Author Topic: Your very first mustachian thing  (Read 5196 times)

LennStar

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Your very first mustachian thing
« on: December 11, 2014, 06:49:34 AM »
whats the first mustachian thing you can remember? (Even before you read MMM I hope)

I just realized my first mustachian thing was possibly when learning swimming with the school class. There were these arcade games (1992 I think) and several children were playing, but I thought about it (especially how fast you die) and said to myself: No, I can get more fun out of the money when I save it now, even if it means momentarily feeling bad.
It was probably about how much ice cream I coudl get for 3 games or how many weeks I had to save to get a new bike, me beeing so young, but I know I thought really hard about the different happinesses I could get out of my limited resources.

pagoconcheques

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2014, 07:10:10 AM »
I had a paper route as a kid and concluded that as long as I was riding my bike and hauling papers there was no point in passing houses that didn't subscribe.  I doubled my subscriptions within a couple of months with very little increase in time spent.  There were a lot of older folks on my route and I learned that many did not subscribe because it was a hardship to go to the end of the driveway and bend over for the paper.  For those folks I would leave the paper in a designated place (porch railing or whatever).  In those days people paid in person every month, we called it "collection", and I would always ask how the custom delivery was working out for them.  I always made more in tips that I did selling the actual papers.  I also became the go-to kid for small jobs (moving furniture, gardening, small repair jobs, washing cars, etc.), connections I profited from until I graduated from high school 6 years later.  Looking back, I guess I was cultivating connections for a side gig. 

ketchup

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2014, 08:28:41 AM »
The first "big" things I did that could be considered Mustachian were buying an $18,500 house at the bottom of the market in early 2012 (at age 20), and buying my first car shortly after, my 53MPG 1988 Chevy Sprint for $1000, which I wish I still had.

Before that though, I was always careful with money, and didn't squander my money from summer jobs on stupid crap like so many of my high school/college classmates.  I didn't have a cell phone until I was 18 (2009), and I paid for it myself, and it was a cheapie prepaid flip phone (though oddly, I'm currently on an even cheaper plan, on an even cheaper yet fancier smartphone).

My first entrepreneurial venture I can remember was early high school, when I discovered I could buy packs of Skittles in bulk and sell them at school for far less than the vending machine and still make a profit.  The school didn't like that.

Going back farther, in middle school I was very much into video games, yet didn't want to spend much money on them.  In total, I spent about $275 over the years on (used) Nintendo 64 games from about ages 10-16.  I sold them all last year together on eBay for $295.  Good games don't go down in value (plus I always hunted for deals on them).  It also shut my mom up when I told her that.  She always thought I was pissing away my money that I would never see again on video games.  I could have been, but I was smarter than that.  I mean sure, $275 of VTSAX would have been about over $500 last year, but I still think I made out pretty well while playing some fantastic video games.

My first larger DIY-related purchase was my first PC in 2008.  I spent about $700 building it when a similarly-speced-but-overall-inferior prebuilt PC would have set me back at least $1200.  I'm still using plenty of those PC parts today (with a total of maybe $250 in upgrades over the past six years).

Then I found MMM in August 2012 and went off-the-rails Mustachian for the most part.

Lizzy B.

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2014, 12:46:29 PM »
When I was a kid (8? 11? Who knows?), I'd put all my money in a cigar box and track every expenditure in a check register booklet. By every expenditure, I mean EVERY expenditure, including each $0.25 gumball. Our allowance was just $1/week, though so each gumball was a big deal, I guess. I had so much fun with that!  One of the hazards of having a mom who is also a bookkeeper. Don't tell her that I don't formally reconcile my account against my receipts anymore. She'd be horrified. :-)

Cookie78

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #4 on: December 11, 2014, 01:31:54 PM »
I remember leaving home to go to University and being afraid that my student loans wouldn't cover my expenses. So I was very careful with what I spent money on and couldn't understand how everyone else spent so much on drinking and cabs to and from various places to drink. (Mustachian)

Then at the end of each year I spent the remainder of my loans on travelling to Europe and Australia. (Anti-Mustachian)

But I made up for it when I finished my degree, got a job, continued my student-type non-spending lifestyle, and paid off my student loans in record time. I don't remember how long it took, but I poured every last extra penny into that thing. (Mustachian)

2/3 isn't bad?

