Author Topic: "because I want it and can afford it"  (Read 15954 times)

ender

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #150 on: May 09, 2023, 04:38:21 PM »
Y'all are high on your own supply of self-righteousness. People can never grow and change? We have to be bound by the opinions of our youth? I guess that’s a choice you make.

I think multiple people in this thread have clearly acknowledged that yes, people can grow and change.  So maybe it's you who are high on your supply of self-righteousness?

If you scream from the rooftops that real estate investors (to use an example) are fools, and you regularly mock them, then you announce you've started a RE investing empire, it's going to raise eyebrows and make you seem like a hypocrite if you don't at least acknowledge that there's been a shift in your thinking and that maybe you were wrong before.  There's nothing wrong with having been wrong, or gaining new understanding that shifts your perspective.  But when you just pretend nothing has changed, well... can you really not see how that comes off? 

Also, sure, MMM/Pete or anyone else can grow and change.  I know someone who used to be pretty open and respectful of all people but has become quite a bigot.  Not all growth and change is good growth and change.  And when you are a public figure who has made your choices the cornerstone of your public profile, people are going to comment on your choices.

Not to mention, the Tesla is by far the least "2011 MMM goes crazy" part of that post.

The blogpost tells you(at least someone who is in MMM's position) to deliberately spend money frivolously. Which is absolutely contrary to everything he stood for a decade ago.


fredbear

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #151 on: May 09, 2023, 08:58:44 PM »
...
"Okay, [friend] you turn around first and then I'll follow in the Tesla"

I'm pretty sure that woman loves her Tesla more than her husband.

Nice vignette.  It's, like, uber-presumptive to treat the owner of a Tesla as if you could just expect a being like her to run errands, like some lackey. 

In an unobtrusive way, we used to time how long it would take one of our acquaintance to shoe-horn into the conversation the fact that he had been a Rhodes scholar, some decades ago.  Never more than 10 minutes.

Sanitary Stache

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #152 on: May 10, 2023, 03:37:17 AM »
...
"Okay, [friend] you turn around first and then I'll follow in the Tesla"

I'm pretty sure that woman loves her Tesla more than her husband.

Nice vignette.  It's, like, uber-presumptive to treat the owner of a Tesla as if you could just expect a being like her to run errands, like some lackey. 

In an unobtrusive way, we used to time how long it would take one of our acquaintance to shoe-horn into the conversation the fact that he had been a Rhodes scholar, some decades ago.  Never more than 10 minutes.

I hiked the Appalachian trail over 10 years ago and it is still the first thing trying to come out of my mouth when I meet a new person.

HeadedWest2029

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #153 on: May 10, 2023, 02:29:40 PM »
It turns out that living frugally isn't as easy as it seems.

Being hard wouldn't be all that big of an admission, I think we can all agree with and live with that, but the subtext that it actually isn't as sustainable or fun as he's made it out to be is damning.

I actually think living frugally IS the easy option.  At least when considering the big 3 expenses...
1) Housing - big houses just means more house to clean & maintain.
2) Transportation - more cars = more maintenance, newer tech means more stuff that can break, and shopping for cars is a pain, but I'm not a gearhead either.
3) Food - I have zero tolerance for driving somewhere, waiting for a table, and then waiting for food.  Even when considering take-out, I find making food at home easier.

Now beyond that it can get hard.  Especially if we're talking Jacob from ERE level of insourcing. I think this is why FIRE took with me, it really didn't feel like a sacrifice at all


joe189man

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #154 on: May 10, 2023, 05:20:36 PM »
Y'all are high on your own supply of self-righteousness. People can never grow and change? We have to be bound by the opinions of our youth? I guess that’s a choice you make.

I think multiple people in this thread have clearly acknowledged that yes, people can grow and change.  So maybe it's you who are high on your supply of self-righteousness?

If you scream from the rooftops that real estate investors (to use an example) are fools, and you regularly mock them, then you announce you've started a RE investing empire, it's going to raise eyebrows and make you seem like a hypocrite if you don't at least acknowledge that there's been a shift in your thinking and that maybe you were wrong before.  There's nothing wrong with having been wrong, or gaining new understanding that shifts your perspective.  But when you just pretend nothing has changed, well... can you really not see how that comes off? 

Also, sure, MMM/Pete or anyone else can grow and change.  I know someone who used to be pretty open and respectful of all people but has become quite a bigot.  Not all growth and change is good growth and change.  And when you are a public figure who has made your choices the cornerstone of your public profile, people are going to comment on your choices.

Not to mention, the Tesla is by far the least "2011 MMM goes crazy" part of that post.

