Were you "mustachian" before it existed? Long before?

[Sayonara925]

As I recall, it was way back in the mid-90s...

It was a weekend morning and I was awaken by a startling realization I was wasting a lot of money paying credit card/loan interest.  Duh...my light bulb moment.

At that time I earned about $500 more per month than my expenses.  Half awake I figured it in my head, it would take about 16 months to pay off ~$8K of debt if I didn't spend anything extra beyond my basic expenses.  I recall going into a bit of a panic.  How had I let this happen, I thought.  This is really going to suck, 16 months of no frills existence.  It actually took about 1-1/2 years to reach the point where I owed no one.  After 1.5yrs of suck, I vowed to never owe again.  I became frugal and thoughtful about my spending on pretty much everything.  It wasn't until a few years ago I came across this site where people were of similar mindset.   In real life I only know of a few.

How about you?  Did your light bulb moment pre-date MMM? 

[frugalcanuck]

That`s how I found out about MMM.  I was accused of being a mustachian and had no idea what that was.  My income tripled this year and for the first few months I was miserable and feeling guilty because I could justify spending $5 here and there.  I was accused of being a mustachian and read the blog mid summer and I realized what my issue was... I was not being myself and saving my money like I always have.  As soon as I figured that out life is good again and I`m way more relaxed.

[MsRichLife]

I've been mustachian since I was about 12 when I started to earn my own money. Bought my first shares at 16 and my first house at 23. Had 6 houses by 25.

I only discovered MMM when I already had enough to be FIREd.

[Zikoris]

I was always Mustachian, it just didn't do me much good until I started earning more decent money about five years ago. I suppose it benefited me in the sense that I never got myself buried in debt, because if I had $10 left I would buy a sack of macaroni and eat that rather than run up a credit card. And I always saw most overpriced Vancouver apartments as a racket, and refused to rent anything other than basement suites out of disgust.

Fun fact: my first month of independent living had me subsisting primarily on pancakes, because pancake mix was cheap and all I had to cook with was a donated electric skillet. These days everyone tells me my pancakes are the best. They are, because I spent a month practicing making them several times a day.

[powskier]

Oh come on....everybody knows that nothing popular on the internet ever existed before the internet!
;)

[ahoy]

Pretty much since I was a kid.  My parents never wasted money, so I guess it comes from them.

[misshathaway]

From birth. Through grammar school age I thought we were poor. Then in the teenage years I realized that it was a choice and I was resentful, and pretty vocal about it. Needless to say I never had name brand anything. I know now that my father, who had a good civil service job, was investing the rest.

I had this one friend who lived in a very posh town, in a huge house, with every kind of luxury food in the fridge and every fad material possesion money could buy. I loved to go over to her house and was always asking why we couldn't have what they had, since by then, I knew that we probably could afford more. After all, her father was in construction and my father was a white collar worker.  I think my father's secret crowning moment was when my friend's father got arrested and eventually went to prison for tax evasion. Goodbye house and lavish lifestyle. There were no savings, so it was a hard landing.

It wasn't until I was on my own in my twenties that I saw the light. I was making so little money that I really did not have a choice. Then, as my salaries went up, I just kept living small and saving the rest. Gosh, there are so many things I mocked my parents for, and now do myself. I remember asking my father why anyone would go the the library when they could just buy the book.

[BussoV6]

I have always had MMM tendencies. Must come from my mother's Scottish side of the family.

Some call it short arms and deep pockets...  I prefer frugal.

[teen persuasion]

Lots of little light bulb moments, starting in college (80s). 

When my calculus prof announced the list of students eligible to join the tutoring lab, my initial reaction was "who'd want to do something as geeky as that?"  A few months later, when looking into the cost of renting vs dorm life, a paying tutoring gig suddenly sounded pretty good.  Was also shocked to discover that renting for 12 months (with a roommate) was cheaper than R&B for essentially 8 months a year and being thrown out for breaks. 

Since at that time fed loans were just enough to cover R&B, and I'd applied for and received a new work/grant position on campus, I realized how pointless it was to borrow when I could earn at least the equivalent here and there.  No more student loans, cheaper better housing year round (let me work full time summers on campus in a related gig I got due to grant connections), no need for a car.  I found it was pretty easy to get little side gigs all over campus: software work for Academic Development led to desktop publishing a writer's newsletter for my boss and to summer work testing incoming frosh, and school year math tutoring led to private tutoring (SAT for HS students, and college level), and a graveyard shift on dorm desk duty summer Saturdays.

