Financial Samurai

[Longwaytogo]

Interesting how recent threads about both GoCurryCracker and FinancialSamurai basically turned into rants about the Frugalwoods.

It is interesting, in my opinion it's indicative of how many folks felt bamboozled. Ton of Reddit threads about them too from when the book came out.

You're not kidding about Reddit.

I discovered /r/blogsnark and of course Frugalwoods ism entioned in the most recent financial thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/blogsnark/comments/1ahftck/financial_bloggers_february_2024/konrkf5/

I'm really glad that I gave up public blogging.

Yeah they're getting killed in there; and on lots that has nothing to do with FIRE/Money. Downsides of being in the public I guess  :(

One of the folks did bring up something interesting about the financial "consulting" she is doing skating  a thin line with regulatory agents like the SEC. A financial advisor needs (I think) like 6+ years of school like MBA level and to pass tests.

I've noticed that online with other stuff too like Health "coaches" who have zero training and are basically running pyramid schemes selling protein meal kits yet act as if they were actual doctors and stuff. Guess it's becoming a buyer beware/wild wild west a bit compared to the old days of more regulation. I feel bad for folks who get scammed or lose money/mess up their health, etc.

Frugalwoods put on an act (folksy dress, stupid hipster beard, country-working-man costume) to appear accessible to average struggling people with dreams of FIRE but were actually highly paid and by all accounts gifted people. It was dishonest, period.  It’s FIRE pornography through and through…”look at this fantasy life, you can have it too, you can have what we have…just keep looking and reading and clicking and being frugal and you can be like us…read our blog and escape for a while. If you really want to have what we have, you should also buy our book”.  Dishonest.

Honestly, the final straw for me was when they started showing up on all the fire podcasts promoting their book.  You’ve lured in a sizable audience with your FIRE porn and now you’re leveraging it into book sales and now financial consulting.  The whole thing feels skeevy and dishonest and takes advantage of people.

100% Its shocking to me that they have defenders and anyone could see it any other way.

That's a well put concise summary.

[Metalcat]

Interesting how recent threads about both GoCurryCracker and FinancialSamurai basically turned into rants about the Frugalwoods.

It is interesting, in my opinion it's indicative of how many folks felt bamboozled. Ton of Reddit threads about them too from when the book came out.

You're not kidding about Reddit.

I discovered /r/blogsnark and of course Frugalwoods ism entioned in the most recent financial thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/blogsnark/comments/1ahftck/financial_bloggers_february_2024/konrkf5/

I'm really glad that I gave up public blogging.

Yeah they're getting killed in there; and on lots that has nothing to do with FIRE/Money. Downsides of being in the public I guess  :(

One of the folks did bring up something interesting about the financial "consulting" she is doing skating  a thin line with regulatory agents like the SEC. A financial advisor needs (I think) like 6+ years of school like MBA level and to pass tests.

I've noticed that online with other stuff too like Health "coaches" who have zero training and are basically running pyramid schemes selling protein meal kits yet act as if they were actual doctors and stuff. Guess it's becoming a buyer beware/wild wild west a bit compared to the old days of more regulation. I feel bad for folks who get scammed or lose money/mess up their health, etc.

It's always been "buyer beware." Snake oil salesmen have always existed in the unregulated spaces.

As for "financial advisors" I don't know what it's like in the US, but you can become an FA here in Canada by taking a short course and an exam. I finished it over a weekend.

FAs are just licensed sales people who sell mutual funds. Financial Planners on the other hand are a educated and experienced professionals.

But half the under-employed losers I know have been licensed as FAs at one point or another. None of them could possibly advise anyone on how to manage their personal finances though.

Maybe FAs in the US are more than mutual fund sales people?? It would be surprising if they were so differently qualified down there compared to here, but it's possible.

I've been told our real estate agents up here have much higher education requirements than in the US, so these kinds of discrepancies exist. I would just be a lot more surprised to find such a huge difference in the banking sector, especially when Canadian banking regulations tend to be MUCH stricter than the US.

[Longwaytogo]

Interesting how recent threads about both GoCurryCracker and FinancialSamurai basically turned into rants about the Frugalwoods.

It is interesting, in my opinion it's indicative of how many folks felt bamboozled. Ton of Reddit threads about them too from when the book came out.

You're not kidding about Reddit.

I discovered /r/blogsnark and of course Frugalwoods ism entioned in the most recent financial thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/blogsnark/comments/1ahftck/financial_bloggers_february_2024/konrkf5/

I'm really glad that I gave up public blogging.

Yeah they're getting killed in there; and on lots that has nothing to do with FIRE/Money. Downsides of being in the public I guess  :(

One of the folks did bring up something interesting about the financial "consulting" she is doing skating  a thin line with regulatory agents like the SEC. A financial advisor needs (I think) like 6+ years of school like MBA level and to pass tests.

I've noticed that online with other stuff too like Health "coaches" who have zero training and are basically running pyramid schemes selling protein meal kits yet act as if they were actual doctors and stuff. Guess it's becoming a buyer beware/wild wild west a bit compared to the old days of more regulation. I feel bad for folks who get scammed or lose money/mess up their health, etc.

It's always been "buyer beware." Snake oil salesmen have always existed in the unregulated spaces.

As for "financial advisors" I don't know what it's like in the US, but you can become an FA here in Canada by taking a short course and an exam. I finished it over a weekend.

FAs are just licensed sales people who sell mutual funds. Financial Planners on the other hand are a educated and experienced professionals.

But half the under-employed losers I know have been licensed as FAs at one point or another. None of them could possibly advise anyone on how to manage their personal finances though.

Maybe FAs in the US are more than mutual fund sales people?? It would be surprising if they were so differently qualified down there compared to here, but it's possible.

I've been told our real estate agents up here have much higher education requirements than in the US, so these kinds of discrepancies exist. I would just be a lot more surprised to find such a huge difference in the banking sector, especially when Canadian banking regulations tend to be MUCH stricter than the US.

Yeah I may have been confusing FA with CFP, financial advisor vs Certified Financial Planner.

[jrhampt]

Interesting how recent threads about both GoCurryCracker and FinancialSamurai basically turned into rants about the Frugalwoods.

It is interesting, in my opinion it's indicative of how many folks felt bamboozled. Ton of Reddit threads about them too from when the book came out.

You're not kidding about Reddit.

I discovered /r/blogsnark and of course Frugalwoods ism entioned in the most recent financial thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/blogsnark/comments/1ahftck/financial_bloggers_february_2024/konrkf5/

I'm really glad that I gave up public blogging.

Yeah they're getting killed in there; and on lots that has nothing to do with FIRE/Money. Downsides of being in the public I guess  :(

One of the folks did bring up something interesting about the financial "consulting" she is doing skating  a thin line with regulatory agents like the SEC. A financial advisor needs (I think) like 6+ years of school like MBA level and to pass tests.

I've noticed that online with other stuff too like Health "coaches" who have zero training and are basically running pyramid schemes selling protein meal kits yet act as if they were actual doctors and stuff. Guess it's becoming a buyer beware/wild wild west a bit compared to the old days of more regulation. I feel bad for folks who get scammed or lose money/mess up their health, etc.

It's always been "buyer beware." Snake oil salesmen have always existed in the unregulated spaces.

As for "financial advisors" I don't know what it's like in the US, but you can become an FA here in Canada by taking a short course and an exam. I finished it over a weekend.

