ARGH!
I have two "friends" on Facebook. I would call them acquaintances at best, but I do know them both personally. One for many years. Guy friend posted a link to an MMM podcast with the comment "I think I need to start looking at my finances differently." I immediately comment that I'm a secret mustachian and that it has been the path to prosperity and happiness for me! Do it, so wonderful!
GF chimes in with how it is "impossible" because they (she) have "crushing" student loans (legit...but that's what you get when to go to get your Master's Degree at GWU in...get this...folklore) and they already cut back so much by almost "never" going out to eat and not buying new clothes "very much." Naturally they are always posting about dinners out and she is big into retail therapy. Oh, and of course they live in this awful, expensive city and no one can save here! And of course MMM was just lucky and no regular person could do this and it was unfair and judge-y of him to say otherwise.
I tried to CALMLY comment that I also live in this expensive city and that I mostly did it living alone on one income when I was in the "crush your debts" part of my journey, and I'm most certainly a regular person. I said it was hard at first but easy once you got the hang of it and that it has brought me more stability and hope and happiness that I thought was possible. She shot back that "they don't deserve to live like paupers and they have worked hard for what they have!" and my old favorite that they "deserve" to treat themselves occasionally.
He was so getting on board and she just totally derailed it and he basically said "Well yeah, I guess you're right. Oh well." So frustrating...so sad. Wish people could just open their mind for a moment and realize that they are in charge of where their money goes and how they use it.
Eh, so what? I think it's a safe bet that all of us on this board think he's choosing wrongly -- but it's his own business. We don't necessarily have a corner on the right and proper way to live, nor can we claim any moral higher ground here. It's a lifestyle choice. If he makes the same choice, good for him. If he chooses differently, well, I hope he's happy.
I'd say luck has a lot to do with it. Lucky that we didn't marry the wrong person, that our parents didn't open a bunch of credit cards in our names and run up the debt. There is a lot of luck in how we get to where we are and to discount that I think is foolish.
Yes and no. I was a poor kid; I received free lunch, and we were on Welfare for a while. BUT I was born in a wealthy country that believes in educating all its citizens. I was born with a healthy body, a good brain, and white skin (not that minorities can't make it --
not by any means -- but they do have to fight certain battles from which I was excused, and the topic here is luck). My parents were far from perfect, but they didn't use drugs, ruin my credit, etc. Essentially, I got to start from Square 1. Not all kids do.
However, all that luck was essentially bestowed upon me at birth. From a young age, I worked hard. If I hadn't, all those perks would've disappeared.
I do kind of agree with that, but her mom really crippled her about money. She had no concept of what anything cost, or how much money her mom made, or what they could afford or couldn't. She was just totally in the dark about what was reasonable and what wasn't. To roommate's credit, her mom served as a terrible example and made her pretty disciplined with her finances. She surely got a crash course in why credit was bad, but it a terrible cost. It did a lot of harm to her finances and her relationship with her mother. If her mom had just said, "honey, we can't afford for you to go to school out-of-state, so if you want to do it here are the steps we need to take..." then she would have been able to make an informed decision.
Informed decision - that's the right phrase. Too many 18-year olds make these college decisions without fully understanding the consequences of their actions, and too many parents sit back and allow kids to wander down a destructive path because they don't want to say "no".
I've never experienced this type of reaction. The only thing people ever take issue with is that MMM is a big bike advocate and most people think that just isn't feasible. Sure, I could buy a house close to work, but as soon as I get a different job across town I'm not going to uproot my family and move them, especially when my wife would then have to drive twice as far to work. And I think this is a legit argument.
I never get any negative feedback on my frugal life either.
I am, however, one of those people who say, "Nope, a bike doesn't fit into my lifestyle." And a number of other things discussed on this board just don't work for me either -- but I'm frugal in ways that aren't typically discussed here. Frugal living /saving aggressively is a concept, not a checklist.