While I don't want to say a word against our gracious host, it always bothered me that stuff like his trips to Ecuador weren't listed on his annual spending reports. I thought it was shady to exclude them by classifying them as "business" expenses. Business expense or not, they scratched an itch for travel and fun that he would've had to pay for one way or another. I'm glad that he's being more transparent about this.
That said, I don't begrudge MMM a single bit of his success. He could have gone into a peaceful stealth retirement and never written a word. Instead, he chose to spread a philosophy that's changed countless people' lives, including all of us here. As far as I'm concerned, he deserves every dollar he's earned through his blog.
Besides, isn't this the point of FIRE? He's comfortably retired, he has way more money than he'll ever need, so why not have a little fun with it and launch some moonshot passion projects? There's no rule saying you have to spend only 4% of your savings. Anyway, his life is way more modest than most people with his income. I mean, a shed in his backyard and a midrange electric car? In the grand scheme of things, that's barely any lifestyle inflation at all. We're not talking caviar or private planes here.
Regardless, even though it's not in any way his fault, his newfound fortune does make his situation less relatable.
When I found out about MMM, his articles on frugality, simple living and Stoicism struck a nerve with me. It was just what I needed to hear. It all seemed so simple and straightforward, it convinced me that I could live a lifestyle like his. If I'd discovered his site today, with articles about donating $100,000, or starting an S-corp to funnel his taxes through, or buying a storefront in town to launch his own business, I might not have stuck around.
If I was directing someone new to MMM's site, I'd tell them to start with the oldest articles first, and consider skipping most of the posts from 2016 onward, about the time his blog output started to drop off.