The folks spending their lives toiling in jobs they hate are doing so because they believe fancy houses and cars and cell phones will make them happy. They continue doing this, year after year, despite all the evidence they are not becoming happy. They consume hours per day of media and social media propaganda reminding them that more stuff will make them happy, and framing life as a competition to have the nicest stuff. The ads and sitcom lifestyles motivate them to go out and hustle more money each day. This propaganda-work motivation cycle is not all that different than communism, except it is more effective in persuading people to work harder than they otherwise would. It is more effective because it tricks people into believing self-benefit is the acquisition of stuff, when in fact a human needs a bit more variety than that to have a good life.

That said, money is a claim on other people's future labor. It is the essence of having other people work for the benefit of you. It may seem wrong to seek control over other people in this way and to become a parasitic non-contributor, but keep in mind that somebody has to do the work required to support a high quality of life. Somebody has to grow the food, drive the truck, run the stores, account for everything, dig the ditches, manufacture the water pipes, make the shoes, pave the roads, treat the sick, etc. Money keeps this cycle of work going, and to a large extent much of the work is done because people want the work outputs of other people (i.e. the stuff). It is neither good nor bad, it is simply the way things evolved to incentivize the work that is necessary to produce our lifestyles. The miserable workaholics are the ones who believe in the system's propaganda a bit too deeply, and who cannot imagine questioning the system's axioms.

What you're contemplating is not to become a workaholic who drives a leased SUV, lives in a McMansion, subscribes to 5 streaming services, and gets the newest iPhone every year while hating their life. You're contemplating hacking the system by consuming a lot less than you produce, and buying investments instead of stuff. Eventually, you hope to purchase your autonomy and freedom by having investments earn enough to support your cost of living (Note the parallels with escaping serfdom. Some things never change.).

But in addition to this opportunity to escape working all your life, there is a threat. In the culture you live in, almost nobody is willing to work for the benefit of others without money. Those without money go without good quality foods or medicines that could save their lives. Those without money are herded into places where it is too dangerous to walk down the street or drink the tap water. Ours is a cruel culture where elderly people are made homeless because they cannot work to pay rent, and millions of children go to school each day hungry. Those who fail to work will suffer.

You will grow old some day, and be unable to work. This culture will treat you quite badly if you haven't amassed some money by that time, to purchase the labor of people in the future when you cannot do the labor yourself. In addition, you have parents, and may have kids. You and everyone you love may face the risk of an early disability or a large financial loss, such as a house fire, lawsuit, or theft. If that happens and you have no money to spend, this culture will literally leave you to die. Ask the people who can't afford insulin. Maybe things ought to be different, but what ought to be won't matter when it's winter someday and the energy bill is due.

Seen in this light, you don't owe this culture anything. Your only reasonable option is to earn and invest money while you can, while rejecting the propaganda about stuff=happiness. That's the only outcome which allows you to have your needs taken care of when you're too old to work or to take care of the needs of others who hit their own pitfalls. Having money gives you the quasi-political power to direct other people's work toward the benefit of people who matter to you, including yourself. It keeps you from becoming another desperate person drawing down the very limited reserves of charity to the detriment of the other charity recipients.

Money and stuff are both tools, and both are often misused. If you have negative attitudes about money, maybe consider whether you have a too positive attitude about stuff. Those people rumbling up and down the street going to jobs they hate in fancy SUVs are sacrificing their actual happiness for the sake of a symbol of happiness sold to them through propaganda. The people in the drive-thru are signing themselves up to suffer the pains of heart disease because they are told it's a great deal. The people spraying chemicals on their manicured lawns will know the suffering of cancer someday. The people who are fashionable today will spend the last 20 years of their lives in ratty clothes, worried about running out of money because they didn't save.

To some extent, it is the stuff we covet in excess of our needs which causes the suffering. If everyone lived like a Mustachian, there would be no need to worry about having enough money, we'd live longer, healthier lives, and we'd be a lot less interested in sacrificing family, friendships, time, and contentment for the sake of "trading up" houses/cars/clothes/jewelry/toys. We can't save the deep believers, but we can extricate ourselves from the trap they're in.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Gremlin on June 16, 2023, 09:16:50 PM
Wow @ChpBstrd.

I don’t know that qualifies as the best post on MMM today.  Maybe, just maybe, that’s the best post here of all time…
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: cleverscreenname on July 05, 2023, 07:15:48 AM
Agreed. Very eye-opening.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Glenstache on July 10, 2023, 12:22:22 PM
Agreed. Very eye-opening.
especially the avatar, which adds a nicely mad-scientist vibe to the whole post.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: maisymouser on September 08, 2023, 05:18:01 AM
To me, the issue here is that you are conceptualizing your futures separately.

