The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: theninthwall on March 18, 2024, 03:12:16 PM
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"The moment you convince yourself that your current life could not be improved and you are entitled to everything you now have, is the moment you become a helpless Consumer Sucka."
That's a quote from an old Mr Money Mustache article. I've been reading a lot of Reddit lately (God help me, I'm addicted) and I see a lot of threads saying how retirement is impossible, the economy is stacked against everyone etc - you know the type (I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of comments are bots or astroturfing). I also watch a few financial audit type channels and it's crazy common how people in bad financial situations are getting Doordash fast food or are stuck under enormous car loans.
One of the benefits in living in a consumer society is that income tends to be on the higher side, on the presumption that we will use it to consume. To me, the hack seems to be that if you disengage in mindless consumption you can pocket the benefit for early retirement, or whatever else you may want to use excess funds on.
But that only works if you take heed of the quote above. I think a large portion of people believe they are entitled to fast food. Because it has been marketed as a cheap luxury in the past, they see it as the lowest rung on the ladder of discretionary spending, and now that this situation is changing they are angry and looking for someone to blame. "What has the world come to if I can't afford a Big Mac?" But essentially they are paying servants to make their food for them. $10 a meal, twice a day (not unusual for many Americans) is $20, which is $140 a week which is $7280 a year, which over 30 years would be over $686,000 at 7% growth. And the same people will say they don't know how they will retire! I haven't even factored in inflation on the meal (nor have I factored in what they would alternatively eat, but this is just angry rant math so forgive me).
And that's just one example of the consumer mindset. Cars are a whole other minefield, with the total sticker price of no consideration versus the monthly payment.
I'm not actually sure what my point is, other than to suggest that where inflation is hitting it is more important than ever not to be a Consumer Sucka.
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I see a trend in popular media and even reddit where people think “FIRE” means living like a college student on rice and beans so you can retire at 30 to continue to live on rice and beans. The alternative is to YOLO with a Ford Raptor and monthly cruises. Lost along the way is simply living modestly below your means and quietly building wealth.
As you state, just socking away an extra few hundred a month would help many folks be able to retire well, possibly even early. Instead the default is that most folks seem to be chronically a little short each month, financing cars, buying take-out on credit cards, using buy-now-pay-later to get by and so forth. Those little shortages compound in the wrong direction and they find themselves buried in debt to the point where facepunches are inadequate and sound like out of touch advice.
My wife and I had a long discussion last night about life skills, and it was sobering to think how few folks understand things like the social security break points, what all the line items on a paystub mean, or how to estimate what your take home pay will look like. In that context it is amazing we don’t have even worse outcomes than we do.
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My wife and I had a long discussion last night about life skills, and it was sobering to think how few folks understand things like the social security break points, what all the line items on a paystub mean, or how to estimate what your take home pay will look like. In that context it is amazing we don’t have even worse outcomes than we do.
I consider myself reasonably financially literate and I don't understand that one!
To be fair, I was in graduate school without a W2 for a chunk of my 20s, so I haven't even qualified for social security yet. I'll figure it out before it's relevant to me, I'm sure.
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Instead the default is that most folks seem to be chronically a little short each month, financing cars, buying take-out on credit cards, using buy-now-pay-later to get by and so forth. Those little shortages compound in the wrong direction and they find themselves buried in debt to the point where facepunches are inadequate and sound like out of touch advice.
That's a really good point. Compounding is powerful, but it works in both directions. What creates a miracle retirement one way creates an inescapable debt nightmare the other. Both become more powerful with long term inputs.
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I am really drawn to the articles and discussion around relative wealth. The ones where I find out I am in the 60th percentile of net worth but middle income. Or the living wage calculator that says I need $4 more per hour to earn a livable wage without accounting for retirement savings. but I am somehow able to have a 30% savings rate on less than a livable wage because the calculator is based on what people spend not on what it is possible or even reasonable to spend.
There are some facepunches needed for sure. But I think the majority of them need to land on the excessively wealthy that choose to live paycheck to paycheck. A raise means a new car or a trip to an island. Or DoorDash.
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I’m not sure when the “facepunch” concept started on Internet forums but it’s hopelessly juvenile. So—you don’t like what someone says about their spending on the forum and your say something nasty hoping others will join you? Is this the fucking 3rd grade?
Regarding reckless spending and consumerism, a certain percentage of the population will engage in it and the rest will not. Better to focus on things you can actually change than keep repeating to anonymous strangers how much you love the groupthink.
Do we need A NEW AGE of facepunch? Uh boy…
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Ummm...there's a blog you might want to read. Or not. :):)
I’m not sure when the “facepunch” concept started on Internet forums but it’s hopelessly juvenile. So—you don’t like what someone says about their spending on the forum and your say something nasty hoping others will join you? Is this the fucking 3rd grade?
Regarding reckless spending and consumerism, a certain percentage of the population will engage in it and the rest will not. Better to focus on things you can actually change than keep repeating to anonymous strangers how much you love the groupthink.
Do we need A NEW AGE of facepunch? Uh boy…
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I’m not sure when the “facepunch” concept started on Internet forums but it’s hopelessly juvenile. So—you don’t like what someone says about their spending on the forum and your say something nasty hoping others will join you? Is this the fucking 3rd grade?
Regarding reckless spending and consumerism, a certain percentage of the population will engage in it and the rest will not. Better to focus on things you can actually change than keep repeating to anonymous strangers how much you love the groupthink.
Do we need A NEW AGE of facepunch? Uh boy…
It's just an observation man! :)
To clarify my thoughts, there's some financial content out there these days advising that small luxuries are something that don't matter in the context of getting to retirement (think Ramit Sethi, though I do enjoy watching his stuff). There's also more content I'm noticing that gives up on the idea of retirement because someone thinks being able to afford fast food is the starting point, not a luxury.
I'm simply saying that things once marketed as cheap luxuries have changed to become noticeably uncheap - but perhaps I didn't phrase that well.
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I was thinking yesterday that Universal Basic Income is already here. Previously, by that statement I meant that it had essentially been tested via Covid stimulus payments and it was a wild success: an economy that did not crash, people not on the streets, food still available, burgeoning industries (AI), etc.
Today, I mean that all of the automation that we now live with — and which will only increase, barring catastrophe — is a form of UBI for us all. The ability to never cook. The ability to spend hours of the day staring at screens. The ability to work remotely, shop remotely, socialize remotely… these are all a form of UBI allowing us to either maximize our savings and health, or fritter them away.
So yeah, hedonistic adaptation is real, it’s destroying the planet, and we need constant vigilance! Punch away!
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It does feel like there are way too many of these articles circulating these days. In addition, the amount of articles blaming one generation for the troubles of another has also seen a major uptick. The scary thing is that I notice that many people don't know how to think critically anymore, or they have lost interest in doing so.
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I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I wasn't listening, I was shopping for bike parts and home improvement supplies. :D
Even bikesnobnyc is throwing facepunches this morning. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/how-to-get-rid-of-bikes/
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I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I wasn't listening, I was shopping for bike parts and home improvement supplies. :D
Even bikesnobnyc is throwing facepunches this morning. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/how-to-get-rid-of-bikes/
He says the minimum number of bikes you need is 3. Not true because it depends on where you bike. My minimum is 5. I put most of my miles on a road bike. I mountain bike so got one of those. Touring with panniers? That’s #3. Ride low tide on the beach? Fat tire is #4. And an old roadie for the place in Florida. 5.
I suppose I could be a bit more frugal and use the fat tire as a mountain bike but I’ve gone soft and gotten used to front suspension. And I already double up with the tourer, using it as a general purpose hybrid around town, so enough’s enough.
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I, too, have grown weary of the "I make $100k and can't afford to live" posts. I spend less time on reddit because of the defeatist groupthink.
For example, a couple days ago the algorithm showed me this thread, in which the OP complains that his $225k income household can't afford a new patio.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1bf37ej/seemingly_accessible_middle_class_purchases_are/?share_id=6ONty6XOTwD8eGXeQQ8yO (https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1bf37ej/seemingly_accessible_middle_class_purchases_are/?share_id=6ONty6XOTwD8eGXeQQ8yO)
I didn't realize how deprived I was! My meager $64k paycheck certainly can't support such bare necessities such as a brand-new patio (built by others, obviously not DIY).
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Facepunches or not I think it's OK to admit that the MMM brand of financial prudence (and I mean from 10+ years ago, not the current.. whatever it is) is extremely niche. It will not become mainstream. We can joke about it, we can judge but the reality is that majority of population is not interested in this lifestyle.
That's OK. When arbitrage is discovered, it's usually arbitraged away by the masses.. except when it is really hard to do (and Starbucks tastes great!).
So enjoy the fruit of your labour. :)
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The whole point of the facepunch (for those of us in the know, I guess?!) was that you showed up to receive it. It’s meant to be a bracing critique of unthinking behavior in those ready for a challenge. It doesn’t sneak up on the unwary, where it’s unwanted, it is a response to a call for answers.
So I don’t know how that’s helpful in the Reddit doomer threads, because those people are going there to be validated in how hard they’ve got it, not hear solutions. Those pupils are not ready for the master to appear. Which may look pretty uniformly self-inflicted from the outside - it often is - but you also never know what’s going on that’s more personal than they want to put up on the internet; they’re likely to share the details that look the most like everyone else they know, because they’re looking to feel validated & “normal” about following the recipe for normalcy but remaining miserable, in a culture where the recipe for happiness is consumption but does not operate as advertised.
Now, if talking about this board, or better yet a subset of this board like the Gauntlet that people can opt into, I’m with you. I miss the fiery challenge to do better out of a call to celebrate what we can overcome & get that virtuous cycle of human agency chugging away along with the financial engine. It’s more satisfying not to find yourself at the far end of the Overton window.
But I would encourage de-toxing yourself from the poison drip of Reddit’s most miserable - what are you looking for there, what can you learn? A little dose of antimustachian shame & comedy can rally a group or an individual, but it’s like alcohol, it makes you feel better without meaningful improvement & adds a lot of empty calories to your life. Best consumed in moderation.
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He says the minimum number of bikes you need is 3. Not true because it depends on where you bike. My minimum is 5. I put most of my miles on a road bike. I mountain bike so got one of those. Touring with panniers? That’s #3. Ride low tide on the beach? Fat tire is #4. And an old roadie for the place in Florida. 5.
I suppose I could be a bit more frugal and use the fat tire as a mountain bike but I’ve gone soft and gotten used to front suspension. And I already double up with the tourer, using it as a general purpose hybrid around town, so enough’s enough.
I have five bikes too along with a totally ridiculous rationalization for each one, but you'll never catch me claiming riding on the beach at low tide is somehow a "need". :D
Edit: 6, I have 6 bikes. Too many to even count.
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I mean, we’re all guilty of overconsumption. But FI, for me, means I get to acquire my toys (bikes, outdoor gear, creative gear, whatever) and if by doing so I can still live my lifestyle and support my family while RE, then it’s OK.
Also, in my book it’s not the stuff like bikes and personal technology that are “bad”, it’s the BIG, HUGE stuff like giant houses and giant cars and giant EVs and international vacations that are marketed as NECESSARY for keeping up with the Joneses.
Of course we can all be wasteful and in general we should minimize that, whether it’s by not wasting food or energy, not irresponsibly discarding things instead of finding them a new home, and craving too many purchases of any sort in order to feel happy.
I do like how society has trended toward sharing and renting. Many times the itch for novelty can be scratched this way instead of by buying a new toy.
It’s also important to accept that desire for novelty is OK and part of what makes many of us tick. Sometimes when I had no money for extras, I would crave going to Home Depot but instead would begin gardening with whatever I had around (replanting, starting cuttings and seeds, finding and fixing free pots). Ironically, within those constraints I often would come up with more creative solutions.
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I have 2 bikes. My e-bike has fat tires and I LOVE riding on a trail that goes through a nearby marsh.
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I’m not sure when the “facepunch” concept started on Internet forums but it’s hopelessly juvenile. So—you don’t like what someone says about their spending on the forum and your say something nasty hoping others will join you? Is this the fucking 3rd grade?