FAs are just licensed sales people who sell mutual funds. Financial Planners on the other hand are a educated and experienced professionals.

But half the under-employed losers I know have been licensed as FAs at one point or another. None of them could possibly advise anyone on how to manage their personal finances though.

Maybe FAs in the US are more than mutual fund sales people?? It would be surprising if they were so differently qualified down there compared to here, but it's possible.

I've been told our real estate agents up here have much higher education requirements than in the US, so these kinds of discrepancies exist. I would just be a lot more surprised to find such a huge difference in the banking sector, especially when Canadian banking regulations tend to be MUCH stricter than the US.

I did not know you could do this...why did you your FA license?  Have you ever used it? 

[GilesMM]

Frugalwoods put on an act (folksy dress, stupid hipster beard, country-working-man costume) to appear accessible to average struggling people with dreams of FIRE but were actually highly paid and by all accounts gifted people. It was dishonest, period.  It’s FIRE pornography through and through…”look at this fantasy life, you can have it too, you can have what we have…just keep looking and reading and clicking and being frugal and you can be like us…read our blog and escape for a while. If you really want to have what we have, you should also buy our book”.  Dishonest.

Honestly, the final straw for me was when they started showing up on all the fire podcasts promoting their book.  You’ve lured in a sizable audience with your FIRE porn and now you’re leveraging it into book sales and now financial consulting.  The whole thing feels skeevy and dishonest and takes advantage of people.

You people are that naive?  It's *all* an act. It is like reality tv.  These internet gurus pretend to be authentic but it is all carefully scripted specifically in a way to draw in the largest possible audience.  You are the target.  They will all do whatever it takes to get your clicks. And they are all pretty much the same.  They may help you, but that doesn't mean they aren't peddling a meticulously crafted product which may not bear any resemblance to reality.  Or maybe at some point they lose track of reality vs their web persona.  They show up at events in "character" to meet their fans, just like Liberace or Dave Ramsey or... MMM.  When was the last time Pete shared his annual budget with spending (to say nothing of income)?  When was the last he shared something actually personal about his life versus a nice allegory meant to influence you?

[cangelosibrown]

It would be so obvious if it were on TV, but because so many of us grew up with a non-monetized Internet it's hard to see sometimes. Back in my day there was essentially no money to be made by blogging or whatever, people just did it for fun or to feel influential in whatever nonsense hobby community they were in. No one would have dreamed of selling out, because there wasn't anything to sell out for.

I'm sure there are great fire bloggers who haven't completely sold out, but I have probably never heard of them. You seem to only get notoriety by doing things that I would consider selling out.

"Selling out" is probably harsh for many bloggers, but especially in this space, it's interesting because they're talking specifically about personal  finance. The moment they start making money on the Internet, their story becomes irrelevant to the rest of us. I wouldn't say madfientist has "sold out," but he is making significant money from his blog (from the cc tool), and it's made his journey to FI less relevant. But I suppose unlike the FW, his thing is actual financial /tax info, not some aspirational Vermont homestead

[DadJokes]

FS went on a podcast and blamed the hate he gets on racism. He's far worse than just some clickbait internet troll. Instead of maybe reflecting on the criticism he gets, he decided to play the victim.

[Metalcat]

It would be so obvious if it were on TV, but because so many of us grew up with a non-monetized Internet it's hard to see sometimes. Back in my day there was essentially no money to be made by blogging or whatever, people just did it for fun or to feel influential in whatever nonsense hobby community they were in. No one would have dreamed of selling out, because there wasn't anything to sell out for.

I'm sure there are great fire bloggers who haven't completely sold out, but I have probably never heard of them. You seem to only get notoriety by doing things that I would consider selling out.

"Selling out" is probably harsh for many bloggers, but especially in this space, it's interesting because they're talking specifically about personal  finance. The moment they start making money on the Internet, their story becomes irrelevant to the rest of us. I wouldn't say madfientist has "sold out," but he is making significant money from his blog (from the cc tool), and it's made his journey to FI less relevant. But I suppose unlike the FW, his thing is actual financial /tax info, not some aspirational Vermont homestead

I don't necessarily agree that the moment they make money they become irrelevant.

In fact, MMM making a lot of money was a huge eye-opener for me. It really made me think differently about my goals. I never liked the idea of working my ass off at a job I didn't love to never work again. I trained for over a decade to do a job I loved.

Seeing that he made *more* money on profitable hobbies really clicked for me that I only needed to get to get to FU money before I could be empowered to make radical changes to my quality of life.

It made my tolerance for crappy work much, much lower, and my focus on finding meaningful, fun, lucrative work/hobbies more interesting.

Much of MMM's focus was on the fact that he had so much security because his hobbies generated income. Even ignoring the blog, his reno work and his wife's soap business were both profitable to the point that they could cover their annual expenses.

That really drove home to me that I didn't need to save ALLLL the money I would ever need under every single circumstance in order to start focusing on work that I enjoyed more.

From very early on I realized that I had very little interest in MMM's path to FI, but that I was deeply inspired by his life of fun, meaningful, lucrative work AFTER he hit FI, and the major conclusion I came to was that if that's my goal, I don't need nearly as much of a security blanket of money to start making those changes.

[Metalcat]

FS went on a podcast and blamed the hate he gets on racism. He's far worse than just some clickbait internet troll. Instead of maybe reflecting on the criticism he gets, he decided to play the victim.

To be fair, I don't doubt that he got a lot of racist hate too, just as FW gets a lot of sexist hate.

It can be hard to be self-critical when people are being bigoted against you. Hell, it's hard to be self-critical when people are attacking you and aren't being hateful and bigoted.

It's hard to be famous. But I can feel compassion for them and judge them for their actions at the same time.

I think hating either is unhealthy. Giving them a healthy eye-roll when they say ridiculous things is totally legit. Same with MMM, he's prompted some serious eye rolls with his stance on insurance many times.

[Longwaytogo]

Frugalwoods put on an act (folksy dress, stupid hipster beard, country-working-man costume) to appear accessible to average struggling people with dreams of FIRE but were actually highly paid and by all accounts gifted people. It was dishonest, period.  It’s FIRE pornography through and through…”look at this fantasy life, you can have it too, you can have what we have…just keep looking and reading and clicking and being frugal and you can be like us…read our blog and escape for a while. If you really want to have what we have, you should also buy our book”.  Dishonest.

Honestly, the final straw for me was when they started showing up on all the fire podcasts promoting their book.  You’ve lured in a sizable audience with your FIRE porn and now you’re leveraging it into book sales and now financial consulting.  The whole thing feels skeevy and dishonest and takes advantage of people.

You are people that naive?  It's *all* an act. It is like reality tv.  These internet gurus pretend to be authentic but it is all carefully scripted specifically in a way to draw in the largest possible audience.  You are the target.  They will all do whatever it takes to get your clicks. And they are all pretty much the same.  They may help you, but that doesn't mean they aren't peddling a meticulously crafted product which may not bear any resemblance to reality.  Or maybe at some point they lose track of reality vs their web persona.  They show up at events in "character" to meet their fans, just like Liberace or Dave Ramsey or... MMM.  When was the last time Pete shared his annual budget with spending (to say nothing of income)?  When was the last he shared something actually personal about his life versus a nice allegory meant to influence you?

I mean yeah I guess I was that Naive!

Something like "Keeping up with the Kardashian" or whatever seems very fake and for entertainment only like Friends or Seinfeld or any other show.