"I want this" vs "He wants that"

Okay...but where are each of you in each other's visions?

For example, I could not care less about access to a basketball court where I live. I've never played basketball, never will, never watched it on TV, it just isn't something I care for, in fact I find basketball incredibly annoying as a sport.

However, playing basketball multiple times a week makes my spouse a happier, more peaceful, more reflective person. So I will never, ever consider living anywhere where there isn't access to both indoor and outdoor basketball courts because access to basketball is essential for my happiness because it's essential to my partner's happiness.

Access to basketball is in fact higher on *my* list of priorities than anything I would want for myself because the impact on *my* quality of life is so profound having my spouse have basketball as a physical and mental health outlet.

Let's say you "win" the argument and you move rural and get what you "want" and your wife ends up miserable and complaining every day about her commute and resenting you for it.

Did you actually win?

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying some "happy wife, happy life" bullshit. You BOTH owe this consideration to one another.

Where are you in her vision of living in the city? Is she accounting for how that impacts your well being and the state of your marriage??

My point is not that either of you needs to compromise, it's that you need to start building these visions collectively. If you're already getting to the point of having a clear vision of a lifestyle that YOU want for YOURSELF and the only thing standing in the way is that your spouse doesn't want it...then you skipped way ahead in the vision process and left your partner out.

I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that you need to really talk about these things and not from the perspective of having two separate plans that are competing.

You need to come at it from the perspective that both partners have needs and that those needs ALL need to be met. Her needs are your needs and your needs are her needs. There is no competition.

It's not just about knowing what the other person wants, it's about understanding why they want it and what it would cost them not to have it. Then collectively, you work together to triage which things age true needs, which are wants, which can be met now and which can be met later. Which can be met full time and which can be met part time.

Would a very small city flat and weekend country home meet both of your needs? Or would living in the city but close to green space be an option? Would living in the city and renting a rural office space that you can commute to be a possibility?

To be clear, I am not offering any of the above as solutions, I'm offering them as talking points so that you can each better understand the borders of each other's wants and needs.

You learn A LOT about what someone actually wants from a situation by understanding their rational for accepting or rejecting a compromise solution.

The more you talk it through, the more your priorities will align, and the more obvious the solution will be, and it may be radically different than either of you anticipated in the first place.

My spouse and I just went through this recently, and were both absolutely shocked by what the solution turned out to be. Literally never would have guessed it, and yet we're both thrilled.

It was the creative, collaborative process of aligning our needs as collective needs that opened up our thinking and expanded our options.

When you fully embrace each other's needs as your own, because frankly, they are, you can never have your dreams at odds, because your own dreams will always account for the other's needs.

So if either of you have an "ideal life" that would be miserable for the other, then it's not really a dream life, is it?

This was the post I needed to read today. Totally different situation but just the advice I needed to hear.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: FireLane on November 03, 2023, 06:46:22 AM
@seattlecyclone on whether early retirees should sign up for benefit programs that they don't need, even if they're legally eligible:

You are not only using this for Supplemental Nutrition, but for handouts from Utilities, Cable Cos, and Amazon. I'm just pointing out if you are retiring early, you should have enough saved to take care of yourself without burdening others. I'm a share holder (owner) in the above companies and I don't want to give you a free handout. The income limits on ACA subsidies were suspended for covid, but are coming back 2025 a 4x the PL. I have spoken up in threads where people were artificially lowering their income to take advantage of ACA subsidies. FIRE will get a bad name if part of the game plan is go on public assistance. I mean, you do you, but I see this as no different from someone bragging they are reducing food costs by going to a different soup kitchen every night. There is frugal and there is cheap.   

We have a culture where accepting certain forms of public assistance (such as SNAP) is seen as a sort of moral failing that no self-respecting person would do if they have any other option, while other forms of public assistance (such as tax credits for homeownership) are seen as perfectly normal and respectable. You are perpetuating this culture. Why? What principled reason is there to say that people who qualify for assistance program A should decline it unless they would literally risk starvation or homelessness without it, while people who qualify for assistance program B should universally sign up guilt-free?

I happen to think these distinctions are harmful. There are plenty of folks who might qualify for SNAP, who might actually be able to meaningfully improve their lives with a hundred dollars a month in assistance with grocery payments (and related discounts on other essentials), but nevertheless don't take it because they fear the social stigma that would bring. I'd like to see less of that, and that starts with each of us deciding not to treat participation in these programs as immoral. Each of these programs has rules for who qualifies, and that should be the end of it. We don't do our neighbors any favors by trying to impose a higher set of unwritten rules and shaming those who qualify under the written rules but not the unwritten ones.