Regarding reckless spending and consumerism, a certain percentage of the population will engage in it and the rest will not. Better to focus on things you can actually change than keep repeating to anonymous strangers how much you love the groupthink.
Do we need A NEW AGE of facepunch? Uh boy…
RE "Facepunch" - because saying "Providing accountability and perspective" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, perhaps?
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...My wife and I had a long discussion last night about life skills, and it was sobering to think how few folks understand things like the social security break points, what all the line items on a paystub mean, or how to estimate what your take home pay will look like. In that context it is amazing we don’t have even worse outcomes than we do.
Things like IQ and personality characteristics are highly heritable. Personality can be deliberately changed, but how is someone with low conscientiousness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness) going to 1) recognize that conscientiousness is a trait they are lacking that would make their life better, and then 2) put in the long, slow, disciplined work of cultivating more conscientiousness?
Half of people have below-average intelligence. Half of people have below-average conscientiousness. Those aren't necessarily the same people, so some intelligent people are disorganized under-achievers who never learn "adulting," and some conscientious people are not smart enough to point their careful, organized, discipline in an actually useful direction.
Expecting that more people would "get it" if only they were presented with the right information is wishful thinking. Lots of people are fundamentally incapable of holding down a well-paying job, living below their means, taking care of their own needs, and saving for their own retirement. Saying otherwise is a useful lie, in the sense that it gets people on the margin to succeed instead of fail. But at the extreme, there is a non-negligible number of people who just can't. I think the widespread questioning of this useful lie has had pretty toxic consequences, as seen on Reddit. Lots of people who can and should be taking care of their own needs are instead complaining about how it's impossible, because that has become a fashionable belief.
Rugged individualism doesn't work. Some people need to be carried. If the highest-functioning members of society are too individualistic to do any carrying, then we outsource the carrying to government through impersonal welfare programs. If we slash welfare programs because we expect those people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that's how we get more and more addicts in tents by the freeway ramp.
And if anything, the problem is getting worse as the attention economy actively degrades people's capacity for discipline and focused attention. Smart phones are increasing depression and anxiety, and reducing standardized test scores. Amongst the lucky minority born with the cognitive traits for achievement, there's an even smaller lucky minority who can resist the allure of infinite entertainment, optimized to keep people addicted. On the margin, the attention economy is turning people who could have been self-sufficient into social media zombies who don't have the attention span or the discipline to learn valuable skills that would get them better employment.
So yes, it is amazing that we don't have even worse outcomes than we do. I always try to remember, humanity is just "apes in sweaters." The fact that we have a functioning society at all, with democracy and science and medicine and plumbing and cities and advanced technology... it's amazing.
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Otherwise, agreed with @Fru-Gal, so much of "winning" financially is in a handful of big decisions, not in the little $5/day decisions. Housing, transportation, travel. As long as people keep driving big fancy cars, living in the biggest fanciest houses they can afford, and thinking a yearly international vacation is an ordinary middle class expense, they are going to be financially precarious.
Also agree with @eyesonthehorizon, Reddit is a toxic cesspool of complainy-pants nonsense, and getting the hell away from it has done wonders for me.
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I also watch a few financial audit type channels and it's crazy common how people in bad financial situations are getting Doordash fast food or are stuck under enormous car loans.
I suspect that what drives a lot of the overconsumption we see right now among people who really can't afford it - e.g. $1000+ car payments, $1000+ luxury handbags, $2000+ bicycle wheelsets, whatever - is the housing market. The final, definitive sign of having made it in American society is still a big house in a nice neighborhood that's somewhat exclusive. When you're priced out of that sign of success, and the daily pat on the back it provides, but you still have money, you consume in other ways that give you some reminder that you've kinda, sorta made it.
I suspect nothing in American consumption will be sorted out until we either massively increase the supply of housing that people find desirable, or change how we think about the relationship of houses to signaling success. Until then, we're just going to watch people YOLO themselves into debt and frustration.
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I also grow tired of the defeatist attitude toward money, but-- I don't know that facepunches are the way forward.
If I ask myself, "What supports me making better financial choices?" the answer is definitely not someone who is doing much, much better than I am saying, "You dumbass, stop buying taquitos! Go get a better job!"
For me, what works better is:
1. Hope for the future (seeing that other people like me have managed to secure their future).
2. Encouragement to add new ways of saving or making money to my money-saving toolbox.
MMM posts have always been a mix of facepunching, modeling, and encouragement. I think he over-estimated the relative importance of the facepunch and under-estimated the impact of simply modeling what he did in detail.
People make better decisions when they know how, and when they feel like they can. There are times when pressure/facepunching is effective, but in my experience, those are usually only motivating for people who already have a strong sense of self-worth and their own capability. People who are already deeply discouraged and pessimistic do not respond well to face-punches.
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I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I wasn't listening, I was shopping for bike parts and home improvement supplies. :D
Even bikesnobnyc is throwing facepunches this morning. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/how-to-get-rid-of-bikes/
He says the minimum number of bikes you need is 3. Not true because it depends on where you bike. My minimum is 5. I put most of my miles on a road bike. I mountain bike so got one of those. Touring with panniers? That’s #3. Ride low tide on the beach? Fat tire is #4. And an old roadie for the place in Florida. 5.
I suppose I could be a bit more frugal and use the fat tire as a mountain bike but I’ve gone soft and gotten used to front suspension. And I already double up with the tourer, using it as a general purpose hybrid around town, so enough’s enough.
The other day when I rode down to the grocery store I saw a full suspension E-fatbike with racks. That dude was covering all the bases.
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I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I wasn't listening, I was shopping for bike parts and home improvement supplies. :D
Even bikesnobnyc is throwing facepunches this morning. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/how-to-get-rid-of-bikes/
He says the minimum number of bikes you need is 3. Not true because it depends on where you bike. My minimum is 5. I put most of my miles on a road bike. I mountain bike so got one of those. Touring with panniers? That’s #3. Ride low tide on the beach? Fat tire is #4. And an old roadie for the place in Florida. 5.
I suppose I could be a bit more frugal and use the fat tire as a mountain bike but I’ve gone soft and gotten used to front suspension. And I already double up with the tourer, using it as a general purpose hybrid around town, so enough’s enough.
Looks like an opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone here ;)
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Let’s remember that, from what I recall, in the blog MMM never delivered a facepunch to an individual.
He very carefully problem-solved a number of things, from financial scarcity and OMY and “hair on fire” debt emergencies to how to become a master bike commuter by navigating like a cyclist instead a car driver and how to install solar panels yourself.
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IIRC, the origin of "facepunch" was when people would confess their non-ideal financial situation and acknowledge they deserved a facepunch for getting into a mess.
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https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/15/mustache-on-the-move-the-evil-mister-money/
Maybe the origin...
While many consider the "facepunch" to be apocryphal, that and other phrases like complainy-pants, etc were something that drew people to the blog who were both high on the personal accountability scale, and also willing to laugh at themselves- and not take things too seriously.
As time went on, things mellowed- people complained about the MMM persona as if it was the PA from real life. People participate in the Forums who never read or cared for the blog.
I think the PA from 15 years ago said what he had to say, and for anyone to show up now and judge the context of it is silly, since it's the reason they found the blog and the forum in the first place.
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Half of people have below-average intelligence.
I know these seems pedantic, but given that IQ tests* are standardized norm-referenced assessments, median is a poor choice for defining the average. Given the normal distribution, it is more reasonable to say that truly average intelligence lies in the middle of the distribution of scores. You could all the middle everything from the 25-75 percentiles (with the bottom 25% being below average and the top 25% being above average) or you could use the standard deviation as a cutoff, which would put all scores between 85-115 as average, making for about 68% of the population (with the remaining 32% evenly split between above and below average). I attached some handy dandy charts for reference.
*formal IQ tests such as the Stanford-Binet, Wechsler, Woodcock-Johnson, etc. Not random crap on Facebook or app commercials.
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Otherwise, agreed with @Fru-Gal, so much of "winning" financially is in a handful of big decisions, not in the little $5/day decisions. Housing, transportation, travel. As long as people keep driving big fancy cars, living in the biggest fanciest houses they can afford, and thinking a yearly international vacation is an ordinary middle class expense, they are going to be financially precarious.
It certainly helps to avoid making big spending mistakes. But the appropriate level of expenses to manage a life is always contingent on means.
Better to put the real energy in your life into generating more income than pinching pennies.
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I suspect that what drives a lot of the overconsumption we see right now among people who really can't afford it - e.g. $1000+ car payments, $1000+ luxury handbags, $2000+ bicycle wheelsets, whatever - is the housing market. The final, definitive sign of having made it in American society is still a big house in a nice neighborhood that's somewhat exclusive. When you're priced out of that sign of success, and the daily pat on the back it provides, but you still have money, you consume in other ways that give you some reminder that you've kinda, sorta made it.
I suspect nothing in American consumption will be sorted out until we either massively increase the supply of housing that people find desirable, or change how we think about the relationship of houses to signaling success. Until then, we're just going to watch people YOLO themselves into debt and frustration.
I suspect this is spot on. If nothing else it’s the reason for fancy trucks costing more than trailer homes - a ”proof” of “success” made portable.
Every time I see someone insist that it’s about the big tickets, not the nickel & dime (aka $5 & $10 daily expenses), I can’t help but think of my ex-coworkers. I have a similar or fancier house to many of them, but skipping an extra $1500 per month in consumable luxuries forgotten by next payday means they’re still waking up to dread that office when I don’t have to. (That’s not a pleasant thought; I wish they’d have tasted the proverbial water I led them to.) It’s also proof that the important thing isn’t any specific optimization, so much as just optimizing away what isn’t a source of joy, which is likely 95% stuff someone had to advertise to you. Housing to me - location & character of the environment - really is desirable to me & worth prioritizing, whereas weekly blowouts, golf games, happy hour, shopping excursions, & sushi dinners weren’t.
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While many consider the "facepunch" to be apocryphal, that and other phrases like complainy-pants, etc were something that drew people to the blog who were both high on the personal accountability scale, and also willing to laugh at themselves- and not take things too seriously.
As time went on, things mellowed- people complained about the MMM persona as if it was the PA from real life. People participate in the Forums who never read or cared for the blog.
I think the PA from 15 years ago said what he had to say, and for anyone to show up now and judge the context of it is silly, since it's the reason they found the blog and the forum in the first place.
100%. The self-deprecating laugh at this existential joke, being after all silly primates in sweaters lusting over the latest techno-banana, had a very humanist ring to it from the start. I know a lot of people don’t find it resonates for them, which is fine, but it was what made this website a gathering point! As did a belief that life was a happy animal experience of learning & social connections, rather than a project of excavating the biggest pile of raw materials a high paycheck can afford before it & you both end up deposited back in the ground. More of that humanism & environmental thinking is only for the good, I think, as long as it’s true to the gentle spiritedness behind the faux bombast & deployed specifically at the receptive.
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I’m not sure when the “facepunch” concept started on Internet forums but it’s hopelessly juvenile.
Completely agree. This is the internet, let's be real nobody is going to facepunch anyone. You might as well tell us you're going to hire an assassin to shoot yourself.
I could have retired in 2020 on $1.0M and lived on $40,000 but I didn't want to.
I waited 4 years longer and now I have $1.6M and am very happy to live on $64,000. Next Friday my full-time work ceases permanently (as far as I can tell)
People that want to live a more extravagant lifestyle are free to save us more.
Just because the author of this website is happy to run around on a bike to save the planet and a few bucks doesn't mean I am.
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Half of people have below-average intelligence.
I know these seems pedantic, but given that IQ tests* are standardized norm-referenced assessments, median is a poor choice for defining the average. Given the normal distribution, it is more reasonable to say that truly average intelligence lies in the middle of the distribution of scores.
Let's be even more pedantic shall we? For the normal distribution, the mean and the median are always the SAME VALUE.
An IQ of 95 is not average; it is slightly below the average or mean of as your chart suggests, then the proper term for that range already exists: "Interquartile"
Indeed, half of people have below-average intelligence.