The blogpost tells you(at least someone who is in MMM's position) to deliberately spend money frivolously. Which is absolutely contrary to everything he stood for a decade ago.

That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.


dividendman

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #155 on: May 10, 2023, 05:37:08 PM »
Y'all are high on your own supply of self-righteousness. People can never grow and change? We have to be bound by the opinions of our youth? I guess that’s a choice you make.

I think multiple people in this thread have clearly acknowledged that yes, people can grow and change.  So maybe it's you who are high on your supply of self-righteousness?

If you scream from the rooftops that real estate investors (to use an example) are fools, and you regularly mock them, then you announce you've started a RE investing empire, it's going to raise eyebrows and make you seem like a hypocrite if you don't at least acknowledge that there's been a shift in your thinking and that maybe you were wrong before.  There's nothing wrong with having been wrong, or gaining new understanding that shifts your perspective.  But when you just pretend nothing has changed, well... can you really not see how that comes off? 

Also, sure, MMM/Pete or anyone else can grow and change.  I know someone who used to be pretty open and respectful of all people but has become quite a bigot.  Not all growth and change is good growth and change.  And when you are a public figure who has made your choices the cornerstone of your public profile, people are going to comment on your choices.

Not to mention, the Tesla is by far the least "2011 MMM goes crazy" part of that post.

The blogpost tells you(at least someone who is in MMM's position) to deliberately spend money frivolously. Which is absolutely contrary to everything he stood for a decade ago.

That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I think many people are saying the section I bolded above is the exact opposite of what MMM was saying a decade ago. Why get a new car? That's consumerism and anti-environmentalism. If his current car is dying, he could get a used hybrid that is still way better for the environment than a brand new Tesla (or brand new anything).

I drive a 15 year old Prius. Sure, I could get a Tesla as well... but if my Prius ever dies I'll just get a used Prius or somesuch to replace it.

Basically his message has changed from "Let's get rich and save the environment at the same time by reuse/frugality" to "If you're rich do whatever you want, you deserve it."

That's a bit sad.

ender

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #156 on: May 10, 2023, 05:46:44 PM »
That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I took away more like these direct quotes ;-)

Quote
But yes, it’s also okay to set aside a portion of the money you’ve earned, for frivolous spending on yourself and those closest to you. You’re not a bad person for having a few nice things.

Quote
* A useful tip for more effective splurging:

Quote
We both realized that we were being too cheap with ourselves, and we needed to work on it. And we came up with a set of three ideas that should hopefully work together to help us have more fun with our life savings, while we are still alive:

the Minimum Spending Budget,
the Dedicated Money Wasting Account,
and the Splurge Accountability Buddy.

Quote
Principle #2 – the Dedicated Money Wasting Account

Quote
Re-brand your main bank account – henceforth it is the FREE FUN MONEY account.

Valley of Plenty

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #157 on: May 11, 2023, 04:41:08 AM »
I just don't understand all the anger over this blog post. The comments on the actual blog post were bonkers and in this thread are similarly weird to me.

Pete's a retired person spending his money, not some deity changing his religion.

Be happy for the guy and and move on.
He is multimillionaire he can buy what he wants. What is disappointing is buying a Tesla, from a company run by sociopath CEO. He could have bought any other electric car but I think he was cheap. On one had he acknowledges that issue and on the other he is rationalizing it. Worse part is he is a major influencer. I have seen on this forum, people who cant afford buy 50-60k tesla. He is setting a bad example.

As opposed to buying a car from one of the other billionaire automotive company CEOs, who are all paragons of virtue? Musk is at minimum no worse than the average billionaire CEO, and in many ways I would argue he is considerably better. The main reason everyone hates him so much is because his name is inextricably tied to his brand, whereas nobody knows the names of all the other CEOs, so you get to be blissfully ignorant buying their products and pretending you've taken some kind of moral high road. There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. If you're buying shit from a store, you're almost certainly indirectly supporting slave labor, or something only marginally better.

And anyone who isn't a millionaire and thinks MMM's latest article is telling them to go buy a brand new Tesla is just projecting their own message. Nothing he has ever said would suggest that sort of spending is reasonable for someone who isn't extremely wealthy.

GuitarStv

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #158 on: May 11, 2023, 07:05:58 AM »
And anyone who isn't a millionaire and thinks MMM's latest article is telling them to go buy a brand new Tesla is just projecting their own message. Nothing he has ever said would suggest that sort of spending is reasonable for someone who isn't extremely wealthy.