I guess I viewed Blogging a bit different and shouldn't have. So that's on me. But I still feel they were more deceitful then other bloggers.

[the_hobbitish]

I get the pushback on FW for not being as upfront about their earning as people would like, but I don't get the pushback on how they like to dress. I would if they were secretly living a whole different lifestyle, but if they want to rock the escape to the country bearded man vibe because that's their thing then I don't think they should get criticism for that in itself. Not being totally transparent about their finances doesn't mean their lifestyle or dress choices aren't honest preferences.

I guess I assume people on the internet don't owe me anything and I'm surprised people get as angry as they do.

[Metalcat]

I get the pushback on FW for not being as upfront about their earning as people would like, but I don't get the pushback on how they like to dress. I would if they were secretly living a whole different lifestyle, but if they want to rock the escape to the country bearded man vibe because that's their thing then I don't think they should get criticism for that in itself. Not being totally transparent about their finances doesn't mean their lifestyle or dress choices aren't honest preferences.

I guess I assume people on the internet don't owe me anything and I'm surprised people get as angry as they do.

Yes, criticizing someone's conduct and opinions is one thing, being cruel and hateful is another.

[Longwaytogo]

I get the pushback on FW for not being as upfront about their earning as people would like, but I don't get the pushback on how they like to dress. I would if they were secretly living a whole different lifestyle, but if they want to rock the escape to the country bearded man vibe because that's their thing then I don't think they should get criticism for that in itself. Not being totally transparent about their finances doesn't mean their lifestyle or dress choices aren't honest preferences.

I guess I assume people on the internet don't owe me anything and I'm surprised people get as angry as they do.

I'm an unkept construction worker with holes in my clothes that shaves once a month!! I could care less how they dress.

In reality I guess I'm angry more at myself for believing FIRE was easily achieved by average Joes. Had I known they were making $350k I wouldn't have bought into the idea so hard.

To be fair I started coming to this conclusion on my own after a few years before their book even dropped and the shine was already off FIRE for me.

[mathlete]

I understand that he's tongue-in-cheek, and as others have noted, being an SEO mastermind here. But I still think it's useful to observe people who retire on a more modest income, only later to discover that life changes and money makes things better / easier.

Related: My wife told me about some influencers called Ballerina Farm: https://ballerinafarm.com/pages/about-us

Gave me FW flashbacks!

[economista]

I understand that he's tongue-in-cheek, and as others have noted, being an SEO mastermind here. But I still think it's useful to observe people who retire on a more modest income, only later to discover that life changes and money makes things better / easier.

Related: My wife told me about some influencers called Ballerina Farm: https://ballerinafarm.com/pages/about-us

Gave me FW flashbacks!

The situation for the ballerina farm people is even more extreme than frugal woods. The husband's father is the owner of Jet Blue and a few other airlines. They have ridiculous, insane levels of income. I came across them through facebook reels and the first time I was intrigued about how she was making sourdough bread and mozzarella from scratch with an old-fashioned stove. I was like, wow, this lady is fulfilling my "little house on the prairie dreams." Then I started noticing how many kids she had and I couldn't understand how she makes all of their food truly from scratch and still takes care of tons of kids and then in the videos when you can see more of their house behind her you see that their kitchen is giant and their house is super stylized to look very "modern farmhouse" but is probably a million dollar house and then I started to realize that they probably have a lot of money and nannies taking care of the children and all of kind of childcare help.

Then I started seeing articles about how fake all of their videos are because they don't openly disclose their wealth or all of their help. The wife posts videos of her daily ballet workouts - what kind of average mother can do a daily workout, totally alone, when she has 8 kids? She was in a pageant and crown Mrs American 2023 2 weeks after her 8th baby was born! It is just so drastically unrealistic for the average person who doesn't have tons of money and tons of help.

[Longwaytogo]

I understand that he's tongue-in-cheek, and as others have noted, being an SEO mastermind here. But I still think it's useful to observe people who retire on a more modest income, only later to discover that life changes and money makes things better / easier.

Related: My wife told me about some influencers called Ballerina Farm: https://ballerinafarm.com/pages/about-us

Gave me FW flashbacks!

The situation for the ballerina farm people is even more extreme than frugal woods. The husband's father is the owner of Jet Blue and a few other airlines. They have ridiculous, insane levels of income. I came across them through facebook reels and the first time I was intrigued about how she was making sourdough bread and mozzarella from scratch with an old-fashioned stove. I was like, wow, this lady is fulfilling my "little house on the prairie dreams." Then I started noticing how many kids she had and I couldn't understand how she makes all of their food truly from scratch and still takes care of tons of kids and then in the videos when you can see more of their house behind her you see that their kitchen is giant and their house is super stylized to look very "modern farmhouse" but is probably a million dollar house and then I started to realize that they probably have a lot of money and nannies taking care of the children and all of kind of childcare help.

Then I started seeing articles about how fake all of their videos are because they don't openly disclose their wealth or all of their help. The wife posts videos of her daily ballet workouts - what kind of average mother can do a daily workout, totally alone, when she has 8 kids? She was in a pageant and crown Mrs American 2023 2 weeks after her 8th baby was born! It is just so drastically unrealistic for the average person who doesn't have tons of money and tons of help.

Reminds me of the "Maui Nui Venison" they come on Peter attia and Joe Rogan podcast acting like some little grass roots farm and then you find out they're partially backed by Tim Ferris and it's $120 for a pack of deer jerky!!

Everything is an illusion, lol.

[mathlete]

The situation for the ballerina farm people is even more extreme than frugal woods. The husband's father is the owner of Jet Blue and a few other airlines. They have ridiculous, insane levels of income. I came across them through facebook reels and the first time I was intrigued about how she was making sourdough bread and mozzarella from scratch with an old-fashioned stove. I was like, wow, this lady is fulfilling my "little house on the prairie dreams." Then I started noticing how many kids she had and I couldn't understand how she makes all of their food truly from scratch and still takes care of tons of kids and then in the videos when you can see more of their house behind her you see that their kitchen is giant and their house is super stylized to look very "modern farmhouse" but is probably a million dollar house and then I started to realize that they probably have a lot of money and nannies taking care of the children and all of kind of childcare help.

Then I started seeing articles about how fake all of their videos are because they don't openly disclose their wealth or all of their help. The wife posts videos of her daily ballet workouts - what kind of average mother can do a daily workout, totally alone, when she has 8 kids? She was in a pageant and crown Mrs American 2023 2 weeks after her 8th baby was born! It is just so drastically unrealistic for the average person who doesn't have tons of money and tons of help.

Yeah it's truly wild. For what it's worth, if someone wants to do the homesteading thing, I don't begrudge them for it. If you've got the money, live whatever life you want.

What I find silly, is calling this brand of life, "simple". It's incredibly resource intensive, labor intensive, and complicated.

What is actually simple, is dropping your kids off at the public school that was built to educate them and the 500 other kids in your neighborhood. The marginal labor involved with adding one more kid to the classroom is almost nothing.

[mathlete]

Reminds me of the "Maui Nui Venison" they come on Peter attia and Joe Rogan podcast acting like some little grass roots farm and then you find out they're partially backed by Tim Ferris and it's $120 for a pack of deer jerky!!

Everything is an illusion, lol.

Yes! Homesteading is a little bit female coded, so we need to pick on the boys, too.