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Why are we talking about intelligence? You don't need to be particularly smart to become FI or live a lifestyle that will lead to FIRE. It's not like getting an A in differential equations or achieving a 2000 chess rating or something. You just have to delay gratification and/or seek pleasure in things that don't involve ridiculous levels of consumption.
I mean, I've explained it to our 9 and 11 year olds (who are admittedly pretty smart, but still kids) and they understand it perfectly. My 4 year old, not so much - she'd spend all our money on Frozen themed merchandise in a hot second if she had the power to.
Regardless, while it might feel good to pat ourselves on the back because we FIRE people are "smarter" than the average bear, it's really pretty pointless. This isn't a zero sum game, and we'd all benefit from a less wasteful and consumerist society. Calling the people who are the consumers dumb is not going to change any minds.
That said, if you're on this forum, you are absolutely a facepunch candidate. I've taken a few to the schnoz here myself over the years and they were all good for me.
-W
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My wife and I had a long discussion last night about life skills, and it was sobering to think how few folks understand things like the social security break points, what all the line items on a paystub mean, or how to estimate what your take home pay will look like. In that context it is amazing we don’t have even worse outcomes than we do.
I consider myself reasonably financially literate and I don't understand that one!
To be fair, I was in graduate school without a W2 for a chunk of my 20s, so I haven't even qualified for social security yet. I'll figure it out before it's relevant to me, I'm sure.
I listened to a podcast on the break down of social security payout and I thought it was pretty interesting. It might have been the bigger pockets money podcast.
The main "take-away" that I got from it was that social security is another form of marginal taxes. For people that make less money, they get a higher percentage of money refunded back to them at retirement. For people that make more money, they get less of a percentage refunded back to them during retirement.
Let's say person A averaged 50K/year for 35 years and their benefit was $2500/month. Then you have person B who averaged 100K/year for 35 years. Their benefit is not going to be exactly double of person A, even though their contributions were exactly double. Their benefit is likely to be the in $4,000/month range.
I just made up some numbers when it comes to actual payouts. I was trying to show how higher income people get less of a payout as a percentage of their contributions. If anyone wants to actually crunch the numbers on real calculated payouts, go for it.
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I see a neighbour.. he cant be more than 25, works in the food service industry.. I mean serving customers.
He just bought a Camaro... its a few years old, but its got 450 break horsepower. I know this because, it was featured on a BBC TV show.
Maybe he got a deal on it ...its gotta be 50K in price.
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Why are we talking about intelligence? You don't need to be particularly smart to become FI or live a lifestyle that will lead to FIRE. It's not like getting an A in differential equations or achieving a 2000 chess rating or something. You just have to delay gratification and/or seek pleasure in things that don't involve ridiculous levels of consumption.
I mean, I've explained it to our 9 and 11 year olds (who are admittedly pretty smart, but still kids) and they understand it perfectly. My 4 year old, not so much - she'd spend all our money on Frozen themed merchandise in a hot second if she had the power to.
Regardless, while it might feel good to pat ourselves on the back because we FIRE people are "smarter" than the average bear, it's really pretty pointless. This isn't a zero sum game, and we'd all benefit from a less wasteful and consumerist society. Calling the people who are the consumers dumb is not going to change any minds.
That said, if you're on this forum, you are absolutely a facepunch candidate. I've taken a few to the schnoz here myself over the years and they were all good for me.
-W
When I originally brought it up it was in conjunction with conscientiousness. A high-conscientiousness person without remarkable intelligence can certainly FIRE. A highly intelligent person with low conscientiousness would struggle to FIRE. I think conscientiousness is more mutable than intelligence, and tends to go up with age, hence why many people spend many years not planning for the future, and then it clicks later.
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Why are we talking about intelligence? You don't need to be particularly smart to become FI or live a lifestyle that will lead to FIRE. It's not like getting an A in differential equations or achieving a 2000 chess rating or something. You just have to delay gratification and/or seek pleasure in things that don't involve ridiculous levels of consumption.
IDK, to me that's kind of like saying that obese people "just" need to eat less and exercise more. If it was actually that easy, we wouldn't have a population that was like 2/3 overweight. People who tend to be naturally good at something often underestimate how hard that thing is for others; it just seems normal, so why wouldn't everyone be able to do that, right? I make a shit-ton of money because I find figuring out regulations to be like a puzzle, something I can't put down until it all makes sense. Other people can't do that, or if they could, they'd be fucking miserable at it. At the same time, I suck at eating healthy food and getting to the gym regularly; my natural inclination is to curl up with a book and some chocolate, so maintaining a normal weight is much harder for me than for many others.
I do agree it's not entirely about intelligence -- because intelligence is not enough. You have to be mentally and physically capable of getting and keeping a job. If you have kids or other dependents, they need to be healthy enough to allow you to keep a job. You need reliable transportation to get to that job. You need enough education to understand why and how saving is important and the best way to do that -- which is not a bank account that comes with a ton of fees that drain those least able to afford them. You need discipline to say no to temptation probably 100 times every day, and the ability to delay gratification to understand that long-term financial security is more important than those 100 other temptations. Etc. etc. etc.
One study that has stuck with me was the re-thinking of the marshmallow test. When you are poor, it is actually far more logical to eat the marshmallow in front of you than to await the promise of a second that may well never arrive, or may be taken from you before you have a chance to eat it. It's a very real poverty mindset. It's why teen pregnancy has been such a significant issue for the poor for decades. For most teenagers, it takes effort not to get pregnant -- saying no, obtaining and using reliable birth control, etc. If you see a better future out there for you, you're much more likely to put in the work and forego instant gratification to obtain that future. But if you don't see a better future, why bother? Might as well create that little family right now and have someone to love you.
Do I get frustrated when I read about people making 6 figures and whining about how they can't afford the life they think they're entitled to? Absolutely. But people buy fancy cars because they don't think they can ever afford a home; it's entirely illogical to save for something that you don't think you will ever be able to afford. People put in new patios or send their kids to fancy colleges because they saw their parents do it, and when they can't afford what their parents did, even after doing everything "right," they feel like they will never get ahead, like the deck is stacked against them. They don't see all the extra luxuries around them that their parents didn't have, because those luxuries are already in the baseline (I guarantee those parents with the patio didn't have $1,000 phones and $300/mo. internet/phone/cable plans).
And it is hard for the younger generations. Sure, I get super annoyed when they whine about their budget while ordering Door Dash. I see my daughter making $80K right out of college and wonder wtf she possibly has to complain about. At the same time, her apartment is $2K/mo., she needs her car to get to/from work, and she has almost no savings and is entirely dependent on a job that is very difficult and demanding and could fire her any day. She is legitimately vulnerable in a way I have not been for years. So she sees me being stable and surrounded by money and owning a home and so thinks it's so much harder for her; I compare her to my own first-job experience and that of my friends and think, damn, she's got it good.
Finally, at a very fundamental level, we are all Sneetches. It is absolutely normal for people to want to fit in with their surroundings and obtain/maintain what feels like a decent social status. We're the weirdos here, the ones who don't give much of a fuck about what other people think -- and even we visit this forum for our own social support system.
Facepunches are awesome here; Lord knows I deserve a mess of them. But I also signed up for that. People like the guy in the article didn't. A facepunch is just going to convince him that we don't know what we're talking about and can't possibly understand his struggles and choices. (This is why I stopped reading the Antimustachian Hall of Fame threads, because it just felt like we're throwing our shoulders out patting ourselves on the back for being so superior to the common riff-raff). If that guy is to get that patio, he's going to need someone that he believes actually empathizes with him and gets where he's coming from, so that he can then start to question his assumptions and understand the real tradeoffs he is making in his life that prevent him from getting what he says he wants -- or, even better, understand that he doesn't really want that thing as much as he thinks he does.
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Facepunches are awesome here; Lord knows I deserve a mess of them. But I also signed up for that. People like the guy in the article didn't. A facepunch is just going to convince him that we don't know what we're talking about and can't possibly understand his struggles and choices. (This is why I stopped reading the Antimustachian Hall of Fame threads, because it just felt like we're throwing our shoulders out patting ourselves on the back for being so superior to the common riff-raff). If that guy is to get that patio, he's going to need someone that he believes actually empathizes with him and gets where he's coming from, so that he can then start to question his assumptions and understand the real tradeoffs he is making in his life that prevent him from getting what he says he wants -- or, even better, understand that he doesn't really want that thing as much as he thinks he does.
I think consent and context is the core of it. These forums have a surprisingly positive culture of facepunching - a tendency to be rough and tumble while also strongly caring about the success and choices of members. I've seen case studies which commit to tithing, or expensive houses, or caring for relatives, or many other things that are expensive but also understood to be 'priceless'. These choices might be questioned, but we're okay at not buying into a one true path mentality most of the time.
If the main ask of the thread is "this forum should move back to the face punchy roots, because I feel like I'm slipping into consumerist sucka habits" ... I might agree. As my wealth has grown (admittedly to a tiny shadow of some here), I've gotten much less frugal. I have other priorities and it's hard to notice an extra meal out or a lazy choice.
If the main ask of the thread is "society should be more face punchy" ... I think that's trickier. By and large we might all be healthier if we made different consumer choices, but lives are hard and busy, and it's incredibly difficult to shift the needle on an entire society. Buying less/having conversations/supporting good policy/raising happy kids all seem like better ways to pursue a less consumerist and more sustainable world then doubling down of face punches to people who haven't consented to our weird little world and its nuances.
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My wife and I had a long discussion last night about life skills, and it was sobering to think how few folks understand things like the social security break points, what all the line items on a paystub mean, or how to estimate what your take home pay will look like. In that context it is amazing we don’t have even worse outcomes than we do.
I consider myself reasonably financially literate and I don't understand that one!
To be fair, I was in graduate school without a W2 for a chunk of my 20s, so I haven't even qualified for social security yet. I'll figure it out before it's relevant to me, I'm sure.
I listened to a podcast on the break down of social security payout and I thought it was pretty interesting. It might have been the bigger pockets money podcast.
The main "take-away" that I got from it was that social security is another form of marginal taxes. For people that make less money, they get a higher percentage of money refunded back to them at retirement. For people that make more money, they get less of a percentage refunded back to them during retirement.
Let's say person A averaged 50K/year for 35 years and their benefit was $2500/month. Then you have person B who averaged 100K/year for 35 years. Their benefit is not going to be exactly double of person A, even though their contributions were exactly double. Their benefit is likely to be the in $4,000/month range.
I just made up some numbers when it comes to actual payouts. I was trying to show how higher income people get less of a payout as a percentage of their contributions. If anyone wants to actually crunch the numbers on real calculated payouts, go for it.
This is overlooking the social security tax cap - once you make (in 2024) $168.6k, you stop paying in altogether. So there’s an inflection point to your earnings vs the payout on the higher end too. Considering that the objective is to prevent your society from a massive population in stick-‘em-up desperation, the ultimate payout is pretty darn cheap if you were a high earner; the middle class pays in most.
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Yes, we probably do need a new age of facepunching every so often. My facepunch recently was that my company started mandating RTO when I've been WFH for 15 years or so and now live 50 miles from the office. It was an excellent wakeup call for me to examine my fixed costs which I had not done for some time, and there was a LOT of fat to be trimmed. A few months later, I am much leaner and boggle at the money I was wasting. Now back on track and actually very thankful in some ways for the wake up call. Most of us need that every couple of years or so.
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If the main ask of the thread is "society should be more face punchy" ...
This is undeniably a bit of a tangent, but there’s an argument to be made here, in a wider sense than just personal finance.
I just read a little essay about audiences at South x Southwest booing during a panel about AI, and the top rated comment was something about “we need to bring back booing.” If the answer to everything is polite applause, there’s no functioning feedback mechanism. As someone else put it above, “we’re all sneetches.” Public shaming works, but our current post-modern hyper-individualism says that all choices are valid and it’s not anyone’s place to police anyone else’s choices.
There was another essay that made the rounds at some point called something like “In Defense of Karens,” which largely said we all benefit from people who will tell others in public to stop behaving anti-socially. When everyone sits on the train where some asshole plays their music out loud or lights up a joint, and no one says anything, public trust and social cohesion are degraded.