Gone Fishing

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #5 on: December 11, 2014, 02:01:53 PM »
A few things, I was around 8 when my dad explained compound interest, it made sense instantly, and I was all over it.  In 7th grade the stock market was booming and dad helped me invest $500 in Janus mutual funds.  A year or so later, they changed their minimum account balance requirement and sent me a check for $600. Not too shabby, I was hooked.   When I was in 8th grade or so I cut grass, baby sat and saved until I had $1000 to buy a computer.  While I got a lot out of that computer (games, school papers, general computing knowledge) I proceeded to watch it depreciate into something worthless.  Never again would I work so hard for something that depreciated.  Around 10th grade I was at the beach and there were some of the quarter pusher machines, I proceed to dump all my spending money for the week in the machines hoping for more.  Never again would I play games of chance.  Okay, I'll stop, sorry for going beyond the scope of the question! 

Exflyboy

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2014, 04:40:44 PM »
In the UK they use salt on the roads everywhere so your car will rust away before your very eyes. Oregon doesn't use it thankfully.

So I bought a tiny little car with a fiberglass body. It was a Reliant kitten with a massive 850cc's of rip snortin' power.. yeah right.

Dead simple car but parts a little spendy and sometimes hard to get because there just wern't many made. It was a bit of a death trap to be honest.

So one day eventually the exhaust rotted out and now I had a dilemma.. a hugely expensive Reliant exhaust.. or.. go buy one for an Austin mini.. a complete system for $30 at the time (late 80's)

Of course it didn't fit.. but nothing that a couple of hours with a 1.5 inch pipe bender borrowed from work wouldn't fix.

It came out great..:)

Frank

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #7 on: December 11, 2014, 04:53:31 PM »
I was 9 years old in a Ben Franklin store with my mom and grandma.  Mom was overcharged $1 and I brought it to the clerk's attention.  She was frustrated and said "fine, here's your dollar."  I reminded her that the sales tax was 4% and she owed mom another $0.04.  That put the clerk over the edge, but grandma loved it.  Said I would never be pushed over when it comes to money.  :-)

DollarBill

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2014, 07:32:59 PM »
I think it was "a penny a day" example when I was about 18. It was from a solicitor to the Military and they offered investment opportunities and we got a prize for signing up. I passed but my girlfriend decided that it was a good idea. She got a 35mm camera. What they said made sense and it stuck with me for the long run. I wonder if it worked out for her? Thanks for the tip! 

tracylayton

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2014, 07:43:06 PM »
Without anybody's advice, I decided to start sending in 3 X the amount of my student loan payment back in the 1980's. They were paid off at age 25.

mxt0133

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #10 on: December 11, 2014, 08:28:18 PM »
Mine was in college, I was on a four year scholarship and signed up for a dual degree for Comp. Sci. and Applied math, all I needed was two more classes.  So I took some summer classes that were no covered under my scholarship but paid for with my part-time job and internships.  Then they had an accelerated Masters degree where two undergrad courses, 6 credits, would count towards your graduate degree, sing me up.  Thing is I loaded up on credits and with summer class, while working part-time, I only needed two classes my final semester.  But since I was in the Master's program already I signed up for 4 more graduate classes, paid for by my undergrad scholarship.  So I got half my Master's paid for with my undergrad scholarship, and then got the rest of my Master's paid for from my employer, which also helped me pay for part of my undergrad as I was an intern for 2.5 years.  They basically paid me to do my homework at work.

chuckaluck

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2014, 02:26:19 AM »
Mine occurred when I was about 8 years old.  I grew up in the 60s in a densely populated city just outside of Boston, MA.  In my neighborhood, there were 3 and 6 family tenements --- so there were always tons of folks of all ages walking around.  Once when riding my bike, I noticed that a kid about my age was selling lemonade for 5 cents a cup and with all the kids and adults around him he seemed like he was making a lot of money.  So I figured I would try doing something like this myself.  So I went home and looked for glasses, kool-aid, sugar, etc but we didn't have any.  So I decided I would sell pots, pans, and dishes.   That is, my mother's pots, pans, and dishes --- for a dime each! I set up a stand in front of our home and sold about 20 items before my mother (who had been shopping) found out.  I remember being so proud when I told her that I had made about 2.00 by working on my own, and very much surprised that she was so angry.  Yeah, good times!   