I was way late on the Tim Ferris train. I read his book, Four Hour Workweek, just a year or two ago. Before writing the book, he made his money selling performance supplements. After the book, he makes his money selling mushroom coffee.

There is zero chance he would bet even $1 on the results of a double blind study of the efficacy of either of these things. :P

But men do be buying expensive stuff and doing cold plunges. MMM is actually a good antidote for this kind of stuff. If you're not already proficient in making yourself omelets and salads every day, and working out with your weight set you got of craigslist, what are you doing buying boutique venison?

[ChpBstrd]

I get the pushback on FW for not being as upfront about their earning as people would like, but I don't get the pushback on how they like to dress. I would if they were secretly living a whole different lifestyle, but if they want to rock the escape to the country bearded man vibe because that's their thing then I don't think they should get criticism for that in itself. Not being totally transparent about their finances doesn't mean their lifestyle or dress choices aren't honest preferences.

I guess I assume people on the internet don't owe me anything and I'm surprised people get as angry as they do.

I'm an unkept construction worker with holes in my clothes that shaves once a month!! I could care less how they dress.

In reality I guess I'm angry more at myself for believing FIRE was easily achieved by average Joes. Had I known they were making $350k I wouldn't have bought into the idea so hard.

To be fair I started coming to this conclusion on my own after a few years before their book even dropped and the shine was already off FIRE for me.

There is something about high-salary people in VHCOL locations that makes their advice seem like it's from another planet. Their numbers don't make sense in a middle-class, MCOL or LCOL context.

I think if you are earning a working class or middle class salary and trying to make it work in a HCOL area, the best thing you can do is move. Trying to live in a fancy-pants area while not earning a fancy-pants salary is like pushing water uphill. But it would be a fallacy for a person in this position to claim FIRE is not feasible; a lot of options would open up if they'd just consider moving. F.S. sold the idea that it was possible for a long time, and claimed big numbers, but we see how that ended up.

There's a shortage of blogs/channels from people earning average or below-average salaries. Part of this is how the wealth porn effect drives traffic toward people living in glamorous locations with fabulous things, and away from people living within or below typical budgets.

Another part is that becoming a content creator is something which becomes much easier with leisure time - hence the scarcity of blogs by people working long hours. If you already have some money, it is much easier to outsource editing, SEO, animation, and other tasks - maybe even the content creation itself - and you can work with better equipment, lighting, etc.

A final difference is a change over the past decade in how the internet is structured. You're a lot less likely to find a small blog today because every search function (e.g. Google, social media) is focused on monetization rather than relevancy of results. That is to say, compared to 10-20 years ago, you are a lot less likely to find a thing now if it hasn't paid money to have itself promoted. So if the next Pete Abeney wants to start a vlog about cycling to work, they have to pay for the eyeballs to see their vlog. "Going viral" is now less about the quality of one's content, and more about payment. So maybe the next FIRE blogger/vlogger doesn't have $1,000 in their budget to promote this week's content - because they'd like to retire or stay retired. You can see how such a disincentive could extinguish ideas about frugality and steady investing from the modern internet.

Perhaps the concept of FIRE will retreat to the domain of books, or perhaps content creators will ally to cross-link to each other, thereby defeating the content companies.

[Longwaytogo]

Reminds me of the "Maui Nui Venison" they come on Peter attia and Joe Rogan podcast acting like some little grass roots farm and then you find out they're partially backed by Tim Ferris and it's $120 for a pack of deer jerky!!

Everything is an illusion, lol.

Yes! Homesteading is a little bit female coded, so we need to pick on the boys, too.

I was way late on the Tim Ferris train. I read his book, Four Hour Workweek, just a year or two ago. Before writing the book, he made his money selling performance supplements. After the book, he makes his money selling mushroom coffee.

There is zero chance he would bet even $1 on the results of a double blind study of the efficacy of either of these things. :P

But men do be buying expensive stuff and doing cold plunges. MMM is actually a good antidote for this kind of stuff. If you're not already proficient in making yourself omelets and salads every day, and working out with your weight set you got of craigslist, what are you doing buying boutique venison?

To be clear I did NOT buy the Venison, I'm pretty spendy and apparently naive guy but even I didn't fall for that one :p

[Metalcat]

I did not know you could do this...why did you your FA license?  Have you ever used it?

FAs aren't independently licensed, you can do the course and exam to qualify, and then you can sell mutual funds under the license of the institution you work for. So doing the course would allow me to work for a bank or for an investment company like Investor's Group or Edward Jones.

I have zero interest in selling mutual funds for any kind of bank or investment company because I don't have any interest in being a mutual fund sales person.

[mathlete]

To be clear I did NOT buy the Venison, I'm pretty spendy and apparently naive guy but even I didn't fall for that one :p

Lol, even if you did... we live in a world of oppressive marketing. Even the best of us are gonna get caught sometimes. You're talking to a guy who bought the Slap Chop!

[Metalcat]

To be clear I did NOT buy the Venison, I'm pretty spendy and apparently naive guy but even I didn't fall for that one :p

Lol, even if you did... we live in a world of oppressive marketing. Even the best of us are gonna get caught sometimes. You're talking to a guy who bought the Slap Chop!

lol! I bought a ShamWow! Fuckin' Vince Shlomi.

[mathlete]

Re: "Financial Consulting"

There is absolutely a market for this kind of thing. Its easy to make fun of rich people who are too dumb to download their bank statement and sort from high to low in order to start creating margin. But some people just have a mental block on this sort of thing.

Getting in shape is a more relatable form of this issue. Everyone "knows" that eating oatmeal and salad and working out three times a week is good for you. But it's hard to make yourself do it. So people go to the gym and book trainer sessions.

[mathlete]

lol! I bought a ShamWow! Fuckin' Vince Shlomi.

He's a bad dude, but I'd be lying if I said part of me didn't respect the hell out of him!

[partgypsy]

I aspire to grow a few of my vegetables. But I have a tiny shady lot so I am fine for now with growing herbs, and a tomato and a pepper plant each year in my 2 square feet of partial sun. Family members on both sides who lived on farms. Farm life has never felt glamorous or aspirational to me. It's a LOT of work.  You are literally dealing with shit.

[farmecologist]

Interesting how recent threads about both GoCurryCracker and FinancialSamurai basically turned into rants about the Frugalwoods.

It is interesting, in my opinion it's indicative of how many folks felt bamboozled. Ton of Reddit threads about them too from when the book came out.

You're not kidding about Reddit.

I discovered /r/blogsnark and of course Frugalwoods ism entioned in the most recent financial thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/blogsnark/comments/1ahftck/financial_bloggers_february_2024/konrkf5/

I'm really glad that I gave up public blogging.

I must not be one of the cool kids...I don't even know who "FrugalWoods" is!  After reading this thread it is probably for the best.

[mathlete]

I aspire to grow a few of my vegetables. But I have a tiny shady lot so I am fine for now with growing herbs, and a tomato and a pepper plant each year in my 2 square feet of partial sun. Family members on both sides who lived on farms. Farm life has never felt glamorous or aspirational to me. It's a LOT of work.  You are literally dealing with shit.

Something I was told recently, is that people really like the satisfaction of working on something and being able to see the results. I'm a big booster of our globalized economy, but a side-effect, is that someone can spend five years working at a cubicle, doing things their company ostensibly values, and not be able to tangibly feel their impact at the end of it. I can totally understand that.