Money is arguably a more touchy subject, but the pro-social argument of “you are expected to secure your own retirement so that someone else doesn’t have to carry you” is arguably much the same thing as “don’t play your music out loud on the bus,” or “if you waste the audience’s time with crap, they will boo.”
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One of the benefits in living in a consumer society is that income tends to be on the higher side, on the presumption that we will use it to consume. To me, the hack seems to be that if you disengage in mindless consumption you can pocket the benefit for early retirement, or whatever else you may want to use excess funds on.
Here's what worked for me and my wife:
We moved to Canada when we were 20&21 in 2010, being born and raised in small provincial cities in Russia.
So, a lot of things here seem pretty luxurious for us: huge houses, multiple cars per family, eating out as a source of food not as a special event.
Especially eating outs, the first time I was in a restaurant in my life I was 16-17. I still feel really privileged when I have tens of people working just so I have something to eat, even after 14 years in Canada.
You can imagine that our views of what is a prosperous life combined with Canadian salaries made saving big amounts of money pretty simple: small home, 1 car, rare eating out.
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I always thought face punching was suppose to be self-inflicted. Like a "DOH!" moment of realizing you are being a consumer sucker and could get the same results or better if you did it differently. Seems MMM mentioned that in his blog somewhere years ago. I lime being called out on my behavior - which admittedly is pretty damn Original MMM - as I see it as a wake up call to recognize there might 've a better way.
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I always thought face punching was suppose to be self-inflicted. Like a "DOH!" moment of realizing you are being a consumer sucker and could get the same results or better if you did it differently. Seems MMM mentioned that in his blog somewhere years ago. I lime being called out on my behavior - which admittedly is pretty damn Original MMM - as I see it as a wake up call to recognize there might 've a better way.
I never quite conceptualized it this way but that’s a better way of putting it. I always experienced facepunches on the forum in the early days as what southerners would call “come-to-Jesus” moments, most recently being indirectly called out at least a year & a half ago for considering letting someone install solar for me at an eyewatering price. I did have a baked-in waiting period on my own decision, so I can’t quite claim this single-handedly saved me from a mid-five-figure commitment, but it did function as an outside reminder of the limitations of my own view & expectations of normal at a time I was feeling very temporarily able to spend more than usual. Not everyone saw that for the kind, concerned eye to wise use of resources that I reflect on it being, though, iirc.
So yes, the actual facepunch is self-administered, the function of the facepunching circle is more to question if it might be time for one. Simply knowing that others view something differently can invoke a “person high on the self-accountability scale” to re-examine their own thinking, with no need to leap to feeling judged. My absolute sentiment to the counterpart in such a discussion is deep gratitude because everywhere else in my life I will only find salesmen & yes-men. The most positive, supportive, loving people in my life all want me to have nice things ... & generally lack the financial skills to comprehend the trade offs involved.
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I feel like we've just moved one generation from MMM. It has led, as is to be expected, to a shift in rhetoric.
The most common argument I now see around FIRE forums is that if you are 20, FIRE is now impossible, because it's so much harder than it was twenty years ago. I won't lie and say it doesn't frustrate me when folks across all of recorded history have persistently acted like they are in the most difficult generation no matter what generation they are in. In my experience, I tend to find most people look for whatever external justification they can find to describe their plight, and how it could never possibly have any causal relationship to any of the choices they make or don't make.
For folks ten years older or ten years younger than Pete, advice (and the invite to facepunch oneself) was likely perceived as if it were coming from a peer, or someone with whom they could identify to some degree. Now whenever MMM says anything, all the comments are about how life is so much harder now and that his advice is essentially irrelevant to those much younger than he is.
I, personally, was drawn to MMM for the personal accountability (which was how I always interpreted the face punch). I still find a lot of good discussion in FIRE threads, but the trend has definitely seemingly shifted from pointing the finger of accountability in one's own direction to outwardly at literally anyone else.
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I always thought facepunching originated here: The Evil Mister Money (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/15/mustache-on-the-move-the-evil-mister-money/)
By this definition, a facepunch is a well-intended shock to bring someone to their senses before they make an expensive and needless error.
I might not thank you immediately as I staunch the bloodflow and return to my senses (LOL) but maybe I will in a few days when I get my bank statement, and maybe a life-changing realisation will be had.
Long live the Mustachian facepunch !
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the trend has definitely seemingly shifted from pointing the finger of accountability in one's own direction to outwardly at literally anyone else.
Eh, this has always been the case. Which, of course, is why we needed MMM in the first place.
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure. I can’t really blame people for not wanting to sign on for that.
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And it is hard for the younger generations.
For some reason, older generations seem to have dug in hard on any recognition that the young might have it tougher than they did. Or really admitting that it's possible for any generation to have it tougher than the one before. We seem to be really attached to this narrative of endless progress, even in the face of conflicting evidence.
Perhaps one reason we need to still teach kids history beyond everything always getting better for everyone is to accept that lots and lots of generations had it worse than their parents. Things don't always get easier and better. Sometimes they get harder and worse.
If we weren't stuck in debates over generational difficulty, perhaps we could turn our attention toward the productive questions of how to take charge of your life as best you can, and maximize your own efficacy even under nonideal circumstances.
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Generational comparison has been weaponized as fifth column rhetoric and commoditized as clickbait. I am so sick of the STUPID labels someone invented for the generations. This, like all division disguised as observation, is based on real fractures in society (gender, ethnicity, age, wealth, geography) but then exacerbated.
It’s like the meme says, “they want you focused on a culture war to keep you from fighting a class war.” But further than that, microfocusing on those labels (which I won’t deign to use) leads to absurd stereotyping and upset. The media is like a narcissistic family member or friend, always keeping you on your toes and finding new ways to upset you.
The milestones of life (thanks, Facebook, for enticing us to share them and selling them to data markets), are worthy of contemplation. But this relentless comparison, outside of say academic study, is pointless.
Is it hard to be a 20-year-old trying to live on their own in a VHCOL area? Is it hard to be a recently paroled felon trying to get a job at 40? Is it hard negotiating retirement with massive debt and piddling social security payments due to lack of foresight or opportunity? Sure, all of these things are hard.
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I see a neighbour.. he cant be more than 25, works in the food service industry.. I mean serving customers.
He just bought a Camaro... its a few years old, but its got 450 break horsepower. I know this because, it was featured on a BBC TV show.
Maybe he got a deal on it ...its gotta be 50K in price.
Are we talking $50k US? If so, 2020 Camaro Coupe with the SS package (455hp V8) in average shape goes for mid-30K from a dealer, less from a private party. Go back to a 2018 (same engine and similar body style) and it's in the mid-20k range. (Not that I'm condoning anyone dropping that much on a toy)
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My FIRE model is absolutely doable for a 20 year old today. The barrier to entry for my job is almost nonexistent, definitely no education required, and my company hires 20 year olds regularly to these types of roles, so absolutely they could get my job in a heartbeat and be earning my income. People move into and out of my (cheap) apartment complex every month, and there are other options in a similar price range as well (i.e. I don't live in the only cheap apartment in the city). Definitely every frugal thing I do is available to whoever wants to do it. And there's no minimum age to open an investment account at my brokerage. So yeah, let's have less excuses and more facepunching.
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure. I can’t really blame people for not wanting to sign on for that.
Bingo.
I literally spend my days unraveling social conditioning. It is not fucking easy.
But I have to say, I am a HUGE fan of a well executed facepunch.
People say that MMM is a persona and Pete is not that abrasive IRL. Well I'm the opposite. Malcat is a fairly gentle persona, but IRL Mal sounds almost exactly like MMM.
Facepunching is a huge part of my work in helping people break out of unhealthy behaviours. I use shocking language and personal insults regularly. It's not at all unusual for someone seeking my help to hear me call their behaviour "dumbfuck stupid."
And my patients love me for it. Why? Because it's not from a place of cruelty, it's from a place of deeply caring and understanding.
You almost cannot effectively challenge deeply ingrained, toxic social constructs without fairly aggressive, existentialist, absurdist humour.
It is frankly absurd that people make themselves poor to appear rich, and that to be rich, most of us have to appear poor. The deeper meaning of the above statement gets profoundly into issues of self worth, understanding of self in the world and in relation to others, and really, existential angst shit like sense of purpose and meaning of life and happiness.
If I want to get rich to buy all of the stuff but the only way to get rich is to not buy all of the stuff then what is the real meaning of being rich?
Life is filled with absurdist paradoxes, and sometimes you need a bit of bombastic intensity to pull someone out of the cyclical patterns of thinking that are holding them in self-destructive behaviours.
So I yell and swear at people, and they respond shockingly well.
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I'm fine with people facepunching so long as they are fine with me facepunching them back for facepunching me.
It's all the non-facepunchers that I'm scared of. We need a different section of the forum to put all the non-facepunchers in to.
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I am so sick of the STUPID labels someone invented for the generations. This, like all division disguised as observation, is based on real fractures in society (gender, ethnicity, age, wealth, geography) but then exacerbated.
It’s like the meme says, “they want you focused on a culture war to keep you from fighting a class war.” But further than that, microfocusing on those labels (which I won’t deign to use) leads to absurd stereotyping and upset.
I agree with this. And yet I do think these labels can sometimes be helpful. My mom's a Boomer, and everything was all about how great she and her compatriots were, because of the power of their sheer numbers. Nothing I could ever do could match up -- like, when I talked about a campus protest against Apartheid, she'd start reminiscing about her student days, and soon we were talking about how her generation stopped an actual war. She didn't even realize how belittling that kind of thing could be, and when I pointed it out, she'd get upset, because of course that wasn't what she meant -- and then suddenly, my being upset once again became all about her. So I ended up learning to just drop an ironic comment and move on.
The hardest part was not being able to complain about anything. I mean, if I started to talk about the stress of the arms race with the USSR and knowing that there were nukes pointing at us, she'd start in on the Cuban Missile Crisis and literally not knowing if she'd wake up the next morning. To me, it wasn't about who had it harder -- it was wanting to be able to talk to someone who would acknowledge that, yes, the stuff I was dealing with was actually hard, full stop. The "-er" was irrelevant.
So when the whole GenX label came about, and I began to realize that it wasn't just me, and in fact there was a whole giant other pile of people who felt like I did and had developed some of the same personality traits and reactions as I had, it was really, really affirming.
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I am so sick of the STUPID labels someone invented for the generations. This, like all division disguised as observation, is based on real fractures in society (gender, ethnicity, age, wealth, geography) but then exacerbated.
It’s like the meme says, “they want you focused on a culture war to keep you from fighting a class war.” But further than that, microfocusing on those labels (which I won’t deign to use) leads to absurd stereotyping and upset.
I agree with this. And yet I do think these labels can sometimes be helpful. My mom's a Boomer, and everything was all about how great she and her compatriots were, because of the power of their sheer numbers. Nothing I could ever do could match up -- like, when I talked about a campus protest against Apartheid, she'd start reminiscing about her student days, and soon we were talking about how her generation stopped an actual war. She didn't even realize how belittling that kind of thing could be, and when I pointed it out, she'd get upset, because of course that wasn't what she meant -- and then suddenly, my being upset once again became all about her. So I ended up learning to just drop an ironic comment and move on.
The hardest part was not being able to complain about anything. I mean, if I started to talk about the stress of the arms race with the USSR and knowing that there were nukes pointing at us, she'd start in on the Cuban Missile Crisis and literally not knowing if she'd wake up the next morning. To me, it wasn't about who had it harder -- it was wanting to be able to talk to someone who would acknowledge that, yes, the stuff I was dealing with was actually hard, full stop. The "-er" was irrelevant.
So when the whole GenX label came about, and I began to realize that it wasn't just me, and in fact there was a whole giant other pile of people who felt like I did and had developed some of the same personality traits and reactions as I had, it was really, really affirming.
I think it's more likely that these labels mostly just encourage confirmation bias concerning the (supposed) stereotypical characteristics of each generation.
What % of people born 1946-1964 became self-centred parents, I wonder ? And how does that compare with those born in other fairly arbitrary time periods ?
