What was your moment of clarity?

[Mustache Fatty]

I, too, have to give the credit to MMM.  My favorite was the one where he basically compares a more typical household with one that is more badass.  That is probably when it clicked for me.

But it got really motivating for me when I saw for myself how we could  cut out so much waste without sacrificing AT ALL (i.e., reducing power) or even improving your life (cutting out cable).  I had to actually experience that to believe it; particularly the cutting cable part.

Things REALLY crystallized when at about the same time we decided to put our son in the local public school (as opposed to the private option), which was not even on the radar screen prior to finding MMM (saved $600+ per month).  Our son finished the first year and everything was great.  Couple that with our power bill going down from $500 per month to $140 (just by not absolutely ridiculously wasting it) and our cell phone cut in half ($150 to $75 for both of us) and right there you have just about enough to max out a retirement account without sacrificing a thing.  All this became evident just in the first few months, so our lives were pretty much turned around. We are trying to sell our house so we can get into one where you can't even lazily rack up a $500 per month bill (much less have it as your 12 month average).  I am very delighted I stumbled on the MMM site, to say the least.

[Ayanka]

Well I got on a frugality site (pre-MMM) by jokingly googling how to get rich, so I don't know but something tells me I just might be that kind of person. Part of it clicked yesterday, when I realised that I could count out in things less than total costs. My total costs/net wage is still pretty high, though less than 50%. But if I count out how much money I would have for life per month, it is something that is showing some progress. What really made it feel anything less than impossible, is knowing that even on my own money, excluding inflation or interest, I would probably be able to feed myself for the rest of my (short) life. That is a huge step, for someone who fears hunger more than anything like me.

[AJDZee]

I stumbled across this site pretty much the same time as OP - this time last year.

I used to follow a well-known Canadian personal finance personality Gail Vaz-Oxlade, and someone had put a link in the comments of one of her blog articles... mustache something... I clicked on it and was immediately hooked. Spent the next 4 weeks reading through everything on here.

Gail is great for people on the complete opposite spectrum as the MMM community. Her advice centers around spending 15% on debt repayment (huh? what's debt?) and 10% savings...  so I knew I wasn't part of her demographic, as she's trying to get through to the folks that have trouble spending less than they earn.

Fast forward a year of mustachery (literally, in November) and I'm now saving with a purpose, optimized my spending and try to hit 50% savings rate, and will hit six figures in investments by end of this year!

[bikebum]

Finding this website was definitely a big part. I've always been frugal. Once I got done with college I was excited to start my career and figured I would inflate my spending accordingly, but it felt weird so I continued to live like a college student instead. I quickly realized I did not want to work in an office full time for the next 30 years.

I mainly got 2 things out of MMM:

1. Investor thinking. I didn't know what to do with my savings before, and I wasn't comfortable with the stock market until reading about the passive/index fund approach.

2. New scale of badassity. I was fairly mustachian before learning the word, but this site showed me so much more. When you're already way more into this stuff than anyone you know, it feels pretty extreme already. When I found this site it was like, "Whoa, there's a whole other side of the badass spectrum."

I'd bet that's pretty typical of someone who finds MMM early in life.

[EricL]

I've had several moments of clarity over my lifetime. 
1. Falling into debt
2. Getting a less than optimal college degree (for raising income)
3. Realizing at 30 I didn't have any retirement savings
4. Disgust with consumer culture
5. Paying off my debts and instituting a savings/investment regimen
6. Making my first $1000 in a day off Vanguard Fund earnings alone
7. Distaste for cubicles and modern life
8. Employee abuse by their supervisors/companies in the press and popular culture

But the thing that tied it all together and made sense of it all was Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob.  It's an awkward book to read and it seems to me he's a little crazy.  But crazy like a fox.  I wish I'd found it and MMM a decade ago.

[Zamboni]

Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob.  It's an awkward book to read and it seems to me he's a little crazy.  But crazy like a fox.  I wish I'd found it and MMM a decade ago.

That pretty much sums up my read of that book as well.  Then again, EXTREME is in the title, so it's just as advertised.  I did enjoy the math angle.

[Glenstache]

Just gotta say that I'm really enjoying all of the stories and the common threads.

I keep having this mental image of a bunch of people walking around with boxes of Legos that they haven't quite figured out what to do with- maybe tinkering with it, maybe building some block walls, but not necessarily anything cohesive. Then MMM comes along and says, "Hey, have you tried building THIS piece of badassity with all your bits and pieces?" And then things start to take a more definite form.

[happy]

Just gotta say that I'm really enjoying all of the stories and the common threads.

 Then MMM comes along and says, "Hey, have you tried building THIS piece of badassity with all your bits and pieces?" And then things start to take a more definite form.

Thats how it was with me. I'd been intermittently frugal and intermittently spendy at various stages. Found "simple living" and decided thats how I wanted to live. Just had to find a way to fund it. Found ERE, just as he handed over the torch to MMM. Found it interesting but , well, too extreme! Was thinking about how I could adapt his principles, then went over to MMM. Read the blog rapidly and had numerous AHAH moments. I just knew it was the missing link I had been looking for.