My moral rule for this is much simpler: it's wrong to lie about your financial situation to get on these programs. If you tell the truth, and you take the benefits you qualify for based on that truth, you get zero judgement from me.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: UlrichvonLichtenstein on November 05, 2023, 02:06:20 PM
@seattlecyclone on whether early retirees should sign up for benefit programs that they don't need, even if they're legally eligible:

After witnessing PPP loan forgiveness, my new life mission is to qualify for as many government subsidies/entitlements as I can. I’m a tax accountant and our wealthiest clients benefited the most from those “loans”. Absolute joke.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: neo von retorch on November 06, 2023, 08:51:45 AM
After witnessing PPP loan forgiveness, my new life mission is to qualify for as many government subsidies/entitlements as I can. I’m a tax accountant and our wealthiest clients benefited the most from those “loans”. Absolute joke.

That’s a really odd life mission.
It's on a par with the people who arrange their lives to minimise the tax they pay.  No way am I giving my government that much power over the way I choose to live.

It's the "life mission" part i don't get.  We certainly try to minimize our taxable burden by optimizing our spending and saving, but to say something is  one's "life mission" implies that it is something which holds the upmost importance to them. 
To each their own i guess...

Could you click the original thread and continue the debate there? This thread is for the best posts we saw. Thanks!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: MoseyingAlong on November 13, 2023, 02:12:24 PM
@Laura33 knocks it out of the park again!
@Laura33 If you ever write a book or start an advice column, please let us know. I'd pay quite a bit to read your thoughts on a regular basis.



So the thing I still can't get past is that we're still all Sneetches.  We are all part of a tribe.  And so we naturally all want to (a) demonstrate that we fit into that tribe, and (b) establish the highest social status we can within that tribe.  The former protects against being cast out; the latter provides the best choices of food, shelter, and mates.

In our current society, we distinguish ourselves with things like beauty products and big trucks.  In other societies, it could be tattoos or piercings or super-elongated necks or lower lips.  In Victorian times, for women, it was who had the teensiest waist/biggest bustle/palest skin.  If we were tropical birds, it might be the best possible mating dance to outshine all the other birds. 

None of those other things make a lot of sense to us, because that's not our culture, and so that's not what we value.  But we do have cultural values of our own, and whatever those are, we devote -- and will continue to devote -- what seems like illogical and unnecessary resources to those values to establish our place in the social order.  Maybe in 20 years it won't be big trucks, but the coolest electric vehicle.  If that happens, then we won't be spending so much on big trucks, because it's not about the truck.  But we will still be throwing stupid amounts of money at the coolest EV, because we'll still be Sneetching our way through life.

I think the true value of this place is that we establish our own tribe, with our own values that are different from the primary culture we live in.  It allows those of us who've never fit particularly well into that primary culture to feel like we fit somewhere, and it provides an alternative to those who aren't particularly happy within those society-set expectations.  It shows there is another way to be happy and secure and content, without having to throw around money we don't have on stuff we don't need.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: Laura33 on November 13, 2023, 02:18:26 PM
@Laura33 knocks it out of the park again!
@Laura33 If you ever write a book or start an advice column, please let us know. I'd pay quite a bit to read your thoughts on a regular basis.



So the thing I still can't get past is that we're still all Sneetches.  We are all part of a tribe.  And so we naturally all want to (a) demonstrate that we fit into that tribe, and (b) establish the highest social status we can within that tribe.  The former protects against being cast out; the latter provides the best choices of food, shelter, and mates.

In our current society, we distinguish ourselves with things like beauty products and big trucks.  In other societies, it could be tattoos or piercings or super-elongated necks or lower lips.  In Victorian times, for women, it was who had the teensiest waist/biggest bustle/palest skin.  If we were tropical birds, it might be the best possible mating dance to outshine all the other birds. 

None of those other things make a lot of sense to us, because that's not our culture, and so that's not what we value.  But we do have cultural values of our own, and whatever those are, we devote -- and will continue to devote -- what seems like illogical and unnecessary resources to those values to establish our place in the social order.  Maybe in 20 years it won't be big trucks, but the coolest electric vehicle.  If that happens, then we won't be spending so much on big trucks, because it's not about the truck.  But we will still be throwing stupid amounts of money at the coolest EV, because we'll still be Sneetching our way through life.