That's the thing though.  MMM has been extremely wealthy since he started the blog.  Nothing he has said before this post would suggest that sort of spending is reasonable.  Full stop.

Metalcat

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #159 on: May 11, 2023, 07:21:10 AM »
...
"Okay, [friend] you turn around first and then I'll follow in the Tesla"

I'm pretty sure that woman loves her Tesla more than her husband.

Nice vignette.  It's, like, uber-presumptive to treat the owner of a Tesla as if you could just expect a being like her to run errands, like some lackey. 

In an unobtrusive way, we used to time how long it would take one of our acquaintance to shoe-horn into the conversation the fact that he had been a Rhodes scholar, some decades ago.  Never more than 10 minutes.

Lol, this was a running joke in Frasier about him name dropping Harvard.

It's funny, I've actually made a bit of a sport recently of seeing just how long I can go when meeting someone, without lying or purposefully misleading, letting them assume I'm a 20-something university student with no significant accomplishments.

What's also funny is that when I talk to people about my current life, they all wax poetic about their favourite time of their lives being when they lived in that little apartment during school. They get all misty about how much they loved that little apartment, how fun and carefree that time was. Often they'll throw in some love for their old shitty car.

They often wistfully tell me to enjoy it while I can because midlife is just a clusterfuck of responsibilities and stress. This is usually where I'll finally admit that DH and I are 40 and 50 and that we too were wistful for our university days, which is why we proactively returned to that kind of lifestyle after downsizing our home and car.

And that's really what's being lost in MMM's new messaging.

There's an extremely useful discussion to be had around luxury spending, but he's not really framing it effectively.

The message of "don't feel guilty about a bit of luxury if you can afford it" really does contradict his original messaging that frugal options are often superior.

The key point he's missing is that *some* luxuries are absolutely worth the cost if you can afford them, but they are rare. If you find a luxury that is an excellent value relative to its cost, and you can readily afford it, then yeah, that's worthwhile.

I just posted in the stupid things you're lusting after thread a 12K used, all terrain wheelchair that has tank treads instead of wheels. I spend half my year in a place where the only thing to do is wander on trails in one of the most beautiful places on earth. I can't do that right now thanks to my legs being fucked.

12K for me right now is too much to spend on a wheelchair I don't really need, but if I had Pete's money, of course I would buy it!

Luxuries are not all made equal. MMM's original, very important point was that most luxuries actually detract from quality of life. Which is why so many people I meet get all misty and nostalgic about when they were broke students having true fun and engaging in profound relationships.

Most luxuries are a scam. They're bullshit that makes you more miserable and more unhealthy. Even if you "can afford" them, they're best avoided just for your basic well being.

So the messaging shouldn't be that "a little luxury is okay if you can afford it," the messaging should be that some luxury truly adds to your quality of life, but that even if you can afford it, you should stay hyper-vigilant to the task of assessing that value.

When I first went from being a broke student to making insane income, I was briefly spending like crazy on whatever luxuries I felt I had denied myself for my decade+ of school.

After a few months life felt so fucking hollow. The more I spent, the more pointless life felt. The act of existing in a consumerist world "indulging" in crap felt similar to how people feel after spending too much time on social media.

The things designed to grab our attention and our money just aren't good for us on average. MMM got this right the first time.

He's not wrong about not feeling bad about spending on luxuries, but he's missed A LOT of nuance in the argument.

IMO, I think he got too caught up in feeling like he needed to justify going against what he previously said, instead of figuring out the more complex argument to be made about assessing the value of luxury.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2023, 09:14:40 AM by Metalcat »

ender

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #160 on: May 11, 2023, 08:29:53 AM »
Feels weird when I think @Metalcat knows MMM better than he knows himself lol

joe189man

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #161 on: May 11, 2023, 09:33:01 AM »
That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I took away more like these direct quotes ;-)

Quote
But yes, it’s also okay to set aside a portion of the money you’ve earned, for frivolous spending on yourself and those closest to you. You’re not a bad person for having a few nice things.

Quote
* A useful tip for more effective splurging:

Quote
We both realized that we were being too cheap with ourselves, and we needed to work on it. And we came up with a set of three ideas that should hopefully work together to help us have more fun with our life savings, while we are still alive:

the Minimum Spending Budget,
the Dedicated Money Wasting Account,
and the Splurge Accountability Buddy.

Quote
Principle #2 – the Dedicated Money Wasting Account

Quote
Re-brand your main bank account – henceforth it is the FREE FUN MONEY account.