On a personal note, this is not at all how I feel. I view the world very probabilistically. I'm comfortable viewing my work in terms of moving my company down the risk curve. When I waited tables, I could directly see the results of me doing a good vs. doing a bad job. But I find my current job much more satisfying.

People use the phrase, "cog in the machine" as a pejorative. But cogs and machines are all about using leverage to multiply the amount of force you can apply to solving problems. I'm all about that.

[uniwelder]

I get the pushback on FW for not being as upfront about their earning as people would like, but I don't get the pushback on how they like to dress. I would if they were secretly living a whole different lifestyle, but if they want to rock the escape to the country bearded man vibe because that's their thing then I don't think they should get criticism for that in itself. Not being totally transparent about their finances doesn't mean their lifestyle or dress choices aren't honest preferences.

I guess I assume people on the internet don't owe me anything and I'm surprised people get as angry as they do.

I'm an unkept construction worker with holes in my clothes that shaves once a month!! I could care less how they dress.

In reality I guess I'm angry more at myself for believing FIRE was easily achieved by average Joes. Had I known they were making $350k I wouldn't have bought into the idea so hard.

To be fair I started coming to this conclusion on my own after a few years before their book even dropped and the shine was already off FIRE for me.

There is something about high-salary people in VHCOL locations that makes their advice seem like it's from another planet. Their numbers don't make sense in a middle-class, MCOL or LCOL context.

I think if you are earning a working class or middle class salary and trying to make it work in a HCOL area, the best thing you can do is move...

Agreed.  My salary maxed at 60k five years ago and my wife's is 70k currently, so higher than average, but not definitely not high earners.  We live in a LCOL area and ventured into some diy fixer upper rental properties.  We're now financially independent, though my wife insists on working a few more years until her boss retires.  It's definitely possible to FIRE youngish, having fortunate circumstances, depending on what choices you make in life, and where you live.

@Longwaytogo I had tried sending a private message earlier, but it got blocked.  Not sure if you wanted to block me specifically or if its just blanket settings, but figured I'd let you know.

[the_hobbitish]

@mathlete HA! My mom loved her slap chop. Great for mincing onions. Lol. I haven't thought of that for years.

[Morning Glory]

lol! I bought a ShamWow! Fuckin' Vince Shlomi.

He's a bad dude, but I'd be lying if I said part of me didn't respect the hell out of him!

Is he the pillow guy? What is a sham wow?

[mathlete]

lol! I bought a ShamWow! Fuckin' Vince Shlomi.

He's a bad dude, but I'd be lying if I said part of me didn't respect the hell out of him!

Is he the pillow guy? What is a sham wow?

Vince was a tv pitchman in the vein of Billy Mays or Mike Lindell (MyPillow guy).

If you went to college in the late 2000s or early 2010s and had a lot of daytime TV on in your apartment / dorm, he was inescapable.

He was aggressive and leaned into bad puns and innuendo, which made him stand out. But he’s apparently an unsavory character.

[Metalcat]

lol! I bought a ShamWow! Fuckin' Vince Shlomi.

He's a bad dude, but I'd be lying if I said part of me didn't respect the hell out of him!

Is he the pillow guy? What is a sham wow?

Vince was a tv pitchman in the vein of Billy Mays or Mike Lindell (MyPillow guy).

If you went to college in the late 2000s or early 2010s and had a lot of daytime TV on in your apartment / dorm, he was inescapable.

He was aggressive and leaned into bad puns and innuendo, which made him stand out. But he’s apparently an unsavory character.

Billy Mays had major addiction issues and Shlomi was arrested for punching a sex worker who bit his tongue and wouldn't let go, but apparently he cleaned up his life after that incident.

https://www.nbcnews.com/businessmain/shamwow-guy-cleans-his-act-8c11094914

[FireLane]

Without passing judgment on the Frugalwoods one way or the other, I think FIRE bloggers with high-paying careers are in a no-win situation. Comments like the ones in this thread prove it.

If you practice a modest life and live below your means, you get hate like this: "Look at these out-of-touch trust-fund babies, pretending to be poor for clout! They don't need to save money by baking their own bread or biking everywhere. It's all an act. They're only able to FIRE because they're rich! They have no lessons to teach normal people!"

On the other hand, if you spend money on luxuries (like, say, buying a Tesla), but are still able to save because of a high income, you get this hate instead: "Look at this hypocrite! He preaches frugality, but he's living like a wasteful rich person, flinging money around on shit he doesn't need! No one can relate to that. He has no lessons to teach normal people!"

[MMMarbleheader]

Below i give you an archive of my favorite FIRE blog, Brave new life.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190331030058/http://www.bravenewlife.com/

I want an update so bad!

[bluecollarmusician]

I don't know why I feel compelled to weigh in here-

probably everything that should be said *has* been said, and certainly no one is going to change their well formed opinion.

The FS guy is a PT Barnum, just after clicks.  I agree with the likelihood that just by saying a few controversial things he made more money than he would have going back to a job. 

But I find it endlessly interesting not only the disagreement over the various FIRE bloggers and their veracity but also the assumptions folks make into the people about "who they REALLY are."

I guess my opinion is pretty colored by my own specific experiences.

The reality is that when you go "public" with your life the boundaries that you set are somewhat arbitrary, and you will probably struggle find exactly where the right place for them go.  In my experience of having a public persona, it's bit like putting up a fence.  If the cattle REALLY want to get through- they will find a way.

So I have a lot of sympathy for folks who started somewhat anonymous who got outed (like MMM) or really anyone who started off small and suddenly got bigger than they imagined.  Because the truth is - you just don't know until you know. 

But also- I think people look to stuff and use it as an excuse why they can't do x, y, or z.  It made a real impact on me when I read and interview with Jacob Lund Fisker on Yahoo Finance back in maybe 2010?  He was talking about living on 7grand a year, and it didn't seem nuts to me... realized he in was in SF and thought that was pretty badass, then realized it was only HIS half of their (2 person) expenses... which seemed way less impressive (though still very good) as we were on a pretty lean budget back then.  Then I started reading the comments- rather than being impressed, or curious  every comment basically said he was 1) a liar 2) it was impossible 3) yahoo finance was total BS. EVERY. SINGLE. COMMENT.

It made me realize that I was somewhat out of touch with (at least) those people's version of reality.
And I think @ChpBstrd is right- when you see #'s that are wildly different than yours it can be tough to relate, but I think it would be throwing out the baby with the bath water to not look for what can apply to you and your situation.


I never earned an above average (or even average salary) since I was out of college. And my wife hasn't worked for at least the last 15 years.  The math still works- it's not about earnings, it's about spending.  I wrote a journal (lol a long time ago!) talking about how you didn't really have to make a lot of money if you just learned to control your expenses (cue the long list of reasons 1) that's impossible 2) I am a liar 3) this forum is bull shit).   If somehow I went internet viral I bet people would look to a few minor (in my mind) discrepancies and say LOOOOOOOOK!! He's a LIIIIIAR!! But I am not- and think a lot of the misplaced fences are just that.  Somewhat arbitrary decisions compounded by people looking at it from many different perspectives and seeing it really differently.

[mathlete]

I think FIRE bloggers with high-paying careers are in a no-win situation.

I think this is at least partially true. But that's kind of the peril to selling your life online.

My forever-gripe with the PF sphere, is the exceptional person who sells themselves as ordinary. From my perspective, that's either being willfully deceptive, or very very out of touch.