Some old people think they're fundamentally different to (usually better than) young people, and some young people think they're fundamentally different to (usually better than) old people. 'Twas ever thus.
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I’m pretty sure life, and especially starting out in life has never been easy. It wasn’t easy to be young in the Great Depression or during WWII or for the Boomers or the GenXers or the Millennials… life has a lot of challenges and you learn as you go along.
No generation should think they are too special in that regard.
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It's interesting to revisit some of MMM's classic example, say his hypothetical two teachers: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/17/the-race-to-retirement-revisited/
Here in California the median schoolteacher salary is about $88k, doubling that for a household income of $176k.
The median house in this state is $860k (!), making for a total mortgage payment of $86k per year.
MMM's example 24k annual cost of living, adjusted for inflation, becomes $44k.
So total expenses is $130k, which is approximately their entire income after taxes. That doesn't include childcare or school expenses.
Yup, selling FIRE is a bit more challenging now.
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It's interesting to revisit some of MMM's classic example, say his hypothetical two teachers: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/17/the-race-to-retirement-revisited/
Here in California the median schoolteacher salary is about $88k, doubling that for a household income of $176k.
The median house in this state is $860k (!), making for a total mortgage payment of $86k per year.
MMM's example 24k annual cost of living, adjusted for inflation, becomes $44k.
So total expenses is $130k, which is approximately their entire income after taxes. That doesn't include childcare or school expenses.
Yup, selling FIRE is a bit more challenging now.
But they don't need to buy a house. They can opt to rent a one bedroom apt for a fraction of their joint income, invest the rest (including all the costs and time to maintain and repair, etc their property) and once they reach an FI number move to a LCOL location and buy there. Loose the cars or use them lightly and used and do all the other mustachian stuff to keep expenses low. Average one bedroom apt in HCOL Orange County, CA where I'm from is around $2000 - $2500/month and includes some utilities. Median sch is around $1 million for a beater.
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Yeah, buying a house in a VHCOL area is currently only for the upper upper middle class. Forget the purchase price, it’s the property tax into perpetuity I can’t get my head around! Home ownership is NOT always better for FIRE.
That said, rents are generally controlled, and have been lowering. My kid was able to move out and get quite a reasonable rent on their first place this year. Kid also bought a car ($5k, both cuz it’s old and it’s a manual). And kid skipped college and self-taught and worked their way from Walmart checker into a professional trade and has no debt. I’m thoroughly impressed.
I don’t think my kid is saving enough yet but at least they got the message to pay themselves first!
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It's interesting to revisit some of MMM's classic example, say his hypothetical two teachers: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/17/the-race-to-retirement-revisited/
Here in California the median schoolteacher salary is about $88k, doubling that for a household income of $176k.
The median house in this state is $860k (!), making for a total mortgage payment of $86k per year.
MMM's example 24k annual cost of living, adjusted for inflation, becomes $44k.
So total expenses is $130k, which is approximately their entire income after taxes. That doesn't include childcare or school expenses.
Yup, selling FIRE is a bit more challenging now.
But they don't need to buy a house. They can opt to rent a one bedroom apt for a fraction of their joint income, invest the rest (including all the costs and time to maintain and repair, etc their property) and once they reach an FI number move to a LCOL location and buy there. Loose the cars or use them lightly and used and do all the other mustachian stuff to keep expenses low. Average one bedroom apt in HCOL Orange County, CA where I'm from is around $2000 - $2500/month and includes some utilities. Median sch is around $1 million for a beater.
Exactly. Median house price in my province is $849,000. But guess what? We bought a 3-bedroom townhouse for $650,000, and we rented out one of the bedrooms to help with the mortgage. You can’t look at median prices and then claim that FIRE is challenging. Mustachians aren’t the median.
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It's interesting to revisit some of MMM's classic example, say his hypothetical two teachers: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/17/the-race-to-retirement-revisited/
Here in California the median schoolteacher salary is about $88k, doubling that for a household income of $176k.
The median house in this state is $860k (!), making for a total mortgage payment of $86k per year.
MMM's example 24k annual cost of living, adjusted for inflation, becomes $44k.
So total expenses is $130k, which is approximately their entire income after taxes. That doesn't include childcare or school expenses.
Yup, selling FIRE is a bit more challenging now.
But they don't need to buy a house. They can opt to rent a one bedroom apt for a fraction of their joint income, invest the rest (including all the costs and time to maintain and repair, etc their property) and once they reach an FI number move to a LCOL location and buy there. Loose the cars or use them lightly and used and do all the other mustachian stuff to keep expenses low. Average one bedroom apt in HCOL Orange County, CA where I'm from is around $2000 - $2500/month and includes some utilities. Median sch is around $1 million for a beater.
Exactly. Median house price in my province is $849,000. But guess what? We bought a 3-bedroom townhouse for $650,000, and we rented out one of the bedrooms to help with the mortgage. You can’t look at median prices and then claim that FIRE is challenging. Mustachians aren’t the median.
Exactly, median house price in my city is 650K, detached is closer to 750K. But we own an 800sqft apartment that is worth only 250K because we're willing to live in an old building in a working class neighborhood.
Literally less than a mile away, a similar unit in a newer building sells for close to a million. Friends rent out a 3 bedroom unit in their nearby duplex for $2200 to a family of 5.
Averages aren't terribly meaningful for individuals.
I'm in my second profession where average incomes are plummeting because of market shifts. But I figured out how to take advantage of that and make *more* money in the first profession, and am doing the exact same thing in the new one.
Mustachianism is literally all about NOT behaving average. It's all about rejecting the norm and looking for the creative solutions that provide an even BETTER result than just spending more money on the norm would provide.
I would say that the bulk of the work I do as a therapist is getting people to release expectations of "the norm" and to realize that the norm is sick and suffering.
Happiness requires rejecting so many averages and norms and forging your own way and figuring out what works for you as a human, not succumbing to what you "should" do and "should" want.
Also, let's not forget that frugality is about living your best life by getting the most out of your time and energy investments.
It's not hard for anyone to FIRE unless they're already living their best possible life given their circumstances. If someone is truly living hand-to-mouth, are they really living their best life?? Are the choices they are making actually optimal??
Everyone likes to invoke poor people and say they have no choices, which is pretty insulting to poor people, but I actually work with a lot of very low income folks living hand to mouth. And we explore the exact same questions: how can you make choices that would lead to better, healthier outcomes, how can you access supports for meaningful improvement?
Literally everyone can benefit from challenging their own thinking and expectations.
A chronically unemployed man with trauma who can't keep a job because he keeps *literally* punching people in the face needs to challenge his established belief system that he "should" be punching people in the face as the only mechanism for asserting ones dignity when feeling dehumanized by another.
He needs to be face-punched about literal face punching.
Meanwhile a high earning person who feels enormous social pressure to buy a home in a certain area so that they can send their kids to certain schools may need a face punch about the belief that they are a "bad" parent if they aren't willing to "invest" in their children this way. But their work stress makes them stressed, causes conflict in their marriage, and emotionally unavailable to their kid.
They may need a face-punch about their faulty belief system about what it means to be a "good" or "bad" parent and what they "should" do and the shame and pride associated with all of those "shoulds."
The entire purpose of Mustachianism is to challenge the norms, challenge the "shoulds" we were conditioned to feel, and to use frugality as a tool to explore the true value of all of our spending decisions.
I feel like I "should" want to travel by plane to far flung places for vacations, but frugality makes me question if the value is truly beneficial for me compared to the cost of a road trip or camping.
Frugality asks: "what is the real value of this spending decision to YOU?"
So yeah, averages are not terribly relevant to individuals. We know that average behaviours will make you poor, sick, and miserable. So why would anyone willingly aspire to replicate that "average" lifestyle?
We have better options. That's kind of the whole reason we're all here.
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It's interesting to revisit some of MMM's classic example, say his hypothetical two teachers: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/17/the-race-to-retirement-revisited/
Here in California the median schoolteacher salary is about $88k, doubling that for a household income of $176k.
The median house in this state is $860k (!), making for a total mortgage payment of $86k per year.
MMM's example 24k annual cost of living, adjusted for inflation, becomes $44k.
So total expenses is $130k, which is approximately their entire income after taxes. That doesn't include childcare or school expenses.
Yup, selling FIRE is a bit more challenging now.
But they don't need to buy a house. They can opt to rent a one bedroom apt for a fraction of their joint income, invest the rest (including all the costs and time to maintain and repair, etc their property) and once they reach an FI number move to a LCOL location and buy there. Loose the cars or use them lightly and used and do all the other mustachian stuff to keep expenses low. Average one bedroom apt in HCOL Orange County, CA where I'm from is around $2000 - $2500/month and includes some utilities. Median sch is around $1 million for a beater.
Exactly. Median house price in my province is $849,000. But guess what? We bought a 3-bedroom townhouse for $650,000, and we rented out one of the bedrooms to help with the mortgage. You can’t look at median prices and then claim that FIRE is challenging. Mustachians aren’t the median.
I also had 2 roommate when I bought a house plus a 30% down payment due to living being able to save by living in a very small rental (or on a sailboat). That allowed me to pay off the house in 4 years and then I kicked the roommates to the curb and FIREd lol. I also bought a small 1000 SF old 1950s house needing lots of DIY fixing during a big housing market downturn.
My sister lived in VHCOL Manhattan Beach CA and earned less then $50k/year gross. She rented a small studio/room attached to a big fancy main house walking distance to the beach for under $1000/month all inclusive. Saved her money, FIREd, moved to a less expensive area of coastal SoCal (but still expensive) and was able to buy a small condo with cash. Lots of ways to do things to get to FIRE.
And let's not forget about our RL teacher couple @arebelspy and spouse who were millionaire FIREees before 30 using real estate.
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I love the turn this thread has taken.
I’m skeptical of whatever the mainstream fashionable thing to do is, but my family’s expectations were for me to become very visibly successful, & the work culture in my industry was to instill a belief that manager-track behaviors included buying a four-bedroom detached house & a late model car, while styled in up-to-date business casual & flashing the latest phones.
Having a community of thoughtful people confronting frugality as a challenge rather than “proof of failure” might have been the breath of fresh air that kept me from suffocating. I think I more likely would’ve dropped out than joined in, because the insanity of that work culture was so stark to me. I would have missed out on hundreds of thousands of earnings across my 20s & 30s, pushing FIRE into my 50s or later.
No matter how firm your values, being the only one to hold them is exhausting & demoralizing, because every community has well-intended attempted facepunchers & plain garden variety assholes anyway, the pressure to conform is intense. Pioneering everything yourself is a lot of work. Being able to get ideas & moral support makes it into a significantly more enjoyable hobby.
I’m reminded of another activity that is work & which a lot of people had to do in the past out of necessity, but which can now be done for pleasure, with a lot more enthusiastic fans around to help: knitting exploded in popularity as soon as people had the opportunity to share patterns, pitfalls, & successes freely online.
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My wife and I had a long discussion last night about life skills, and it was sobering to think how few folks understand things like the social security break points, what all the line items on a paystub mean, or how to estimate what your take home pay will look like. In that context it is amazing we don’t have even worse outcomes than we do.
I consider myself reasonably financially literate and I don't understand that one!
To be fair, I was in graduate school without a W2 for a chunk of my 20s, so I haven't even qualified for social security yet. I'll figure it out before it's relevant to me, I'm sure.
Read this:
https://thefinancebuff.com/early-retirement-social-security-benefits.html
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My wife and I had a long discussion last night about life skills, and it was sobering to think how few folks understand things like the social security break points, what all the line items on a paystub mean, or how to estimate what your take home pay will look like. In that context it is amazing we don’t have even worse outcomes than we do.
I consider myself reasonably financially literate and I don't understand that one!
To be fair, I was in graduate school without a W2 for a chunk of my 20s, so I haven't even qualified for social security yet. I'll figure it out before it's relevant to me, I'm sure.
Read this:
https://thefinancebuff.com/early-retirement-social-security-benefits.html
Nice resource, although to be fair the SSA website now lets you say how many more years you will work and what your average income will be.