I think the true value of this place is that we establish our own tribe, with our own values that are different from the primary culture we live in.  It allows those of us who've never fit particularly well into that primary culture to feel like we fit somewhere, and it provides an alternative to those who aren't particularly happy within those society-set expectations.  It shows there is another way to be happy and secure and content, without having to throw around money we don't have on stuff we don't need.

Awww, thanks!  /blushes/
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: srrb on November 13, 2023, 04:12:00 PM
@Laura33 knocks it out of the park again!
@Laura33 If you ever write a book or start an advice column, please let us know. I'd pay quite a bit to read your thoughts on a regular basis.



So the thing I still can't get past is that we're still all Sneetches.  We are all part of a tribe.  And so we naturally all want to (a) demonstrate that we fit into that tribe, and (b) establish the highest social status we can within that tribe.  The former protects against being cast out; the latter provides the best choices of food, shelter, and mates.

In our current society, we distinguish ourselves with things like beauty products and big trucks.  In other societies, it could be tattoos or piercings or super-elongated necks or lower lips.  In Victorian times, for women, it was who had the teensiest waist/biggest bustle/palest skin.  If we were tropical birds, it might be the best possible mating dance to outshine all the other birds. 

None of those other things make a lot of sense to us, because that's not our culture, and so that's not what we value.  But we do have cultural values of our own, and whatever those are, we devote -- and will continue to devote -- what seems like illogical and unnecessary resources to those values to establish our place in the social order.  Maybe in 20 years it won't be big trucks, but the coolest electric vehicle.  If that happens, then we won't be spending so much on big trucks, because it's not about the truck.  But we will still be throwing stupid amounts of money at the coolest EV, because we'll still be Sneetching our way through life.

I think the true value of this place is that we establish our own tribe, with our own values that are different from the primary culture we live in.  It allows those of us who've never fit particularly well into that primary culture to feel like we fit somewhere, and it provides an alternative to those who aren't particularly happy within those society-set expectations.  It shows there is another way to be happy and secure and content, without having to throw around money we don't have on stuff we don't need.

Awww, thanks!  /blushes/

I was just about to add this same Laura post to this thread. Hear, hear!
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: AMandM on December 21, 2023, 05:52:37 AM
@ChpBstrd once again with keen analysis plus sympathy:


The observation about the people in their 40s who made a series of bad choices and shortcut decisions stands out to me.

This is close to a universal experience because we have so many more choices to make than any cohort of humans in history. Career, housing, education, debt, car, consumption patterns, drugs, exercise, friend groups, dating, marriage, divorce, level of sacrifice for family, food choices, etc. are all things old world peasants didn't have the luxury of worrying  about. The odds of a young person going out into the world and knowing how to optimize all these critical life decisions - it's practically nil.

What's worse is the media highlighting the one-in-a-million people who did run the gauntlet and somehow and allegedly got most things right and/or lucked out. The rest of us get to compare ourselves to them, right after this ad which is intended to convince us to make another bad decision.

You're right, politics is the outlet for all this frustration, but the system itself is an unlikely game for most people to win. Politics is so emotional because we project our anxieties, insecurities, fears, and regrets onto theatrical characters, rather than making cold policy calculations around self-interest and values. A lack of self-accountability is partly to blame for the sorry state of politics, but the other side of that coin is a world full of pitfalls.

We can't ignore the pitfalls either. A teenager who tries a cigarette might condemn themselves to a painful early death, and leave their future family broke. A person in their 20's signing a car loan condemns themselves to a decade of financial insecurity. Eating at restaurants will make you obese and broke. The wrong college major will leave you with five-figure debt and a job waiting tables. The examples go on and on, because much of our culture and economy has the effect of destroying people.

This is not a rant against our freedom of choices, it is an observation that our ideas about individual decision-making and responsibility, plus our ideas about the primacy of making money, have led us to build a world full of traps for each other. This is a place where regret is inevitable, and it is perhaps also inevitable that people will direct their frustrations toward each other.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: dandarc on January 11, 2024, 11:31:20 AM
Fro-Gal bringing the heat on corporate culture:
<snip>


Allow me to add, from my 15 years of corporate experience before FIRE, that corporate/company culture, the whole hierarchical militaristic command-and-control fake-family office-space bullshit miasma of it, SUCKS. It’s awful. And this is from someone who is VERY good at it, who first-hand knew how to excel in it, become “rich” from it (enough for FIRE) and single-handedly support my family (kids, husband, extended family) from it and see through the bullshit and laugh at it etc. It’s still a thin layer of fecal matter over everything. So yeah modern feudalism has the capacity to ruin many a night of sleep and suck the pleasure out of the most innocent of craftperson’s hearts.