When my (then) girlfriend and I graduated college, it was into 8% or 9% unemployment. I got a job immediately in the mid $50K range. She wouldn't get her first "college" job for another four years, opting instead to take on more hours at the restaurant we worked at. She comes from legitimate poverty. I was more middle class, but both my parents lost their jobs in the recession and I ended up paying for school myself.

It would be very tempting for me to paint this as the struggle, but I can't do that in good conscience. I know the numbers way too well.

At 22, my wife and I had an above median household income. And we were a good 20 years younger than the heads of a typical household. All at a time where 15 million Americans were out of work. Even back then, it was very clear that we were an upwardly mobile couple.

Things have only gotten better. I'm now a millionaire. Yay! And while I got here in part by being a super aggressive saver, I wouldn't feel right talking up my frugality. It's true that I almost never go out to eat. But I could if I wanted to. And it wouldn't really affect my story at all. The type of frugality that really matters, is me buying a used Honda Civic instead of a brand new Lexus LX. That's not impressive or exceptional, though. The income is. I make like, a top 5% income. And probably a top 1% income when compared against my fellow millennials. That's what has mattered the most.

[spartana]

I don't know why I feel compelled to weigh in here-

probably everything that should be said *has* been said, and certainly no one is going to change their well formed opinion.

The FS guy is a PT Barnum, just after clicks.  I agree with the likelihood that just by saying a few controversial things he made more money than he would have going back to a job. 

But I find it endlessly interesting not only the disagreement over the various FIRE bloggers and their veracity but also the assumptions folks make into the people about "who they REALLY are."

I guess my opinion is pretty colored by my own specific experiences.

The reality is that when you go "public" with your life the boundaries that you set are somewhat arbitrary, and you will probably struggle find exactly where the right place for them go.  In my experience of having a public persona, it's bit like putting up a fence.  If the cattle REALLY want to get through- they will find a way.

So I have a lot of sympathy for folks who started somewhat anonymous who got outed (like MMM) or really anyone who started off small and suddenly got bigger than they imagined.  Because the truth is - you just don't know until you know. 

But also- I think people look to stuff and use it as an excuse why they can't do x, y, or z.  It made a real impact on me when I read and interview with Jacob Lund Fisker on Yahoo Finance back in maybe 2010?  He was talking about living on 7grand a year, and it didn't seem nuts to me... realized he in was in SF and thought that was pretty badass, then realized it was only HIS half of their (2 person) expenses... which seemed way less impressive (though still very good) as we were on a pretty lean budget back then.  Then I started reading the comments- rather than being impressed, or curious  every comment basically said he was 1) a liar 2) it was impossible 3) yahoo finance was total BS. EVERY. SINGLE. COMMENT.

It made me realize that I was somewhat out of touch with (at least) those people's version of reality.
And I think @ChpBstrd is right- when you see #'s that are wildly different than yours it can be tough to relate, but I think it would be throwing out the baby with the bath water to not look for what can apply to you and your situation.


I never earned an above average (or even average salary) since I was out of college. And my wife hasn't worked for at least the last 15 years.  The math still works- it's not about earnings, it's about spending.  I wrote a journal (lol a long time ago!) talking about how you didn't really have to make a lot of money if you just learned to control your expenses (cue the long list of reasons 1) that's impossible 2) I am a liar 3) this forum is bull shit).   If somehow I went internet viral I bet people would look to a few minor (in my mind) discrepancies and say LOOOOOOOOK!! He's a LIIIIIAR!! But I am not- and think a lot of the misplaced fences are just that.  Somewhat arbitrary decisions compounded by people looking at it from many different perspectives and seeing it really differently.

This has happened to several forum members like @arebelspy and @Zikoris when they had articles written about their individual paths to FIRE at early ages on normal -  even lower - incomes. So much hate in the comment sections even though they have been both very open and up front about their financial circumstances. I imagine anyone (including myself) who was lower income and worked 20 years before FIREing on less than a million would be castigated by the public if we blogged just as a very high earner who saved 80% and lived frugally and retir3d in 5 years would be. We're all equally hated lol.

[mathlete]

Lol. Back to back posts, one saying, "It's not about income." and another saying, "It's all about income."

A true marketplace of ideas moment.

[spartana]

Lol. Back to back posts, one saying, "It's not about income." and another saying, "It's all about income."

A true marketplace of ideas moment.

It's both. If a high income earner lived and spent like a low income earner they would likely be FI in a very short time. The low income earner can do it in most normal circumstances but it's just going to require a ton of sacrifices and many years longer. I worked an adult job from 18 to 36 and max out all available investments I could, lived leanly, eventually married someone equally frugal who earned what I did, divorced and still was able to pull the plug pretty early at 36 (lean FIRE - more chubby FIRE by 42 since I sold my house and down sized). If I had FW or FS incomes I could have retired in about 3 years or less. Of course if I had their spending levels (especially FS) I'd be working forever!

[Metalcat]

I think FIRE bloggers with high-paying careers are in a no-win situation.

I think this is at least partially true. But that's kind of the peril to selling your life online.

My forever-gripe with the PF sphere, is the exceptional person who sells themselves as ordinary. From my perspective, that's either being willfully deceptive, or very very out of touch.

When my (then) girlfriend and I graduated college, it was into 8% or 9% unemployment. I got a job immediately in the mid $50K range. She wouldn't get her first "college" job for another four years, opting instead to take on more hours at the restaurant we worked at. She comes from legitimate poverty. I was more middle class, but both my parents lost their jobs in the recession and I ended up paying for school myself.

It would be very tempting for me to paint this as the struggle, but I can't do that in good conscience. I know the numbers way too well.

At 22, my wife and I had an above median household income. And we were a good 20 years younger than the heads of a typical household. All at a time where 15 million Americans were out of work. Even back then, it was very clear that we were an upwardly mobile couple.

Things have only gotten better. I'm now a millionaire. Yay! And while I got here in part by being a super aggressive saver, I wouldn't feel right talking up my frugality. It's true that I almost never go out to eat. But I could if I wanted to. And it wouldn't really affect my story at all. The type of frugality that really matters, is me buying a used Honda Civic instead of a brand new Lexus LX. That's not impressive or exceptional, though. The income is. I make like, a top 5% income. And probably a top 1% income when compared against my fellow millennials. That's what has mattered the most.

I agree that it's not a no-win situation, it's a situation where folks likely feel a lot of pressure to be deceptive if they want to maximize their blog revenues because most people's lives just aren't interesting enough to become famous.

Okay, fine, so there's a lot of pressure to be deceptive to become successful in a lot of fields, that's not going to stop people from being critical when someone is called out for being deceptive.

Someone can absolutely be high income and have a blog writing about their personal finance journey and be totally honest about it. It might not make them a shit-ton of money though.

No blogger is obliged to reach as many readers as possible, if they choose to engage in sketchy/misleading or trollish behaviours to do so, that is their prerogative, but it's also their responsibility to face the music when their creative choices are scrutinized.

It's like the guy who made the weird FIRE movie, which wasn't actually about FIRE, but actually about quitting his job to become a film-maker and dragging his resentful wife through frugal lifestyle choices they had to make because they very much *were not* FI before leaving their lucrative work situation.

The thing he got skewered for most was that he was trying to capitalize on the FIRE popularity at the time, but not actually telling a FIRE story. He was tapping into the network effects of this community without contributing constructively to the cultural narrative.

