MMM and lifestyle

[REatc]

I need to take a trip to Longmont to buy MMM a beer and personally thank him. I found all of his articles amazing and so simple from a normal dude. I was fresh out of college and started my job, government job. My training was put on hold for a year, so literally for a year I showed up and went to my training room and looked at my phone for 8 hours a day. It was awesome for about a week, then I got pissed. I am/was a very goal oriented and motivated person thru school, and getting a government job with people who have been institutionalized by the government drive me insane with how unmotivated and stagnant they were. I got so mad one day and googled how to retire early, with the thought I’m quitting this job ASAP!!! I was dreading having to work this job for 25 years to retire. When I googled how to retire early I got terrible advice, try to max out your 401k and payoff your house with biweekly payments, you can retire by age 55! I got more pissed so I typed in my radical thought at the time, and I’ll never forget it, “how to retire in 5 years?”. The first article that popped up was the shockingly simple math. It changed my life that day. I read all his articles in a few days and started implementing mustachianism immediately. I planned on becoming FI in 10 years then assess where I am at, only 7 more years now. I’ve told only my closest friends whom I care enough about their financial well-being about MMM, now if I can just get them to follow!

[Malossi792]

I clicked 'small changes'.
I am frugal by nature. Once tried spending all my weekly allowance for a couple weeks while still going to school, and thought 'that's it? Meh'.
Remember in elementary I got a small amount each day to buy breakfast. Saved it all mon-thu then lived like a... Ahem... Slightly less broke kid on friday. So delayed gratification is second nature to me I guess.
'Found my tribe' would also be an applicable choice, but I knew nothing about investing before going down the personal finance rabbit hole (which luckily I did about a year after I started working, with a nice SR percentage - though low amount - of cash savings already in my pocket).
Thanks everyone for the intelligent discussion and the feeling that I'm not alone!

[SimpleCycle]

I think it is really surprising how many people DONT find MMM appealing. Seems so obvious to me. I have shown about a dozen people the MMM blog and approximately zero have ever spoken to me about it again. And these were people I though had a decent chance at understanding and executing the principles.

I have one friend who is interested in FIRE, but she finds the MMM blog offputting and actually sent me a critique of his blog yesterday.

I think it's useful to remember that there are lots of paths to happiness and financial security, and MMM is just one method or set of methods.  MMM is relentlessly focused on reducing expenses and optimizing, and for a good reason, but I find it often just doesn't resonate with higher income earners, especially those who like their jobs and live in high cost urban areas.

I'm not particularly invested in other people accepting the MMM way of life.  I often share the basics with people, especially the Shockingly Simple Math post, but what the do with the information is their business.  Interestingly my most Mustachian friend reads nothing on the subject of FIRE or being frugal or downshifting her lifestyle - that's just the way she's always lived her life.

[SimpleCycle]

I am not sure which to click.

I first discovered simple living and FIRE when I read Your Money or Your Life a couple years after college.  I earned very little money and felt like I could never "get ahead".  My partner at the time was very spendy (even though we didn't have means!) and YMOYL gave me the framework to explain why getting off the consumerist treadmill was important to me.  We made changes right away, and managed to save 1x annual income over the next 3 years.

Then we got divorced, and I made a lot of emotional decisions in the wake of that that were not in line with my long term goals, because why the fuck would I save for long term goals when my long term plans can be blown up at any moment by a vindictive partner?  At least that was my thinking at the time.

Anyway, I subsequently met a new partner, got married again, and got back on the course of building an intentional life.  We're not particularly "Mustachian", we're not on a path to super early retirement (we're already in our early 40s), but we have always thought about how our decisions affect our short and long term goals and whether they are based on our values.  To me this is the most important aspect of all this, more than your savings rate or whether you ride a bike everywhere or if you can live on a certain low amount of money.

Why do I even hang out here then?  Because some aspects of Mustachianism are central to our intentional life, and it's nice to be in community with people who "get it" even if my choices are not the same as their choices.  And it's helpful to reflect on which things are important to me and which things are superfluous to my goals and therefore are not a place to use resources.

[hooplady]

I picked "I was already on track financially". Years ago I had also read "Your Money Or Your Life" and was diligent about tracking every penny I spent. But when I finished the book I was left with "now what?" I continued to save, had some life diversions along the way, and just never really got around to thinking about the destination. I read and studied and read some more, eventually landing in analysis paralysis. It was only after finding MMM and devouring the entire blog that I could actually envision a new life post-employment.

[The_Big_H]

I was pretty much a frugal person before hand and was aware of the general principals of FIRE before specifically reading this blog.

What I REALLY have changed based in large part of this blog is a love of bicycles and a distaste for car clowns and car clown built environments.  Previously I was indifferent to cars, thought of them as washing machines but used one regularly.  Now car driving is a once a week affair and I've been trying to get into local advocacy for advancing bike/walk infrastructure.  I've also developed a special loathing of large pick-up trucks, at least in small part inspired by some MMM posts.  I'd jump at the chance to live in a carlite/carfree city/town.

[ericrugiero]

I'd say I'm somewhere in between " I made small changes over time that are barely noticeable, just optimized my priorities." AND "I was already on track financially, but hadn't really thought about the destination."

The biggest thing for me from MMM is the shockingly simple math....

I'm the same way.  We were on a good path financially but I didn't know a path to retire before 60.  With 60 being the goal, I didn't have as much incentive to save extra. $2-3 million + pension +SS would have been plenty.  Now I see a different way forward so there is a reward to saving more aggressively.  I've always hated waste so tried to save money and optimize.  But, this site (and others) has taught me a lot about investing and saving efficiently as well as some tips and tricks for optimizing my budget.  I'm not going to be a true "Mustachian" and retire by 30 but 50 is looking very likely.