To be clear, there is no “fixing” this. It is the nature of the beast. I fucking love capitalism. The fix is to yourself. If you can tolerate it, you dip in and out, use it for what it’s good for (the delicious heroin drip of money every two weeks, expensive health insurance, five-star travel, a nice computer?) and GET OUT periodically. Notice, when you’re in a corporation, how many lifers surround you. They didn’t understand the game. You did, at least financially.

</snip>
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: monarda on March 26, 2024, 08:54:03 AM
Gem from Malcat today,
On enjoying what you do, in context of the "big picture"
Quote
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Quote from: AlanStache on March 25, 2024, 08:25:35 PM

    Everyone in the building or research fields at some point has to grapple with the realization that they will not cure cancer or put people on mars.  That is just a hard reality of life and the world.  If turning a crank to advance your field makes you happy, then have at it, but know that someday you will have to stop turning the crank regardless and there will still be big questions or problems in your field that you did not solve.  Not saying it is all meaningless but make sure you are enjoying the journey.

This is a conversation that DH and I have often.

We're all just metaphorically the left headlight guy at GM.

Your work really only matters insofar as you enjoy it. If you do anything of financial value, then there's a lineup of folks behind you dying to take your place.

And even then, at very best, you can be a small part of something very big , or a big part of something very small.

If you do end up a big part of something big, good fucking luck with that because we live in a toxic system rife with corruption and fraud, so do you really want to end the kind of person who can stomach what it takes to be a big figure doing big things?? Do you have any idea how *gross* that small pond is??

Anyhoo.

DH and I talk about this a lot because he's a very, very small part of a very, very big thing: global emissions reduction. Meanwhile, I'm a very big part of a very small thing: I directly improve individual lives.

The real benefit of all of this though? That we enjoy it and DH and I get to have wonderful long talks about what we do, how we think about it, etc, etc.

Work that feels incredibly important very quickly feels like shit that doesn't matter once you stop doing it. So in the end, what matters is whether you look back fondly of the experience of having done it.

Because I can pretty much guarantee that if you don't, then it will all feel pretty meaningless, because nothing any one of us does is anywhere near as important that it felt at the time that we were doing it.

What I remember most are the relationships I had. The "achievements" of my former career have rapidly faded away and don't really feel remotely relevant anymore, but I remember vividly with pride the dynamics I cultivated with my staff.

I was the only doc on Fridays, and we ran an insane schedule on those days because I had more capacity than anyone else. And people assumed that everyone hated Fridays because the workload was fucking insane. But Friday was everyone's favourite day. We laughed so much on Fridays, my assistant called it "FriYay!"

When I look back, it's the joy, the collaboration, the support we gave one another, the culture of a team that could be truly happy while working our asses off. That's what I'm most proud of, that's what I miss as well.

I most proud of building a staff culture where when one staff member had a complicated miscarriage, my mid level staff *volunteered* to do extra shifts of lower level staff work at lower level staff pay for an entire month to give her time off. I actually refused to let them do it, but they ganged up on me and insisted.

I did some insanely cool shit in my career, but 4 years later and I can barely tap into the feelings I have about my "accomplishments," but I can vividly tap into feelings of deep, profound emotions of pride when I think back to the joy and generosity of my team culture.

I look back on my work with so much fondness not because it was so important or so impressive, but because I truly enjoyed it. I truly enjoyed doing very difficult things with wonderful people who I deeply respected and trusted because they were great people to work with.

My first job was arguably my most prestigious job, and that was close to a decade ago and I honestly barely remember it because I wasn't happy there. I go back there regularly because I'm still a patient there, and every time I go, I can pretty much only remember the times I was made to feel small. It's the site of arguably my most impressive professional achievements, and being reminded of it only makes me feel and sad.

As I build my new profession, this all makes me ferociously protective of my ability to enjoy my work. Because at the end of the day, I know that that's what I'll remember, how I felt doing the work, not what I did.
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: AlanStache on March 26, 2024, 04:03:01 PM
Easiest way to get into this thread is to write a prompt for Metalcat... :-)
Title: Re: The best post I saw today on the Mr Money Mustache forums was...
Post by: TreeLeaf on March 26, 2024, 04:17:51 PM
Easiest way to get into this thread is to write a prompt for Metalcat... :-)

Haha - yeah I think over half the posts in this thread are from Metalcat. It's pretty amazing how well she can type out a long post explaining advanced things in simple paragraphs.