2ndTimer

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #12 on: December 12, 2014, 10:56:22 AM »
Don't know how old I was exactly but it was before kindergarten.  My parents had started a savings account for me when I was born and in those days they still gave out bankbooks.  My mom sat down with me and the bank book and explained that the numbers written in red were interest and that was money we didn't have to work for.

forummm

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #13 on: December 12, 2014, 11:00:22 AM »
Maybe I was born with it. Maybe it was growing up kind of poor. We never got much stuff. As a kid (maybe 7ish?) I came upon some bubble gum and since it doesn't go away when you chew it, I would save the big, chewed, wad for later on a shelf (so my brother wouldn't get to it). If I came across some new gum I would add it to the saved wad. Eventually my mom found out and made me toss it due to risk of getting sick (which I think is very low--that stuff is pretty inert and not going to grow lots of bacteria). Whenever we went to the grocery store I would always go looking for change under the vending machines, in the coin return slots, etc. I filled up a bank over the years. I also never spent anything. Even the $5 from grandma for my birthday.

I remember one time at my aunt's house I was working really hard to scrape out the last bits of mayonaise (or maybe peanut butter) from a jar and she couldn't understand why and told me to just throw it away and open the new bottle. We never wasted food, so it was just weird to me.

But maybe it's something about me, and not just how we were raised. My brother (<2 years apart) is totally different, wastes tons of money they don't have, etc. Even now, a different aunt chastised me last month for drinking water from their faucet instead of the bottled water they had available. But my brother buys bottled water for himself.

Kaspian

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #14 on: December 12, 2014, 11:08:43 AM »
It wasn't Mustachian, because I eventually spent it, but my parents were astounded that at a very young age I'd managed to squirrel away almost $40 of my measly $2 allowance.  I'd been saving money to buy a real (professional) snorkel and fin set because I was tired of how the kiddie masks leaked and how the rubber straps broke after only three or four uses.  Snorkel and fins from the toy section of a department store suck!

Lizzy B.

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #15 on: December 12, 2014, 11:17:10 AM »
Mine occurred when I was about 8 years old.  I grew up in the 60s in a densely populated city just outside of Boston, MA.  In my neighborhood, there were 3 and 6 family tenements --- so there were always tons of folks of all ages walking around.  Once when riding my bike, I noticed that a kid about my age was selling lemonade for 5 cents a cup and with all the kids and adults around him he seemed like he was making a lot of money.  So I figured I would try doing something like this myself.  So I went home and looked for glasses, kool-aid, sugar, etc but we didn't have any.  So I decided I would sell pots, pans, and dishes.   That is, my mother's pots, pans, and dishes --- for a dime each! I set up a stand in front of our home and sold about 20 items before my mother (who had been shopping) found out.  I remember being so proud when I told her that I had made about 2.00 by working on my own, and very much surprised that she was so angry.  Yeah, good times!   

Wow, that's awesome!  At $0.10 per pot, I'll bet you had a pretty brisk business! 

Less

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Re: Your very first mustachian thing
« Reply #16 on: December 14, 2014, 11:56:28 AM »
The most significant moment was my time at university. I worked hard over my summers and spent little during the term and as result left with an Engineering Degree, a zero bank balance, and zero debt. I didn't realize until about a year later how far ahead of the curve i had put myself, both in developing a 'save while your earning' mentality and in being able to build capital from day one.

Prior to university i saved to spend. I was onboard with delayed gratification but there was always a 'thing' that was my goal. The shift to a mindset of wanting less (and as a result more future options) has been a longer transition  over the last 3 years.