All that sounds fine to me if your stash has grown so large it doesn't matter anymore -> say you go from a 1% withdrawal rate to a 1.5%

But i get it, its way of "brand" for Pete to talk and act like this, and it could skew newcomers ideas

Metalcat

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #162 on: May 11, 2023, 10:01:35 AM »
That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I took away more like these direct quotes ;-)

Quote
But yes, it’s also okay to set aside a portion of the money you’ve earned, for frivolous spending on yourself and those closest to you. You’re not a bad person for having a few nice things.

Quote
* A useful tip for more effective splurging:

Quote
We both realized that we were being too cheap with ourselves, and we needed to work on it. And we came up with a set of three ideas that should hopefully work together to help us have more fun with our life savings, while we are still alive:

the Minimum Spending Budget,
the Dedicated Money Wasting Account,
and the Splurge Accountability Buddy.

Quote
Principle #2 – the Dedicated Money Wasting Account

Quote
Re-brand your main bank account – henceforth it is the FREE FUN MONEY account.

All that sounds fine to me if your stash has grown so large it doesn't matter anymore -> say you go from a 1% withdrawal rate to a 1.5%

But i get it, its way of "brand" for Pete to talk and act like this, and it could skew newcomers ideas

It's fine for someone whose message hasn't always been that spending less improves your quality of life.

MMM's message was *not* Bogleheads. It wasn't about saving for the sake of getting rich. The core messaging was about how spending less improves your quality of life.

That's why discussions about luxury and what it actually brings to your life are so important.

He did touch on this indirectly many times in the past. He talked about how he perceived his life as incredibly luxurious, which means he was always an advocate for true luxury, aka those things that he felt were worth spending on.

This message was always there, just not fleshed out.

What's worth discussing is whether increased wealth changes the calculus on which luxuries are worthwhile and which aren't. Which, obviously it does.

There's the absolute question of the value of a luxury: does it actually improve your quality of life?

MMM covered this many times. No, most luxuries are false value.

But then there are are luxuries that *would* actually add to your quality of life, but not at the expense of other luxuries, such as more free time.

But if you've purchased all the free time you need and there are no other luxuries you would rather purchase, then the relative value of those luxuries rises.

Let's come back to the example of the 12K wheelchair I mentioned.

The only reason I'm not buying it is because I have other luxuries this year that are more valuable and not enough resources to add an unnecessary 12K wheelchair to the mix. The trade off would be poor, it's a bad deal for me, so the value in the luxury isn't there.

If this were several years from now, those constraints wouldn't exist. The trade becomes a lot better. The purchase much more likely.

What's important to note is that not all luxuries rise with the tide of wealth in terms of their value.

What is challenging is truly discriminating between those luxuries that will truly improve our quality of life and those that we've been conditioned to *believe* will improve it, by a system that is hellbent on luring us into coveting luxury.

Sanitary Stache

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #163 on: May 11, 2023, 07:11:07 PM »
That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I took away more like these direct quotes ;-)

Quote
But yes, it’s also okay to set aside a portion of the money you’ve earned, for frivolous spending on yourself and those closest to you. You’re not a bad person for having a few nice things.

Quote
* A useful tip for more effective splurging:

Quote
We both realized that we were being too cheap with ourselves, and we needed to work on it. And we came up with a set of three ideas that should hopefully work together to help us have more fun with our life savings, while we are still alive:

the Minimum Spending Budget,
the Dedicated Money Wasting Account,
and the Splurge Accountability Buddy.

Quote
Principle #2 – the Dedicated Money Wasting Account

Quote
Re-brand your main bank account – henceforth it is the FREE FUN MONEY account.

All that sounds fine to me if your stash has grown so large it doesn't matter anymore -> say you go from a 1% withdrawal rate to a 1.5%

But i get it, its way of "brand" for Pete to talk and act like this, and it could skew newcomers ideas

It's fine for someone whose message hasn't always been that spending less improves your quality of life.

MMM's message was *not* Bogleheads. It wasn't about saving for the sake of getting rich. The core messaging was about how spending less improves your quality of life.

That's why discussions about luxury and what it actually brings to your life are so important.

He did touch on this indirectly many times in the past. He talked about how he perceived his life as incredibly luxurious, which means he was always an advocate for true luxury, aka those things that he felt were worth spending on.

This message was always there, just not fleshed out.

What's worth discussing is whether increased wealth changes the calculus on which luxuries are worthwhile and which aren't. Which, obviously it does.

There's the absolute question of the value of a luxury: does it actually improve your quality of life?

MMM covered this many times. No, most luxuries are false value.

But then there are are luxuries that *would* actually add to your quality of life, but not at the expense of other luxuries, such as more free time.