I've naturally never considered not paying off a credit card every month (to avoid paying unnecessary interest), so I was shocked when I saw that a friend was only paying the minimum.  My inner math tutor was calculating all that extra interest vs principal payment, while my friend just ignored it and paid the minimum to conserve cash.  Ironically, he had the charge because of no cash at the time - brakes needed on his car.  So my friend only used the CC as an EF, and paid the min to have cash for future emergencies.  I tried to point out just how much he was paying in interest to have that cash in his pocket, essentially half the payment was interest!  He listened, and paid it off (it was ridiculously small, like $60), but he didn't really go "OMG, that's crazy highway robbery", he just said "Oh, ok, if you say so.  Whatever."

[Linea_Norway]

Yes. My husband is a true Mustachian and his mother was also like that, so I guess it is in his blood.
My father was also one I think, probably out of necessity as my parents lacked a lot of money for many years.
I have most of my time as an adult been one, and especially when we moved to expensive Norway. But I have had some weaker moments, although very few. I had started to think if we just couldn't spend a little more of our money, as we are having so much left each year. Thus the bigger house we live in now. My only reconciliation is that the house (most likely) keeps it value or increases in value. Real estate is not the worst kind of purchase. I have also bought one pair of overly expensive shoes and 1 pricy leather jacket in the past 10 years. Otherwise I buy pretty cheap clothes.

Finding this website though, inspired me again to make savings when possible and made me realise that my husband is not weird or being cheap. It was him who talked about pensioning at 50 for some years ago and I didn't believe it possible. Mostly because we had no idea how much money that would require. Now I know and it looks very realistic.

[BTDretire]

I became mustachian 3 months after I got married.
After 3 months we had saved $1,500 and I thought wow, I'm going to see much we can save.
 The first year we were married we grossed $18,000 and saved $6,000.
OK we recieved $600 in wedding gifts, so we save $5,400.
 This was the early 80s, and we continued to save.
We now have 35X to 40X yearly spending.
 I'm retiring in 42 days, my wife still wants to work.

[herbgeek]

I'm 55, and have lived and saved intentionally since before MMM reached puberty.

[Livingthedream55]

I bought a copy (used, of course)  probably in the mid 1990's of:

Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Vicki Robin  and Joe Dominguez

which led me to a bunch of books on voluntary simplicity and "Tightwaddery" (got all of Amy Dacyczyn's Tightwad Gazette books out of the library) and read:

Cashing in on the American Dream: How to Retire at 35 by Paul Terhorst 

many times.

[gp_]

Since I was a teen (mid-to-late 90's)

I understood very early on that things didn't make me happy.

[Skyward]

I had a little bank savings booklet when I was a kid 40+ years ago and I think I enjoyed seeing it at work more than your average child. Thankfully it carried over to adulthood with a few minor diversions along the way.

[Metric Mouse]

That`s how I found out about MMM.  I was accused of being a mustachian and had no idea what that was.  My income tripled this year and for the first few months I was miserable and feeling guilty because I could justify spending $5 here and there.  I was accused of being a mustachian and read the blog mid summer and I realized what my issue was... I was not being myself and saving my money like I always have.  As soon as I figured that out life is good again and I`m way more relaxed.

That's a great story.  Word is spreading. :D

[Threshkin]

I first got serious about saving money shortly after buying my first house (condo).  Interest rates were high at the time so I got an ARM and paid extra points at closing to reduce the initial rate as much as possible.  After the initial lock period expired my rate started going up.  At the same time rates for new loans were going down which really pissed me off.  I was young and naive and did not consider refinancing but I did develop a hatred for installment debt of any kind at that time.  Since then I always paid my CCs in full when due and never got another ARM again.  These were my first steps along the way of the mustache.

Circa 1983

[BuildingFrugalHabits]

I've always been a frugal saver type.  Not sure what the difference between that and mustachian is though?  The blog helped my optimize my strategy and execution though so I appreciate that and the collective wisdom of the forum. 

[B L I S S]

After the crash of 2008 I had to watch over a depressed family member on a daily basis and regularly prevent them from committing suicide due to the money they had lost and the amount they still owed. He couldn't come to terms with the fact that he couldn't provide anything to his family. Fortunately my teenage self was successful in keeping him alive but I had to do that for 3 years and in those years I learned that I never wanted to feel like if I didn't have the ends then my life would come to one. So, thus began my journey.

[marion10]

Never thought about saving to retire early- just saving to have a comfortable retirement. We married young and lived below our means- we wanted a house that we could afford on one income- even though I worked partime for many years- it was great to have a choice. I would see couples who felt they had to work to afford the big house and cars and credit cards. We've never had a balance on our credit cards.

[HenryDavid]

Read Thoreau as a kid. Also Diet for a Small Planet. Then was a self supported student for 10 years. By the time I read Your Money or Your Life in the 90s it wasn't news anymore!
All this stuff seemed like common sense to me, for folks who care about personal freedom or the planet. I like both.