If you live a story that isn't interesting enough to be profitable, no one is putting a gun to anyone's head to fudge the details to make it more marketable. That's a choice, an active choice that bloggers make when they make it.

FS is just more nakedly opportunistic than most and frankly unapologetic about it and cashing in on being a troll. If he's able to look at himself in the mirror at the end of the day, then that's the right choice for him, but we don't have to respect him for it.

[mathlete]

Lol. Back to back posts, one saying, "It's not about income." and another saying, "It's all about income."

A true marketplace of ideas moment.

It's both. If a high income earner lived and spent like a low income earner they would likely be FI in a very short time. The low income earner can do it in most normal circumstances but it's just going to require a ton of sacrifices and many years longer. I worked an adult job from 18 to 36 and max out all available investments I could, lived leanly, and was able to pull the plug pretty early at 36. If I had FW or FS incomes I could have retired in about 3 years. Of course if I had their spending levels (especially FS) I'd be working forever!

Yeah. It's both.

I should stress that I truly believe a vast majority of people, at all levels of income, could get tremendous value out of being more anti-consumerist/pro-saver. In fact, I think that for most of Americans/Canadians, a retiring even a decade prior to 65 is very achievable.

[mathlete]

Everything.

The vibe of this entire post basically describes how I feel. Bloggers are free to post whatever kinds of content they want. But if they're a bunch of richies making lifestyle porn, there's nothing wrong with calling them.... richies making lifestyle porn. Or if they're fudging down their spending, it's okay to call that poverty cosplay.

I'm aware (through my wife) that there are blogsnark reddits that get pretty fucking nasty. Of course I disavow any behavior like doxxing, or mocking people's kids, and all of the other unsavory stuff I've heard about.

Most of what I see here, and really in the critical end of comments sections, is people just calling things as they see them. Nothing wrong with that.

[ChpBstrd]

...
I never earned an above average (or even average salary) since I was out of college. And my wife hasn't worked for at least the last 15 years.  The math still works- it's not about earnings, it's about spending.  I wrote a journal (lol a long time ago!) talking about how you didn't really have to make a lot of money if you just learned to control your expenses (cue the long list of reasons 1) that's impossible 2) I am a liar 3) this forum is bull shit).   If somehow I went internet viral I bet people would look to a few minor (in my mind) discrepancies and say LOOOOOOOOK!! He's a LIIIIIAR!! But I am not- and think a lot of the misplaced fences are just that.  Somewhat arbitrary decisions compounded by people looking at it from many different perspectives and seeing it really differently.

This has happened to several forum members like @arebelspy and @Zikoris when they had articles written about their individual paths to FIRE at early ages on normal -  even lower - incomes. So much hate in the comment sections even though they have been both very open and up front about their financial circumstances. I imagine anyone (including myself) who was lower income and worked 20 years before FIREing on less than a million would be castigated by the public if we blogged just as a very high earner who saved 80% and lived frugally and retir3d in 5 years would be. We're all equally hated lol.

This is such weird behavior. I suppose someone could fake their numbers to impress people on the internet. Folks lie for much more frivolous motives. But at some point the numbers are verifiable.

If I'm motivated to find out if an internet persona could possibly be telling the truth, I can look up their salary range on salary.com, look up property values on zillow.com, look up historical mortgage rates / rents and investing returns in hundreds of different places, and put it all together. At some point WTF is there to doubt or argue about?

Even if the person really is a 14 year old in mom's basement making up an elaborate fake life, or a multi-million dollar content creation business inventing social media characters out of thin air, the numbers checking out mean the strategies they're talking about could be applicable to you.

[spartana]

...
I never earned an above average (or even average salary) since I was out of college. And my wife hasn't worked for at least the last 15 years.  The math still works- it's not about earnings, it's about spending.  I wrote a journal (lol a long time ago!) talking about how you didn't really have to make a lot of money if you just learned to control your expenses (cue the long list of reasons 1) that's impossible 2) I am a liar 3) this forum is bull shit).   If somehow I went internet viral I bet people would look to a few minor (in my mind) discrepancies and say LOOOOOOOOK!! He's a LIIIIIAR!! But I am not- and think a lot of the misplaced fences are just that.  Somewhat arbitrary decisions compounded by people looking at it from many different perspectives and seeing it really differently.

This has happened to several forum members like @arebelspy and @Zikoris when they had articles written about their individual paths to FIRE at early ages on normal -  even lower - incomes. So much hate in the comment sections even though they have been both very open and up front about their financial circumstances. I imagine anyone (including myself) who was lower income and worked 20 years before FIREing on less than a million would be castigated by the public if we blogged just as a very high earner who saved 80% and lived frugally and retir3d in 5 years would be. We're all equally hated lol.

This is such weird behavior. I suppose someone could fake their numbers to impress people on the internet. Folks lie for much more frivolous motives. But at some point the numbers are verifiable.

If I'm motivated to find out if an internet persona could possibly be telling the truth, I can look up their salary range on salary.com, look up property values on zillow.com, look up historical mortgage rates / rents and investing returns in hundreds of different places, and put it all together. At some point WTF is there to doubt or argue about?

Even if the person really is a 14 year old in mom's basement making up an elaborate fake life, or a multi-million dollar content creation business inventing social media characters out of thin air, the numbers checking out mean the strategies they're talking about could be applicable to you.

Yeah no way to know unless that person is using their real identity or has been outted. I've never blogged (and never will) but have been asked to do some interviews or podcasts (also will never do) because I don't want my real identity to be known (I am, in reality, Batman), I dont want a bunch of criticism, but mainly my FIRE life would be seen as pretty damn boring to most people. I think most FIREd people fall into my category rather then a FW category. We'd like to talk about it and share our experiences but don't want to deal with fallout even if we are 100% truthful.

[mathlete]

The blogosphere will reward the people have the earliest and the most fabulous (expensive) early retirements.

But the journey to financial independence is so rewarding in ways other than just the headline grabbing, "I retired early." At one point, my goal was to be done by 40. I have kids now, and that ain't happening, lol. I love my kids, but childcare is a full time job, and quite frankly, it's a job I'd rather have someone else do during the week, while I work my job job. It's good for them, and it's good for me. It means, among other things, that I'm totally amped to see them in the evenings and weekends. So for someone like me, each kid I have pushes my FIRE date to at least 5 years from today, regardless of how much money I have. Cause that's how long we'll need daycare for.

But boy am I glad I did all that aggressive saving early. Gave me the confidence to win a stare down with work. Paid for my wife to fly to another country and have a great time while I stayed home with the kids. Will pay for me to do the same this year. Will pay for all of us to take trips when they're old enough to appreciate travel. 

I don't know when I'll stop getting a W2, but I almost don't care anymore. Life is just better when you're not worried about how you're going to finance your next big material possession.

[bluecollarmusician]

This is such weird behavior. I suppose someone could fake their numbers to impress people on the internet. Folks lie for much more frivolous motives. But at some point the numbers are verifiable.

I mean- yes, it was shocking to me the first time I really noticed it; but it is surprisingly predictable (and not just for things like this.)
And most people don't dig beneath a headline anyway.  How often do you see a bunch of comments on an obviously hoax/parody type FB post that isn't recognized it as such?

I think the same thing is applicable in the way you already mentioned:

There is something about high-salary people in VHCOL locations that makes their advice seem like it's from another planet. Their numbers don't make sense in a middle-class, MCOL or LCOL context.