But if you've purchased all the free time you need and there are no other luxuries you would rather purchase, then the relative value of those luxuries rises.

Let's come back to the example of the 12K wheelchair I mentioned.

The only reason I'm not buying it is because I have other luxuries this year that are more valuable and not enough resources to add an unnecessary 12K wheelchair to the mix. The trade off would be poor, it's a bad deal for me, so the value in the luxury isn't there.

If this were several years from now, those constraints wouldn't exist. The trade becomes a lot better. The purchase much more likely.

What's important to note is that not all luxuries rise with the tide of wealth in terms of their value.

What is challenging is truly discriminating between those luxuries that will truly improve our quality of life and those that we've been conditioned to *believe* will improve it, by a system that is hellbent on luring us into coveting luxury.

Fuck Yeah!

(But I’m starting to think that maybe you should get the wheelchair.)

Metalcat

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #164 on: May 11, 2023, 07:18:00 PM »

Fuck Yeah!

(But I’m starting to think that maybe you should get the wheelchair.)

I mean...look at it

https://m.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1373887700124027/

Alternatepriorities

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #165 on: May 11, 2023, 10:03:54 PM »

Fuck Yeah!

(But I’m starting to think that maybe you should get the wheelchair.)

I mean...look at it

https://m.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1373887700124027/

Can we still call that a wheel chair if it has tracks?

Also that looks epic!

bluecollarmusician

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #166 on: May 11, 2023, 10:23:29 PM »
I have to say, I have enjoyed the dialogue that this blog post has generated more than anything I have seen on the Forums (or on the blog) in a very long time.

Maybe it's because it is relevant to me in a way, maybe because it seems to fall in line with the schism that I have seen in the forum about things getting a bit spendy/soft, but mostly I think it has caused me to evaluate and reevaluate my own thinking on frugality, what it means and how it is relevant in my life for "maximizing life enjoyment."

(Although, the frugal part of me reminds me "is it convenient, would I enjoy it... would I like a catheter and a bed pan to go with it?"

I think a lot of it comes down to varying "opinions" about what it's all about "here."  And the truth is, it will be different for everyone.  Take what works for you, leave what doesn't. 
 
I think that if we really get down to it, it's not frugality; it's about efficiency- "pareto optimization for maximum life enjoyment."
Many (most?) people are living wildly un-optimized lives; you know the hair-on fire situation.  For them the tactics espoused by what we seem to be referring to here as "classic MMM..." will lead to a richer life; not just money richer, but also richer in time, freedom, and options. 

Optimizing your life is about more than following the same tactical steps forever.

And I don't think blog post is advocating for a Yolo- so go out blow it on hookers and blow... quite the opposite, I think it is really saying when the money problem is totally solved, it might be good to be mindful to not bottle-neck your own happiness by a desire to continue optimizing.   It is a means to an end.  Agonizing over the cost of bread is not a good or efficient use of your time once you have completely conquered the money game.  The early optimizing may have focused on the money part; and the tendency is to keep the focus there; but the reality is there are other kinds of capital and recognizing when they are out of balance is an important step in growing your "business" of you.

My thoughts are still evolving on this, but I really don't see it being at odds with earlier material.
 

achvfi

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #167 on: May 14, 2023, 03:29:25 PM »
I just don't understand all the anger over this blog post. The comments on the actual blog post were bonkers and in this thread are similarly weird to me.

Pete's a retired person spending his money, not some deity changing his religion.

Be happy for the guy and and move on.
He is multimillionaire he can buy what he wants. What is disappointing is buying a Tesla, from a company run by sociopath CEO. He could have bought any other electric car but I think he was cheap. On one had he acknowledges that issue and on the other he is rationalizing it. Worse part is he is a major influencer. I have seen on this forum, people who cant afford buy 50-60k tesla. He is setting a bad example.

As opposed to buying a car from one of the other billionaire automotive company CEOs, who are all paragons of virtue? Musk is at minimum no worse than the average billionaire CEO, and in many ways I would argue he is considerably better. The main reason everyone hates him so much is because his name is inextricably tied to his brand, whereas nobody knows the names of all the other CEOs, so you get to be blissfully ignorant buying their products and pretending you've taken some kind of moral high road. There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. If you're buying shit from a store, you're almost certainly indirectly supporting slave labor, or something only marginally better.

And anyone who isn't a millionaire and thinks MMM's latest article is telling them to go buy a brand new Tesla is just projecting their own message. Nothing he has ever said would suggest that sort of spending is reasonable for someone who isn't extremely wealthy.
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I am not sure if there any current auto CEO that is a billionaire. Anyway, Any other CEO with toxic personality and rhetoric like him would have been fired long ago.
What you are saying makes no sense, Just because so much shit out there that we don’t notice we should ignore what we notice as well.

