MMM believes that decreasing expenses is the quickest way to an early retirement. There are millions of Americans making over $100,000 that still need more money to sustain there ridiculous consumerist sucka lifestyles. The whole reason MMM started this blog was to help people reduce spending and increase saving. Increasing your salary is good, but most people increase there spending while there salary increases and they just start spending more, and once you retire your salary no longer matters. If you reduce your spending it's twice as effective as increasing your salary, because when you reduce your spending, not only are you able to save more, but the total amount that you need to save to reach retirement is reduced. Say you are currently making $50,000 and currently saving $25,000 per year, if you increase your salary by 50%, you now make $75,000 and because of increased taxes maybe your savings rate will go up to $45,000 per year, that's great. So you need about $700,000 to retire. Say instead you reduced your spending by 50%, so you still make $50,000 per year, but you only spend $12,500 now, and you're able to save $37,500 every year. Now you only need about $300,000 to retire, it's much quicker to get to $300,000 saving $37,500 every year, than it is to get to $700,000 saving $45,000 every year. The people that want to retire really early though, will focus on both rather than choose one, and they'll increase there salary while decreasing there spending and they'll retire in a few short years.