Still, the graphic of the break points is helpful. It establishes for sure that I will be past the first break point by the time I qualify for SS, and that neither DH or I is likely ever to make it to the second break point.
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure.
I just don’t understand why people who want to FIRE seem more fixated on reducing expenses than growing income.
Shouldn’t people who drag their ass instead of kicking ass on the job be the first ones facepunched?
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure.
I just don’t understand why people who want to FIRE seem more fixated on reducing expenses than growing income.
Shouldn’t people who drag their ass instead of kicking ass on the job be the first ones facepunched?
Serious question, Ron: have you read MMM’s blog?
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure.
I just don’t understand why people who want to FIRE seem more fixated on reducing expenses than growing income.
Shouldn’t people who drag their ass instead of kicking ass on the job be the first ones facepunched?
If you're inclined to pursue FIRE in the first place, you're very likely to have a natural tendency to avoid chasing 'more' of any material thing. Including money. FIREe's tend to be motivated to FIRE by disliking the normal treadmill of work, stress, work, and instead choosing to pursue things that decrease stress and personal turbulence.
By modern standards I have stayed in my job for a very long time. I am overqualified, and could chase more money if I desired. I stay because this job is 'enough', while offering a better mix of work/life balance and stability. I recognize that not chasing 'more' may lengthen my timeline for FIRE, but I believe that it will also avoid some pitfalls and allow me to live as I want to during that journey. It's the difference between taking an interstate or the backroads. One likely gets you to your destination sooner, but the other offers a ton more flexibility and interesting things along the way.
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure.
I just don’t understand why people who want to FIRE seem more fixated on reducing expenses than growing income.
Shouldn’t people who drag their ass instead of kicking ass on the job be the first ones facepunched?
Serious question, Ron: have you read MMM’s blog?
Also, the majority of members here are highly educated and make a lot of money...not exactly a population dragging it's ass on anything...
You can't throw a rock around here without hitting someone with a doctorate who makes 6 figures.
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure.
I just don’t understand why people who want to FIRE seem more fixated on reducing expenses than growing income.
Shouldn’t people who drag their ass instead of kicking ass on the job be the first ones facepunched?
Serious question, Ron: have you read MMM’s blog?
I have. I get it and appreciate a good bit of it but it doesn’t grab me completely—because different strokes.
Having said that, my question relates less to the blog and more to the forum posts, which seem to focus heavily on building toward retirement by reduction in spending and I see very little about increasing your income by busting ass during your working years.
I’m talking about the emphasis here on spending vs. earning.
So—why focus on facepunching someone who buys a nice car for his family and not facepunch people who could earn much more but don't because they hate “working for the man” or having to go into a physical office a couple days a week, etc.?
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure.
I just don’t understand why people who want to FIRE seem more fixated on reducing expenses than growing income.
Shouldn’t people who drag their ass instead of kicking ass on the job be the first ones facepunched?
Serious question, Ron: have you read MMM’s blog?
I have. I get it and appreciate a good bit of it but it doesn’t grab me completely—because different strokes.
Having said that, my question relates less to the blog and more to the forum posts, which seem to focus heavily on building toward retirement by reduction in spending and I see very little about increasing your income by busting ass during your working years.
I’m talking about the emphasis here on spending vs. earning.
So—why focus on facepunching someone who buys a nice car for his family and not facepunch people who could earn much more but don't because they hate “working for the man” or having to go into a physical office a couple days a week, etc.?
It's not either or.
They're not at all mutual exclusive.
Plenty of folks here talk about buying nice cars and don't generally get piled on. If anything, conversations here about spending come with tons of encouragement if the person sounds like they've thought it through.
The facepunches have always been for "wasteful" spending, is spending that won't actually make the person any happier.
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I just finished reading Patrick Stewarts memoirs, and his life and memories particularly from his early 20s-30s to what expectations are now for people in their early 20-30s is quite different. For instance, when he was young and just getting started, it was very common for him to share a bedroom with another person, right up until he was in his early 30s. It's very common to see peoples experiences and expectations when they were 20-30 in the 50s/60s compared to now. Life was expected to be much simpler back then.
That said, the marketing, consumerism, and expectations of what life should be based on consumerism and marketing is so different now. Young people get bombarded with things they should consume, whether it's travel and consuming other cultures and experiences, or buying things, or whatever, it's at a totally different level than what people in the 50s or 60s could have even dreamed it would be like.
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I see a trend in popular media and even reddit where people think “FIRE” means living like a college student on rice and beans so you can retire at 30 to continue to live on rice and beans. The alternative is to YOLO with a Ford Raptor and monthly cruises. Lost along the way is simply living modestly below your means and quietly building wealth.
This is being entirely driven by marketing companies to create a false narrative around living within your means and designed specifically to encourage people to buy things they don't need. It intentionally getting people to think those are their only 2 options and that narrative is constantly in their faces 24/7.
I don't like the idea of facepunching or whatever, I think it's about educating and supporting people to reject consumerism and focus on their values and living to their values.
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I just finished reading Patrick Stewarts memoirs, and his life and memories particularly from his early 20s-30s to what expectations are now for people in their early 20-30s is quite different. For instance, when he was young and just getting started, it was very common for him to share a bedroom with another person, right up until he was in his early 30s. It's very common to see peoples experiences and expectations when they were 20-30 in the 50s/60s compared to now. Life was expected to be much simpler back then.
That said, the marketing, consumerism, and expectations of what life should be based on consumerism and marketing is so different now. Young people get bombarded with things they should consume, whether it's travel and consuming other cultures and experiences, or buying things, or whatever, it's at a totally different level than what people in the 50s or 60s could have even dreamed it would be like.
I think expectations related to international travel are INSANE. A person in their 20s is supposed to "go and explore the world". This includes airtravel across the world (we are mostly based in North America so any flight is a long distance flight). Then once you are there you cannot miss on EXPERIENCES OF LIFETIME. Most of them are not going to be free...
This is literally time one is at the peak broke, e.g. their career hasn't fully launched but mommy and daddy are not sponsoring anymore. Yet, the image of happy girlies having a blast on a beautiful Rome patio is so pervasive.
Even if you travel to the cheap destination, getting there is likely not affordable for a huge chunk of those 20 something. They just don't know it's unaffordable yet.
Honestly, I think Instagram brought this idea of beautiful life full of experiences to a new level entirely. Instagram made it look like EVERYONE is living like that until literally everyone started living like that. Even if I watch a HGTV show I don't get a sense that everyone around me is renovating a McMansion. However, if I scroll through the Instagram and recommendation on Instagram I see my peers. They are totally relatable, they seem very real and they are somehow doing all these things...
Same thing could be said about the restaurant culture that completely got out of control in the Big City I used to live at. It's just the norm, the expectation is that every social outing involves eating (and drinking out). Taking and posting beautiful pictures of food is mandatory as well.
I am pretty sure these expectations did not exist up until very recently.
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure.
I just don’t understand why people who want to FIRE seem more fixated on reducing expenses than growing income.
Shouldn’t people who drag their ass instead of kicking ass on the job be the first ones facepunched?
The answer from the man himself: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/)
The most important thing to note is that cutting your spending rate is much more powerful than increasing your income. The reason is that every permanent drop in your spending has a double effect:
- it increases the amount of money you have left over to save each month
- and it permanently decreases the amount you’ll need every month for the rest of your life
So your lifetime passive income goes up due to having a larger investment nest egg, and it more easily meets your needs, because you’ve developed more skill at living efficiently and thus you need less.
That bit also links to this one: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/11/14/doubling-your-salary/ (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/11/14/doubling-your-salary/)
Mainstream personal finance pundits like Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman advocate lower spending for those in debt. Yet they have an apparently unlimited upper ceiling on how much increased spending can still lead to happiness, as evidenced by the high-spending lifestyles they are living today.
Here in the sensible middle, Mr. Money Mustache recommends both paths: earn as much as you can, but never sacrifice your soul to do it. At a certain level of income (which I feel is around $100,000 per person per year [in 2012]), the time to financial independence becomes so short that it becomes increasingly futile to earn more – that’s just how the math works out.
But all the earnings in the world are useless if you never know the meaning of the word “enough”. So get that concept in place right away – before wasting your time with increased income. Otherwise very little of that increased flow of cash will find its way into your ‘stash.
In summary, that's probably the emphasis on these forums because it's in keeping with the philosophy that spawned them. My understanding is that the Bogleheads forums tend to emphasize earning and spending more.
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Yeah, buying a house in a VHCOL area is currently only for the upper upper middle class. Forget the purchase price, it’s the property tax into perpetuity I can’t get my head around! Home ownership is NOT always better for FIRE.
That said, rents are generally controlled, and have been lowering. My kid was able to move out and get quite a reasonable rent on their first place this year. Kid also bought a car ($5k, both cuz it’s old and it’s a manual). And kid skipped college and self-taught and worked their way from Walmart checker into a professional trade and has no debt. I’m thoroughly impressed.
I don’t think my kid is saving enough yet but at least they got the message to pay themselves first!
You are spot on about the rent vs buy conversation for many people. It seems *nearly* everyone thinks that it’s such a great investment to buy. Sure, in many cases it is. In plenty, it certainly isn’t, or even marginal at best.
I bought my first home this year at 35 y/o, when we already had a net worth of about $1.3mm, so money was NOT the thing holding us back.
Rent at our 4 bed/2 ba, 3 car garage home was $2250/mo. We moved into a newer & larger home 2 miles away (4 bed/3.5 ba, about 800 sq ft more). Our new home purchase price was $425k. We put $200k down, and we are still paying about $2770/mo, not including utilities. Our 2.2% property tax and the 6.6% interest rate are huge. We also now have to pay to fix stuff, way more maintenance, etc.
I fully admit that we would have been better off continuing to rent. We were ready for something a bit nicer and a place to make ‘our own.’ While we may come out ahead (barely?) by the time we hope to FIRE/move in 6-10 years, I am not betting on it. Nearly all our other investments have been into VTSAX. I actually consider our home likely to be our worst big investment.. I am viewing it through the lens of the quality of life improvement (hopefully), as opposed to the financial investment.
When I was renting for so many years, it was crazy the number of people telling me, “oh man you are wasting so much on rent, you need to buy..” They they had no idea I was already a millionaire and plenty well versed on my own personal circumstances and the rent vs owning decisions I had made. It’s this mindset of everyone thinking they have to buy a house that probably holds a lot of people back financially.
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I really have no idea how people make ends meet while going out, buying things and then paying other people to do their chores.
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So—why focus on facepunching someone who buys a nice car for his family and not facepunch people who could earn much more but don't because they hate “working for the man” or having to go into a physical office a couple days a week, etc.?
Because those aren't the people asking for facepunches (As I recall, facepunches were traditionally asked for, not just dolled out although somethings that happened too). People asking for facepunches would typically do a case study then ask why they were in debt and couldn't save. Typically there would be some unnecessarily consumer spending that could easily be eliminated. Hence the need for the facepunch.
If someone is happy buying a nice car for their family they are unlikely to come to MMM and ask for a review of their finances.
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I just finished reading Patrick Stewarts memoirs, and his life and memories particularly from his early 20s-30s to what expectations are now for people in their early 20-30s is quite different. For instance, when he was young and just getting started, it was very common for him to share a bedroom with another person, right up until he was in his early 30s. It's very common to see peoples experiences and expectations when they were 20-30 in the 50s/60s compared to now. Life was expected to be much simpler back then.
That said, the marketing, consumerism, and expectations of what life should be based on consumerism and marketing is so different now. Young people get bombarded with things they should consume, whether it's travel and consuming other cultures and experiences, or buying things, or whatever, it's at a totally different level than what people in the 50s or 60s could have even dreamed it would be like.
I think expectations related to international travel are INSANE. A person in their 20s is supposed to "go and explore the world". This includes airtravel across the world (we are mostly based in North America so any flight is a long distance flight). Then once you are there you cannot miss on EXPERIENCES OF LIFETIME. Most of them are not going to be free...
This is literally time one is at the peak broke, e.g. their career hasn't fully launched but mommy and daddy are not sponsoring anymore. Yet, the image of happy girlies having a blast on a beautiful Rome patio is so pervasive.