Mr. Green

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #168 on: May 14, 2023, 08:59:40 PM »

Fuck Yeah!

(But I’m starting to think that maybe you should get the wheelchair.)

I mean...look at it

https://m.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1373887700124027/

Can we still call that a wheel chair if it has tracks?

Also that looks epic!
That's some Mad Max looking shit right there! Strap on a minigun.

EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #169 on: May 22, 2023, 08:47:42 AM »
Maybe Ramit Sethi is to blame?  Around the same time as this 'bizarre' post from MMM, the Mad FIentist posted a podcast with Ramit, parroting a lot of similar 'spend the stache' ethos (How to Spend (and Actually Enjoy It)).  Then today we have Mr. 1500Days talking about their podcast with Ramit - https://www.1500days.com/what-if-you-run-out-of-life/

Quote
Consider this question:
Would you rather have really rich experiences when you’re 50 or be really rich when you’re 80?

Here are some of the experiences that I’m considering splurging on soon:

Buying a place in the mountains and then frequently inviting friends and family to hang out.
Taking my mom, siblings, and their partners on a cruise.
Buying a ridiculous car and then take wild road trips with it. I’ll see friends and National Parks. In between, I’ll cruise down scenic byways and lost highways. A Tesla Model S would be great for this.
Renting a ridiculous property for a month and then invite everyone I know to come visit.
This thinking isn’t easy because it’s the opposite of the FIRE life many of us have embraced

Through the magic of living on other people's money as an expat a few times, I've had this taste of 'splurging' for years at a time...  It is easy to lose track of the lifestyle inflation and hard to reign it back in once the treadmill gets going.  I'm also interested to see if the community follows these folks in to splurge-ville? 


bluecollarmusician

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #170 on: May 22, 2023, 11:19:13 AM »
  Then today we have Mr. 1500Days talking about their podcast with Ramit - https://www.1500days.com/what-if-you-run-out-of-life/

Quote
Consider this question:
Would you rather have really rich experiences when you’re 50 or be really rich when you’re 80?


Ironically, when I read this first I didn't interpret "rich experiences" to have anything to do with money, and only after thinking about it in context  did I realized he meant enjoy "experiences that involve spending a lot of money" rather "enjoy fulfilling experiences full of complexity and depth."  There may be some overlap, but I know which one of those 2 I would prefer.

Valley of Plenty

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #171 on: May 25, 2023, 02:10:49 AM »
On a tangentially related note, I started listening to the ChooseFI podcast again recently and I'm noticing a pattern there too where more of the episodes seem to be centered around spending money efficiently rather than not spending it at all.

It seems that most of the big FI influencers are now so wealthy that they're becoming less interested in saving money and more interested in spending it. Which is fine by me, but as someone who is still relatively early in the wealth accumulation stage, I do find myself longing for more content by people who are working towards FI rather than cruising along with a 7 or 8 figure net worth.

moof

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #172 on: July 03, 2023, 05:35:50 PM »
So my gripe is less that he bought a car.  No biggie there.  He needed a replacement vehicle, has the money, more power to him, free country and all that jazz.

He goes on from the actual buying of the car and gets into an enforced spending monologue, which just blew off the veil of willful suspension of disbelief for me.

Going back into older posts about his annual spend he has always projected this hard to swallow $25k/year spending, often with some tricky asterisks hidden in there.  A lot of what I would call spending got called an "investment" of some sort.  Buying a property to create a co-working space was neither spending or a "job", which stretched the incredulity, but whatever.  He buys a brand new Leaf and there were more mental gymnastics to argue it paid for itself, so that didn't really count as "spending".

The Tesla and the change in messaging laid bare what I'd been annoyed with for years.  If you want to spend, spend.  But don't claim you are living on $25k/year with overflowing luxuries in your life if your real spending on real goods and services is much higher.  A lot of folks looked at his spending and really felt like they were doing it wrong, when in reality we should all be budgeting for lumpy expenses along the way, and not telling ourselves and others that there is a magic category you can label your net cash outflow as to not really count as spending.

Valley of Plenty

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #173 on: July 05, 2023, 07:18:07 PM »
So my gripe is less that he bought a car.  No biggie there.  He needed a replacement vehicle, has the money, more power to him, free country and all that jazz.

He goes on from the actual buying of the car and gets into an enforced spending monologue, which just blew off the veil of willful suspension of disbelief for me.