I think this is true and applies a broad variety of situations; i.e. when the numbers/experience is wildy (i.e. 2 or more away on the Wheaton Eco scale...) different from what someone is comfortable/familiar with they immediately assume that it's "all just a load of bs..." when in most circumstances it is more a case of the world is bigger and full of more things than we know.  If we grow our mindset we can learn from all kinds of folks.

I may also be naive- and I while I have no doubt that for every well-intentioned creative out there trying to share ideas you have a bunch of FS charlatans who are working the crowd for every nickel they can... I also look for humanity in people and definitely see it in the case of FWs.  (Probably a few people here remember when she was a regular around here.)

I get what people got upset about, but I also don't see it as an egregious attempt to obfuscate the truth while wheedling the unsuspecting plebs into buying a book only to realize that he had a high paying job.

Some people think this was done in an attempt to somehow bamboozle them all into thinking they can do it just like she did... only to find out her idea of not making a crazy amount of money was actually a crazy amount of money to the majority of her followers.  While that shows an obvious disconnect, I for one think that probably she was really writing from her own vision of themselves which was formed over years previous: i.e. writing about the vision of who they have been, even as things are changing in real time.

I had a similar thing happen, in that just as I journaled about not making much money, I suddenly started making a lot (more) than I ever had. Somebody call the comments section of Yahoo!

Come to think of that- it seems to happen to a lot of people.... I even recall a blog post about retire first, then get rich...

I agree that it's not a no-win situation, it's a situation where folks likely feel a lot of pressure to be deceptive if they want to maximize their blog revenues because most people's lives just aren't interesting enough to become famous.

This a really good point; and I guess many people do this.... FS the point of the thread seems pretty straight forward taking this route.

I just think with many creatives (especially in a low success world like blogging) that when folks started out- even if they think of it as a side hustle the objective is more to say something with meaning than to make money.  And with things that evolve over time (or become more successful than you could have imagined when you started) you may have found a) that you are a little out of touch with a lot of your readers and b) you put your fence in a bad place.

[Fomerly known as something]

FS is not an immigrant.  His parents worked for the US department of State as US citizens.

I stand corrected.

Instead I’ll say both MMM and FS have significant experience growing up outside the US (and FS is bilingual), and I find that interesting.

Having TDY’d US embassy's, it’s a very significant difference.  He didn’t live a typical life.  While overseas he would have been attending the American School with the elites of that country.  He then came back to the US in high school where he attended a regular public school outside of DC.

[tj]

I think FIRE bloggers with high-paying careers are in a no-win situation.

I think this is at least partially true. But that's kind of the peril to selling your life online.

My forever-gripe with the PF sphere, is the exceptional person who sells themselves as ordinary. From my perspective, that's either being willfully deceptive, or very very out of touch.

When my (then) girlfriend and I graduated college, it was into 8% or 9% unemployment. I got a job immediately in the mid $50K range. She wouldn't get her first "college" job for another four years, opting instead to take on more hours at the restaurant we worked at. She comes from legitimate poverty. I was more middle class, but both my parents lost their jobs in the recession and I ended up paying for school myself.

It would be very tempting for me to paint this as the struggle, but I can't do that in good conscience. I know the numbers way too well.

At 22, my wife and I had an above median household income. And we were a good 20 years younger than the heads of a typical household. All at a time where 15 million Americans were out of work. Even back then, it was very clear that we were an upwardly mobile couple.

Things have only gotten better. I'm now a millionaire. Yay! And while I got here in part by being a super aggressive saver, I wouldn't feel right talking up my frugality. It's true that I almost never go out to eat. But I could if I wanted to. And it wouldn't really affect my story at all. The type of frugality that really matters, is me buying a used Honda Civic instead of a brand new Lexus LX. That's not impressive or exceptional, though. The income is. I make like, a top 5% income. And probably a top 1% income when compared against my fellow millennials. That's what has mattered the most.

I agree that it's not a no-win situation, it's a situation where folks likely feel a lot of pressure to be deceptive if they want to maximize their blog revenues because most people's lives just aren't interesting enough to become famous.

Okay, fine, so there's a lot of pressure to be deceptive to become successful in a lot of fields, that's not going to stop people from being critical when someone is called out for being deceptive.

Someone can absolutely be high income and have a blog writing about their personal finance journey and be totally honest about it. It might not make them a shit-ton of money though.

No blogger is obliged to reach as many readers as possible, if they choose to engage in sketchy/misleading or trollish behaviours to do so, that is their prerogative, but it's also their responsibility to face the music when their creative choices are scrutinized.

It's like the guy who made the weird FIRE movie, which wasn't actually about FIRE, but actually about quitting his job to become a film-maker and dragging his resentful wife through frugal lifestyle choices they had to make because they very much *were not* FI before leaving their lucrative work situation.

The thing he got skewered for most was that he was trying to capitalize on the FIRE popularity at the time, but not actually telling a FIRE story. He was tapping into the network effects of this community without contributing constructively to the cultural narrative.

If you live a story that isn't interesting enough to be profitable, no one is putting a gun to anyone's head to fudge the details to make it more marketable. That's a choice, an active choice that bloggers make when they make it.

FS is just more nakedly opportunistic than most and frankly unapologetic about it and cashing in on being a troll. If he's able to look at himself in the mirror at the end of the day, then that's the right choice for him, but we don't have to respect him for it.

What was surprising is that a lot of people in the FIRE community seemed to be excited about that film. They wer selling out theater screenings in a lot of places with ChooseFI groups. I still haven't seen the film.

Did you see the update on them?!?  Even the update about their lives isn't that interesting. I can only assume that this is paid media coverage, perhaps to promote more sales of the film.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/31/supersaver-who-stashed-78-percent-of-his-salary-might-have-been-too-extreme.html

[ChpBstrd]

I may also be naive- and I while I have no doubt that for every well-intentioned creative out there trying to share ideas you have a bunch of FS charlatans who are working the crowd for every nickel they can... I also look for humanity in people and definitely see it in the case of FWs.  (Probably a few people here remember when she was a regular around here.)

I get what people got upset about, but I also don't see it as an egregious attempt to obfuscate the truth while wheedling the unsuspecting plebs into buying a book only to realize that he had a high paying job.

Some people think this was done in an attempt to somehow bamboozle them all into thinking they can do it just like she did... only to find out her idea of not making a crazy amount of money was actually a crazy amount of money to the majority of her followers.  While that shows an obvious disconnect, I for one think that probably she was really writing from her own vision of themselves which was formed over years previous: i.e. writing about the vision of who they have been, even as things are changing in real time.

I suppose there's another angle to this feeling of betrayal:

We have a weird assumption that people earning our clicks and ad views on the internet owe us their authenticity in return.

They might disagree and say "I am a professional content creator and entertainer, running five blogs/vlogs. Each has a different focus and different persona/character I've created. I give people the entertainment they want, even if it is the opportunity to dislike the personas I created or point out their contradictions."

So it's kinda like watching a standup comedian joke about some taboo they violated, and realizing this person is not who they claim to be onstage. They are doing a performance.

I.e. when they say they slept with their sibling, that's 100% a joke. When they say they had a funny conversation with their kid... it absolutely didn't happen that way. If they say they committed a crime, there's no need to call the police. It's a form of theater.

Is it any more reasonable to expect social media influencers to be authentic? If we feel lied to, we did it to ourselves with our own dumb expectations. To them it's a job, not a relationship.