Even if you travel to the cheap destination, getting there is likely not affordable for a huge chunk of those 20 something. They just don't know it's unaffordable yet.
Honestly, I think Instagram brought this idea of beautiful life full of experiences to a new level entirely. Instagram made it look like EVERYONE is living like that until literally everyone started living like that. Even if I watch a HGTV show I don't get a sense that everyone around me is renovating a McMansion. However, if I scroll through the Instagram and recommendation on Instagram I see my peers. They are totally relatable, they seem very real and they are somehow doing all these things...
Same thing could be said about the restaurant culture that completely got out of control in the Big City I used to live at. It's just the norm, the expectation is that every social outing involves eating (and drinking out). Taking and posting beautiful pictures of food is mandatory as well.
I am pretty sure these expectations did not exist up until very recently.
Agree so much.
This type of thing seemed to start taking off in the 1990s and then boomed with the social media era. My parents and grandparents did not have social circles (even white-collar, upper-middle class, professional ones) that regarded regular international travel or eating out at restaurants frequently as the norm...vacations were mostly car trips, with a winter trip maybe to Florida or Mexico or the Caribbean for the higher income (we lived in the great dark north). International trips were a super special thing...most people either didn't do them or did one or two big trips in a lifetime. Real estate was notably cheaper, so many people I knew in this circle did have two houses (winter home) but they usually sold one home at retirement (if they were higher income) or kept a more modest main house + a family cabin (upkeep often paid by several different family members).
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So—why focus on facepunching someone who buys a nice car for his family and not facepunch people who could earn much more but don't because they hate “working for the man” or having to go into a physical office a couple days a week, etc.?
Because those aren't the people asking for facepunches (As I recall, facepunches were traditionally asked for, not just dolled out although somethings that happened too). People asking for facepunches would typically do a case study then ask why they were in debt and couldn't save. Typically there would be some unnecessarily consumer spending that could easily be eliminated. Hence the need for the facepunch.
If someone is happy buying a nice car for their family they are unlikely to come to MMM and ask for a review of their finances.
Exactly, almost exclusively facepunches are for folks who have asked for advice on how to save money, and typically mostly doled out when the person starts making excuses for spending despite saying they want to save more.
And almost universally, every thread where someone asks for cost cutting advice but they're making a low income, a number of people will suggest that the focus instead on earning more. That usually *is* the facepunch people go with.
A "facepunch" is mostly a direct reality check to break through someone's discrepancies between their stated goals and their actions.
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Thanks @Tass for posting those MMM excerpts. I absolutely took his advice to double my salary to heart, that’s exactly what I did and after 5 years of that salary/savings I was able to FIRE (I was in my late 40s and thankfully had an IRA that had been compounding since my 20s as well). My story also illustrates the time value of savings, because there was a stretch of more than a decade where I did not save practically anything, but my IRA continued to grow and is now the bulk of my total investments. Back then I had a target date fund, but sometime after starting reading MMM I switched it to VTSAX.
I’ve also shared many times that we financially struggled for many years. But you know how life is, you start noticing little hints from people (only a rare few) that there is a better way. Like when I mentioned that I’d read The Millionaire Next Door to someone who I knew was doing quite well, and he said he loved that book. And then I found this blog!
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure.
I just don’t understand why people who want to FIRE seem more fixated on reducing expenses than growing income.
Shouldn’t people who drag their ass instead of kicking ass on the job be the first ones facepunched?
Jeeze why do you assume people who aren't trying to earn more are "dragging their ass" on the job? Many people chose their careers out of personal interest, their joy in that career, or a sense of altruisism and societal benefit rather then money or high income. Not being motivated by increased income, or increased consumption of consumer goods, certainly doesn't mean they are a bunch of lazy slackers. Most work their asses off and kick ass on their jobs. What better way to reach FIRE then via a joyful career you are interested in and love even if it's lower paying.
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Many people chose their careers out of personal interest, their joy in that career, or a sense of altruisism and societal benefit rather then money or high income. What better way to reach FIRE then via a joyful career you are interested in and love even if it's lower paying.
People’s careers can develop in strange ways, but those who follow their muse—as you say, “out of personal interest, their joy in that career, or a sense of altruisism and societal benefit”—have won the game. They’re the lucky ones. Some of them earn very little, some become wealthy, but if the job you have is the joy in your life you’re got a damned good life.
I’ve known a few people like this. None of them focus on significant voluntary reductions in their expenses with the goal of leaving their jobs and retiring as soon as they make their number — because they’re already doing what they love.
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Some people might focus on reducing expenses even if they’re doing what they love because sometimes you don’t know how long you will have your job. Restructuring, health issues, or other life circumstances may preclude you from working for the rest of your life. The wise would still look for ways to optimize expenses and savings to become “work optional” or SWAMI.
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Some people might focus on reducing expenses even if they’re doing what they love because sometimes you don’t know how long you will have your job. Restructuring, health issues, or other life circumstances may preclude you from working for the rest of your life. The wise would still look for ways to optimize expenses and savings to become “work optional” or SWAMI.
Almost like...FI still matters even if you don't RE, which happens to be something Ron says all the time.
I LOVED my career, but that doesn't mean I "won." Just because you love your work doesn't mean that you never have to worry about money. That's ridiculous.
Life happens, disability happens, I was a high earner and had I not been minimizing costs, I would have been absolutely, supremely fucked when I was forced to medically retired.
Frugality saved my ass AND it made my quality of life better along the way.
And it continues to do so even though I'm now going back to work at a new career that I love.
Some people make a lot and enjoy spending more, that's fine, we have plenty of folks in these parts with >1M$ homes, who drive luxury sports cars, who travel extensively, who enjoy any variety of of indulgences.
No one face punches them, no one is coming for anyone's spending if they're happy with it. We're not militant vegans coming for everyone's burgers, jeez.
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Some people might focus on reducing expenses even if they’re doing what they love because sometimes you don’t know how long you will have your job. Restructuring, health issues, or other life circumstances may preclude you from working for the rest of your life.
Of course, and I’ve valued FI throughout my life. I have also always thought of emergency funds in terms of a year or 2…not a few months
The focus of my comments above however are related more to the kind of expense reduction that is made specifically to quit work and enjoy 40 or 50 years’ retirement.
People who’s work is their joy in life don’t save to quit.
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Whether someone quits or not has no bearing on them reaching FI though????
This makes no sense.
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Whether someone quits or not has no bearing on them reaching FI though????
This makes no sense.
It should. If you can't afford to quit but you still quit, you're not FI.
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???
Whether someone quits or not has no bearing on them reaching FI though????
This makes no sense.
It should. If you can't afford to quit but you still quit, you're not FI.
Not my point. My point was that whether the person retires or not, they still need to save the same amount to reach FI.
So if I'm aiming for FI, whether I like my job or not, I'm still going to aim to cut costs and save money.
Ron seems to be saying that only people who care about retiring early cut costs. It makes no sense.
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Many, many people don’t *want* to hear about frugality because we live in a society that says that if you have to be frugal, you’re a failure.
I just don’t understand why people who want to FIRE seem more fixated on reducing expenses than growing income.
Shouldn’t people who drag their ass instead of kicking ass on the job be the first ones facepunched?
Jeeze why do you assume people who aren't trying to earn more are "dragging their ass" on the job? Many people chose their careers out of personal interest, their joy in that career, or a sense of altruisism and societal benefit rather then money or high income. Not being motivated by increased income, or increased consumption of consumer goods, certainly doesn't mean they are a bunch of lazy slackers. Most work their asses off and kick ass on their jobs. What better way to reach FIRE then via a joyful career you are interested in and love even if it's lower paying.
Nah, there are also people here who explicitly say they are doing as little work as possible and saving their efforts for pursuits that are meaningful to them. I say: good for them, they thought it through. Maximize what makes you happy, minimize what doesn't. If you have work that makes you happy, great, but if you are trying to maximize something else, and you've figured out the optimal balance of maximizing that thing and minimizing work, then congrats!
The only "losing" of the game is to play it mindlessly, without ever considering what you're playing for.
To be fair, I'm not sure whether Ron is talking about facepunching hardcore mustachians who follow this philosophy or average joes who don't make very much money.
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???
Whether someone quits or not has no bearing on them reaching FI though????
This makes no sense.
It should. If you can't afford to quit but you still quit, you're not FI.
Not my point. My point was that whether the person retires or not, they still need to save the same amount to reach FI.
So if I'm aiming for FI, whether I like my job or not, I'm still going to aim to cut costs and save money.
Ron seems to be saying that only people who care about retiring early cut costs. It makes no sense.
That would indeed make no sense.
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This strikes me as a “why are you booing [him], [he’s] right!” moment.
Yes saving for FI still makes sense if you love your job, because it provides security and enables you to get even richer as you continue working. Still, knowing you intend to continue working takes the pressure off the time horizon, and makes it much easier to let go a bit instead white-knuckling your way to maximal savings.
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He needs to be face-punched about literal face punching.
Now that is an interesting sentence :D We need more face punches!
I’m talking about the emphasis here on spending vs. earning.
So—why focus on facepunching someone who buys a nice car for his family and not facepunch people who could earn much more but don't because they hate “working for the man” or having to go into a physical office a couple days a week, etc.?
You sure you have read the blog? (And I am not even talking about the post where MMM ansers that question.)
It's about being happier in life - and getting Burn-Out is for most people not the way to be happier.
Also curbing expenses (at least starting from the average consumer sucka person) is easier than increasing income by 50%. Also, you sure that hedonic adaption will take that away and you need to increase your income again and again?
If you want you could call that lazy. But you qould very likely forgetting that frugality is not only about money - half of it is, see above, about a better and happier life. Sure, biking saves you a ton of money, it also makes you happier and healthier, something that money can only achieve very rudimentary above a certain point (and consumer sucka is way above that point).
Also "lazy" is a very disparaging word.
For example: Me. I am certainly lazy - just ask my mother - but I describe myself as a low energy person. Why? Because it's true. That is genetics, too. Some trees bloom very early, some very late. Some birds migrate far, some only a bit. That is because in time of abundance, the active individuals have an advantage, but in time of scarcity they die. That is why every race of whatever living being has a bell curve on energy/activity too.
Even if I loved the job and it would pay a shitton, I could not do 50 or even 60 hours weekly for any longer time. In fact I will down my time from 40h to 36h in June. It will push my FIRE back a year. But I have decided to make the resulting 1 Free Friday every 2 weeks a "health day", concentrating on my wellbeing and also doing intentionally "slightly discomforting" physical stuff.
Is that lazy? Think about it.
Would I get an MMM facepunch for "delaying my FIRE"? Hell no!
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He needs to be face-punched about literal face punching.
Now that is an interesting sentence :D We need more face punches!
I love that reference to tough guy violence—face punch—on an Internet forum. When my daughter was 5 she would call you a “bad pal”. Then she grew up so. LOL
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I just finished reading Patrick Stewarts memoirs, and his life and memories particularly from his early 20s-30s to what expectations are now for people in their early 20-30s is quite different. For instance, when he was young and just getting started, it was very common for him to share a bedroom with another person, right up until he was in his early 30s. It's very common to see peoples experiences and expectations when they were 20-30 in the 50s/60s compared to now. Life was expected to be much simpler back then.
That said, the marketing, consumerism, and expectations of what life should be based on consumerism and marketing is so different now. Young people get bombarded with things they should consume, whether it's travel and consuming other cultures and experiences, or buying things, or whatever, it's at a totally different level than what people in the 50s or 60s could have even dreamed it would be like.
I think expectations related to international travel are INSANE. A person in their 20s is supposed to "go and explore the world". This includes airtravel across the world (we are mostly based in North America so any flight is a long distance flight). Then once you are there you cannot miss on EXPERIENCES OF LIFETIME. Most of them are not going to be free...
This is literally time one is at the peak broke, e.g. their career hasn't fully launched but mommy and daddy are not sponsoring anymore. Yet, the image of happy girlies having a blast on a beautiful Rome patio is so pervasive.