Going back into older posts about his annual spend he has always projected this hard to swallow $25k/year spending, often with some tricky asterisks hidden in there.  A lot of what I would call spending got called an "investment" of some sort.  Buying a property to create a co-working space was neither spending or a "job", which stretched the incredulity, but whatever.  He buys a brand new Leaf and there were more mental gymnastics to argue it paid for itself, so that didn't really count as "spending".

The Tesla and the change in messaging laid bare what I'd been annoyed with for years.  If you want to spend, spend.  But don't claim you are living on $25k/year with overflowing luxuries in your life if your real spending on real goods and services is much higher.  A lot of folks looked at his spending and really felt like they were doing it wrong, when in reality we should all be budgeting for lumpy expenses along the way, and not telling ourselves and others that there is a magic category you can label your net cash outflow as to not really count as spending.

I do think the line between spending and investments can often get blurred though. Is it spending or investment to buy a property with the intention of using it to generate cash flow? And if that counts as spending, should buying shares of an index fund also be considered spending? After all, you are spending that money in exchange for shares, with the intention of those shares generating more value.

I always felt Pete did a pretty decent job of being transparent about what he was buying and why he did/didn't consider it "spending". It was always up to the reader to decide whether or not they agree with his framing. The recent shift from his old approach to this new "enforced spendypants" approach does seem like a huge jump though. I didn't really recognize it so much until I started re-reading his posts from a decade ago, back when he would loudly and proudly proclaim that the optimal lifestyle could be achieved by spending less. Don't get me wrong, it still seems to me that he's still making very good use of his time, spending it in ways that provide maximum fulfilment, but now he has also added this mandatory spending rule that just doesn't fit within the philosophy he used to preach.

If I were just finding his blog today and reading that post before anything else, I doubt I'd have much reason to keep reading any further.

Travis

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #174 on: August 06, 2023, 12:43:39 PM »
On a tangentially related note, I started listening to the ChooseFI podcast again recently and I'm noticing a pattern there too where more of the episodes seem to be centered around spending money efficiently rather than not spending it at all.


ChooseFI was never on MMM's level of frugality. Even in the early days they'd have podcasts about DIY and other ways to save money, but it was always in the frame of "living the life you want/spend on what's important to you." Frugality for its own sake or to save the environment was never their message. After a couple years and their popularity exploding they started having really weird guests like bringing in a stock picker who talked unironically about how easy and genius it was. Then they spent a year patting themselves on the back for Playing With Fire.  After that mess I was done with them.

Quote
It seems that most of the big FI influencers are now so wealthy that they're becoming less interested in saving money and more interested in spending it. Which is fine by me, but as someone who is still relatively early in the wealth accumulation stage, I do find myself longing for more content by people who are working towards FI rather than cruising along with a 7 or 8 figure net worth.

I see this too amongst the FIRE bloggers I've followed over the years. They're all running out of things to talk about now that they've made it. I could never take Go Curry Cracker too seriously because he made it very clear that his suitcase-pay-no-taxes lifestyle was almost entirely funded by his blog income while MMM framed his spending around "I'm making a ton from the blog, but not using any of it." How much of that is true we'll probably never know, but he was always trying to make a point about how under most circumstances the average reader could also be in his position eventually.

I mentioned it months ago up-thread, but I think old MMM would have been horrified at new MMM for buying a new car, regardless of what kind it was or how much he had in the bank. He's probably written a million words that could be boiled down to:

Person: "I can afford to buy this new thing!"
MMM: "Do you need it? No? Then sit back down."

Being frugal to afford what you want was always a ChooseFI or Paula Pant way of thinking. Early MMM gave no quarter for concepts like "want" or "afford." MMM declaring that buying a new car is now okay is a departure from where he started. Where I think its bothering people is that "old MMM" never gave any room in his persona or message for this kind of change or growth.

Metalcat

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #175 on: August 06, 2023, 01:36:00 PM »
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't remember MMM ever being against spending on "wants" unless you have hair on fire debt.

I remember him talking often about spending on things that made his life better, but how often you can improve your life through aiming to spend less.

He spoke often about how frugality isn't about deprivation. 

Where he has changed his tune is on "I can afford it." His stance that the more frugal option is what will make you happier is fairly at odds with "Hey, why not splurge? You can afford it!"


Sanitary Stache

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #176 on: August 06, 2023, 05:37:25 PM »
I’m looking forward to the blog article that acknowledges that buying this car wasn’t as rewarding as being a bad ass with strong frugality muscles would have been.

Alternatepriorities

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #177 on: August 07, 2023, 11:54:02 AM »
With the latest post he's back to "It's awesome to be a millionaire who lives out his car doing hard sweaty work and washing off in the lake." Sure he's sleeping in a Tesla instead of a minivan, but that doesn't strike me as a completely different person than old MMM.

Now I'm off to go prep my own building site so because he's not wrong in the latest post.

Ishmael

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #178 on: August 10, 2023, 10:47:38 AM »
I've often been surprised about how difficult people seem to find MMM's "philosophy" to wrap their heads around. I don't really think he's changed his tune really at all. At the risk of oversimplifying, I have always taken his main message to be to apply engineering optimization to life, and to eliminate the shit that isn't worth the cost. Doing that accomplishes everything he's talked about - minimize your footprint on the planet, getting physically fit, financial success, etc. There's a lot of necessary nuance and detail to be added to that, but that's how I'd summarize it.

So to buy a new Tesla and spend a bit extra on bread isn't a diversion from that - it's just an acknowledgement that the optimizing equation changes somewhat over time. In my household, we refer to it as "throwing money at the problem". If something breaks, is it worth the time/aggravation/etc in fixing it? Or should I hire someone else/buy a replacement? As others have stated, sometimes that's the right answer.

Dicey

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #179 on: August 10, 2023, 11:25:02 AM »
This is as good a place as any to share this tidbit:

Yesterday, we went to pick up our mail after a brief getaway. DH stayed in the car while I ran into the post office. When I returned, he pointed out that the (newly installed) station was charging two white Teslas. Then a third white one pulled in. In addition, there were two more white Teslas parked side-by-side, away from the chargers. That end of the parking lot was otherwise empty, so five white Teslas at or around the chargers. Then he told me to look at the two parked side-by-side carefully. Sure enough, the larger one was moving. As in nobody in the front seats, but the car's bouncing kind of moving. Apparently somebody was getting a different kind of charge in the back of their spacious Tesla.


MissNancyPryor

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #180 on: August 10, 2023, 11:34:49 AM »
I swear Paula Pant is doing the voice overs for Nordstrom Rack.  That's a hella side hustle. 

Honestly MMM's story could be rewritten as "Guy leaves engineering job after accumulating enough to run his own business.  Business does great, giving him enough to spend his excess how he wants." 

Problem is that his spending now apparently conflicts with the germ of his business, kind of like a guy who got rich building a business servicing pools now paying someone to service his own pool while actively preaching that only spendy idiots pay to have their pool serviced.   

The friction is any appearance of justification for the luxury instead of just admitting that he can do whatever he wants and abandoning pretense.  He wants it, he can afford it.  No hand waiving needed.   

As someone else said, the message may now be converted to "get out of the rat race and go live a better life that you will enjoy, and model that better life for others."  Not an unreasonable message.  The sacred cows get slaughtered eventually.             

bluecollarmusician

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #181 on: August 11, 2023, 09:33:13 AM »
I think many objections or apparent contradictions center around the purchase of a new vs. a used car.

I think anyone straddling that line hasn't bought a car in a while.  I would never consider the purchase of a new car normally, but when we had to look last year the cost of used cars exceeded the cost of the same car new.  And that was without taking any consideration of incentives to purchase electric vehicles.  Economically- last year if I had to purchase a car it would have been a new electric vehicle- it would far and away have been the best use of capital.  Fortunately, we managed to avoid a purchase at all.


EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: "because I want it and can afford it"
« Reply #182 on: August 11, 2023, 10:11:06 AM »
I think an under-discussed aspect of Pete's 'retirement' is, using his latest post as an example, he has the financial and time freedom to do anything he wants and his idea of retirement is buying a new Tesla, driving out to the woods and building a cabin.  I don't know any of the details, I didn't really read the post since none of it mattered to me, but building a cabin isn't free and most people want to be paid if they are building a cabin for someone else...  A lot of his 'retirement' either sounds a lot like unpaid work (if he is building a cabin for other people) or work (if he is buying all the cabin materials and building it for himself or for renting out)...

Not to get nitpicky, but Pete has a very creative way of avoiding talking about money and work.  Fortunately, he can afford to do stuff like build cabins for free for people, and he probably makes very good friends when he volunteers his tools and labor, but I wonder how many people who read his blog think that once you FIRE money is just an endless firehose that allows you to not worry about stuff like getting injured, buying new tools and toys, and of course buying more stuff for the business like building materials for the stuff that goes in to his posts (new kitchens, additions, etc.)...  If you don't have a $400k blog income, the balancing the wants and needs part is a bit more complicated.