Even if you travel to the cheap destination, getting there is likely not affordable for a huge chunk of those 20 something. They just don't know it's unaffordable yet.
Honestly, I think Instagram brought this idea of beautiful life full of experiences to a new level entirely. Instagram made it look like EVERYONE is living like that until literally everyone started living like that. Even if I watch a HGTV show I don't get a sense that everyone around me is renovating a McMansion. However, if I scroll through the Instagram and recommendation on Instagram I see my peers. They are totally relatable, they seem very real and they are somehow doing all these things...
Same thing could be said about the restaurant culture that completely got out of control in the Big City I used to live at. It's just the norm, the expectation is that every social outing involves eating (and drinking out). Taking and posting beautiful pictures of food is mandatory as well.
I am pretty sure these expectations did not exist up until very recently.
Agree so much.
This type of thing seemed to start taking off in the 1990s and then boomed with the social media era. My parents and grandparents did not have social circles (even white-collar, upper-middle class, professional ones) that regarded regular international travel or eating out at restaurants frequently as the norm...vacations were mostly car trips, with a winter trip maybe to Florida or Mexico or the Caribbean for the higher income (we lived in the great dark north). International trips were a super special thing...most people either didn't do them or did one or two big trips in a lifetime. Real estate was notably cheaper, so many people I knew in this circle did have two houses (winter home) but they usually sold one home at retirement (if they were higher income) or kept a more modest main house + a family cabin (upkeep often paid by several different family members).
Yep expectations, especially now with social media, have just exploded and I think that's a big part of the depression that young people face. If you're not travelling and consuming all these cultures and amazing experiences and not eating at fancy restaurants with your friends then you must be falling behind, must be poorer than they are, and there must be something wrong with you. It's pretty deliberate marketing set up to create that feeling. It's the new keeping up with the joneses except 100x more toxic. It's why companies focus now on "micro-influencers" where people with a few hundred to a few thousand followers get free stuff to market to their friends. Our entire economic system is completely designed to keep you always feeling like you're missing out and falling behind and the only way to keep up is to consume more. It's incredibly hard for people to break out of that chain system. It's easier for older people who didn't grow up with instagram and influencers, it's going to be harder and harder for younger generations to break that cycle of constant in your face consumerism.
At least the Joneses weren't sponsored by companies to influence their neighbors to buy stuff. Many of your friends on your instagram reel are.
That said, the cost of housing in Canada is insane, but that's a bigger issue that's been building for decades that was left unaddressed by multiple different governments because it wasn't convenient to address until it became a dire situation.
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No matter how firm your values, being the only one to hold them is exhausting & demoralizing, because every community has well-intended attempted facepunchers & plain garden variety assholes anyway, the pressure to conform is intense. Pioneering everything yourself is a lot of work. Being able to get ideas & moral support makes it into a significantly more enjoyable hobby.
That's certainly true--finding a community that shares your non-mainstream values certainly helps you hold fast to them. Really, you're exchanging one community--a mainstream one that tries to convince you that This Bauble Will Make You Happy For Sure This Time!--for another, one which encourages you to critically evaluate what actually makes you happy, and to optimize your life around that.
I just finished reading Patrick Stewarts memoirs, and his life and memories particularly from his early 20s-30s to what expectations are now for people in their early 20-30s is quite different. For instance, when he was young and just getting started, it was very common for him to share a bedroom with another person, right up until he was in his early 30s. It's very common to see peoples experiences and expectations when they were 20-30 in the 50s/60s compared to now. Life was expected to be much simpler back then.
That said, the marketing, consumerism, and expectations of what life should be based on consumerism and marketing is so different now. Young people get bombarded with things they should consume, whether it's travel and consuming other cultures and experiences, or buying things, or whatever, it's at a totally different level than what people in the 50s or 60s could have even dreamed it would be like.
Totally true. Remember Home Alone (the movie)? I look at that family from the mid-90's, and holy cow, they were RICH. Big ol' house, a huge stack of order-out pizzas, a trip to Europe for the whole extended family, shuttle service to the airport. Nowadays, their circumstances don't seem all that special.
There's definitely been a tremendous amount of lifestyle inflation over the last 60 years. Houses are 40% larger than they were half a century ago, even though families have shrunk. Families used to have one or maybe two cars. Now, two is the bare minimum. Informal soccer/basketball/baseball has transitioned to Parks & Rec-sponsored leagues and into ubiquitous "travel <sport> teams". We had a single computer growing up in the 90's. I'm frankly embarrassed by how many computers my family has now. My parents took us out to dinner once a year for our birthday, and rarely went out themselves. DW and I go out to eat every week. When I was a freshman in college, I lived in a cinder-block dorm room. Today's new student housing complexes are absurdly posh. Few of my peers had a car in college. Now, everyone (it seems) has one. Traveling by air, even domestically, was Fancy Pants stuff. International travel? Gee, whiz, mister, you must be rich! Nowdays, it doesn't raise an eyebrow. My school district had two high schools which shared a single football stadium, and had no theater. The school district where I now live also has two high schools, each has a very nice stadium and a decked-out theater.
The democratization of publication of a person's life highlights has shifted the Overton Window. sixwings is right about social media. It's a lot easier to get Likes and Follows by posting vacation photos than a sink full of dirty dishes or the traffic on the way to work. So the fancy (spendy!) stuff is what we see all the time.
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He needs to be face-punched about literal face punching.
Now that is an interesting sentence :D We need more face punches!
I love that reference to tough guy violence—face punch—on an Internet forum. When my daughter was 5 she would call you a “bad pal”. Then she grew up so. LOL
It seems like you're a little hung up on the verbiage. MMM "Face punches" have never been a tough guy, physical threat. It's meant to be a brutally honest, sometimes blunt, wake up call for people going through their lives on autopilot. Those who are spending mindlessly, or acting in ways that don't align with their stated goals. Facepunches are delivered (typically with permission from the one receiving the "face punch") to be helpful reality checks. It's just supposed to be constructive criticism delivered in a jarring way to make the point more clearly. Not everyone responds to gentle coddling or subtle hints. Sometimes you have to highlight it and call it out as being stupid or counterproductive.
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Many people chose their careers out of personal interest, their joy in that career, or a sense of altruisism and societal benefit rather then money or high income. What better way to reach FIRE then via a joyful career you are interested in and love even if it's lower paying.
People’s careers can develop in strange ways, but those who follow their muse—as you say, “out of personal interest, their joy in that career, or a sense of altruisism and societal benefit”—have won the game. They’re the lucky ones. Some of them earn very little, some become wealthy, but if the job you have is the joy in your life you’re got a damned good life.
I’ve known a few people like this. None of them focus on significant voluntary reductions in their expenses with the goal of leaving their jobs and retiring as soon as they make their number — because they’re already doing what they love.
People generally love many things. Some which can't be done at the same time due to time limits or other factors. So wanting to leave your well loved but lower paying job early to pursue other things in life, and saving money by cutting expenses rather then changing careers to earn more, seems a very natural thing to want to do. Throw in aging or other physical and life factors and desires that aren't compatible with your job and yeah, people are still going to want FIRE and move on to other much loved activities. Getting to FI, even coast or lean FI, by reducing expenses and removing the need to work an additional 20 or 30 years can be a pretty sweet option to have. And it certainly doesn't mean someone is a lazy slacker if they are choosing a lower paid career (and maybe a much harder job) because they find it more fulfilling then other career options.
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This strikes me as a “why are you booing [him], [he’s] right!” moment.
Yes saving for FI still makes sense if you love your job, because it provides security and enables you to get even richer as you continue working. Still, knowing you intend to continue working takes the pressure off the time horizon, and makes it much easier to let go a bit instead white-knuckling your way to maximal savings.
Liking your job, and specifically choosing it over higher paying jobs, doesn't mean you plan to work it forever. I really liked what I did and would choose to do that again if I wanted to a job again, didn't mean I didn't want to get to FI so I could leave to go do other things I was interested in - or at least have that option.
Anyways my point was more about Ron Scott's comment about lower income people are "dragging ass instead of kicking ass" at their jobs. I found that to be highly insulting to the legion of people who - due to life circumstances or choice - have lower income jobs.
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This strikes me as a “why are you booing [him], [he’s] right!” moment.
Yes saving for FI still makes sense if you love your job, because it provides security and enables you to get even richer as you continue working. Still, knowing you intend to continue working takes the pressure off the time horizon, and makes it much easier to let go a bit instead white-knuckling your way to maximal savings.
Liking your job, and specifically choosing it over higher paying jobs, doesn't mean you plan to work it forever. I really liked what I did and would choose to do that again if I wanted to a job again, didn't mean I didn't want to get to FI so I could leave to go do other things I was interested in - or at least have that option.
Anyways my point was more about Ron Scott's comment about lower income people are "dragging ass instead of kicking ass" at their jobs. I found that to be highly insulting to the legion of people who - due to life circumstances or choice - have lower income jobs.
Considering this was the guy who said poor people couldn’t be rightly called “shrewd, thrifty, or frugal” (I’m missing another quality he insisted they couldn’t possess) I don’t think he cares about insulting people for either their circumstances or their choices.
I don’t get the point in trying to drag the Mr. Money Mustache forum away from mustachianism towards “success is when you earn & spend as much as possible over a lifetime” when Bogleheads already exists.
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This strikes me as a “why are you booing [him], [he’s] right!” moment.
Yes saving for FI still makes sense if you love your job, because it provides security and enables you to get even richer as you continue working. Still, knowing you intend to continue working takes the pressure off the time horizon, and makes it much easier to let go a bit instead white-knuckling your way to maximal savings.
Liking your job, and specifically choosing it over higher paying jobs, doesn't mean you plan to work it forever. I really liked what I did and would choose to do that again if I wanted to a job again, didn't mean I didn't want to get to FI so I could leave to go do other things I was interested in - or at least have that option.
Anyways my point was more about Ron Scott's comment about lower income people are "dragging ass instead of kicking ass" at their jobs. I found that to be highly insulting to the legion of people who - due to life circumstances or choice - have lower income jobs.
Considering this was the guy who said poor people couldn’t be rightly called “shrewd, thrifty, or frugal” (I’m missing another quality he insisted they couldn’t possess) I don’t think he cares about insulting people for either their circumstances or their choices.
I don’t get the point in trying to drag the Mr. Money Mustache forum away from mustachianism towards “success is when you earn & spend as much as possible over a lifetime” when Bogleheads already exists.
I didn't mind the message - work more, get a higher paying job, ditto for the spouse/SO, etc to reach FI sooner - which is all very much MMM's mantra (minus the spend more stuff). I just don't understand why the little insulting digs are needed.
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I had the best job in the world until I hadn't. Our small Canadian startup was acquired by a big US corporation and things went downhill pretty fast.
I was not worried about myself losing the job because of years of saving 60%+ of our income. So, FI is important no matter how good of a job you have right now. Things change, jobs change, everything changes and sometimes even ends.
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Yes, I worked for a great startup, and we grew from around 20 people, to about 100 people. We were then acquired by a large 7,000 person company, and corporate enshitification rapidly followed. I retired when the shit sandwiches became too large to swallow. I've told my OG friends from the original startup that if we could go back to those startup days, I would still be working, because I loved it. I love retirement as well, but I miss the camaraderie of those days.
Things can change quickly. Best be prepared when they do. Everyone that I worked with is still surprised that I retired when I did.
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Very true. I just found out my old company has lost so much market share that it’s closing down another two locations. When I joined 12 years ago, it was the largest player in the field. I left 5 years ago. People were surprised, since I was well-compensated and one of the company’s top performers. Since then, it’s gone from 10+ locations to two.
Due to COVID, politics and power plays, and unstable leadership, my current company is also starting to struggle. We are getting ready to FIRE.
In today’s world, things can change quickly. Im glad we started preparing to FIRE on Day 1. We don’t worry at all about the state of the company because we are completely FI. That is how I’ve been counseling my younger coworkers as well. They think that, because they have a good education, they will always have a job. I told them not to equate being employable with having a job, because you never know what will happen in your chosen field. Right now, they need to make hay while the sun is shining and they need to store that up and invest it, to prepare for future days of famine.
Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.