NYT: "Wait a Minute. How Can They Afford That When I Can’t?"

[Bloop Bloop]

On a site where we frequently criticise people for not restraining their spending, I think it is also open to criticise people for not maximising their earning.

If they go into their profession with eyes wide open and voluntarily take a lower-paying job for career satisfaction, then that's fine. It's analogous to a person consciously deciding to buy an expensive item because he or she really likes it.

But someone who muddles around and wants to earn decent money but fails to do so due to life choices can be criticised as much as someone who muddles around financially and leaks money here and there.

I see a lot of unsympathetic face punches for people who gamble, smoke, buy expensive things needlessly etc - those are objectively bad choices but they can be subjectively understandable responses to a hard life or poor conditions or misplaced yearning - so anyone who is going to face punch those people must also be prepared to face punch people who want to earn more but are failing to do it.

[iris lily]

I'm not a fan of IKEA stores. They skeeve me out. What I do like is their crazy product names.  Makes it easy to search CL for deals on second-hand hand stuff. There's only one IKEA thing in my house that was purchased new, and that was for my MIL's room and needed to be a specific size. Well, I don't have much else from there, but what there is was acquired via CL....

I have the same reaction to Ikea. You would think it was the Second Coming the way people awaited the opening of an IKEA here.

The crazy roundabout floor plan just depresses me,
I don’t know where I am going or where I have been. Their upholstered furniture is, for the most part, junk. Not even gonna mention the crappy MDF hard pieces.

But their names are funny. DH and I would come back from a visit there and would, for about 24 hours after, shout randomly made up Swedish sounding words like “skorsgard!” and “oberming!” to amuse ourselves.

[BTDretire]

The problem is in defining "nonsense".  Different people and segments of society value different things.  While the value of an engineering degree is apparent to all, there are not so clear uses for other degrees.  But all degrees have some value; if only in preserving that knowledge and passing it on to the next generation via teaching or writing a book.  It's more about the motivation and ambition of the student than the actual degree that determine success and usefulness.

So things like theater arts may seem like nonsense to some, but the jobs are plentiful in the right locations.  You don't have to be in front of the camera to make money or have this degree be useful.  The world loves to be entertained and has demonstrated it will pay for the privilege.  Even if you don't go into the entertainment industry the skills translate as soft skills in many industries.  High level sales anyone?  Everybody knows about the butt kisser who "manages up" and never seems to have a down day.  There is some serious acting skill involved in that. It also helps with public speaking - giving presentations and being able to train others effectively.  I took both theater and creative writing classes in college, and they have served me well in my STEM career.  I cannot tell you how useful it is to be able to write well about technical things and explain them to non technical folks.

Even a course in underwater basket weaving could be useful for developing dexterity under difficult situations, so maybe helpful for emergency responders or Coast Guard.  I could on, but you get the idea.

I haven't seen too many basket weaving majors in the coast guard academy. Engineer yes, basket weaver English lit, no. Even us lowly enlisted need skills to drive the boats, ships, planes and helicopters and to make them go vroom-vroom to rescue your sweet ass from a watery grave ;-).

With that I'll tell a story, I used to work on a Marina, it had a large parking area with water on three sides. I was in my boat when I heard a loud unusual noise. I hesitated a minute but then decided to go see what it could have been. I was docked on one side of the parking lot and about 100ft across on the other side people were starting to line the railing which had a part of it missing. When I got over there, there was a car floating about 75 ft from the railing with, I found out later an 80 year old man. He had been parked and when he started the car it he went forward right through the railing. As he was out in the water floating he had moved over to the passenger seat and was trying to push the windshield out. All he did was manage to crack it.
 There were several healthy young guys there but none ventured into the admittedly cool water, even though it was Florida. By this time maybe 6 or 7 minutes had passed and the car is still floating. The saving grace was a large coast guard boat had stopped to to get fuel. Someone had summoned them and they dropped a smaller boat off the side to come to the rescue.
 However when they got to the boat they made a couple of circles around it, but they had no way to enter the car and nothing aboard to break the windows. Then someone on the marina with a wrecking bar got their attention and they maneuvered over to the marina wall to retrieve it. They returned to the boat broke a window and got him out with even getting him wet. The car lasted just 2 or 3 more minutes and sunk. They really arrived just in time.
I don't know why he couldn't operate a window, maybe they didn't work when needed. maybe he was too confused.   Always carry something in your car to break a window  if needed.

[Metalcat]

On a site where we frequently criticise people for not restraining their spending, I think it is also open to criticise people for not maximising their earning.

If they go into their profession with eyes wide open and voluntarily take a lower-paying job for career satisfaction, then that's fine. It's analogous to a person consciously deciding to buy an expensive item because he or she really likes it.

But someone who muddles around and wants to earn decent money but fails to do so due to life choices can be criticised as much as someone who muddles around financially and leaks money here and there.

I see a lot of unsympathetic face punches for people who gamble, smoke, buy expensive things needlessly etc - those are objectively bad choices but they can be subjectively understandable responses to a hard life or poor conditions or misplaced yearning - so anyone who is going to face punch those people must also be prepared to face punch people who want to earn more but are failing to do it.

You post this often, and every time I see it, I reply that those people *are* criticized, quite heavily here. Not in a Facepunch way, because it's not something that they can fix overnight like spending on lunches everyday, but the immediate response to a case study or any Ask A Mustachian thread when the income is low or the career doesn't seem to be particularly promising, is to work on the career/income side.

In fact, I find that that advice is thrown around with no regard for whether or not the person actually wants a career change at all. It's often the #1 recommendation.

It's fair to focus on the income side of the equation, but it is completely unfair to categorize this community as being ignorant of the importance of career and income.

[Bloop Bloop]

Put it this way - go into the "What were the first 3 things you did after coming across MMM" thread and you will see that I am the only poster who stated anything that related to an increase in income. Everyone else listed three things that relate to debt or savings.

There are things you can do literally overnight to increase your income earning potential. Talk to a recruiter the next morning, for example. Set up a coffee. Talk to friends who work at competitor firms. Not everyone can do this, but much of the MMM demographic can. Not everyone has the means or willpower to do these things, but it applies equally to spending hacks.

I see people face punching others (in the Anti-Mustachian forums - not other posters, but other internet examples) quite justifiably for silly spending or financing overpriced clown cars. But I never see anyone face punching an internet case example for under-earning, doing poorly in school, making poor career choices. It's really two sides of the same coin though.

People will criticise others' lack of control in spending - no one criticises lack of discipline or ability in earning.

Someone who makes unwise financial choices in spending (wasting money on a car loan, etc) might just lack the discipline, education or intellectual capacity to know better. In a way it's mean-spirited to criticise such people, though many on these forums indulge in it. That's all fine, and it's what the Anti-MMM sub-forum is for, but remember that such criticism is no different from criticising someone who didn't study well in school and therefore couldn't get a well-paying job (and no, not everyone in a modest-paying job is there out of necessity - some took it out of choice - but I'm not talking about those people; just like not everyone who's not a frugal spender is a poor financial chooser).

So I didn't say that the community is ignorant of it, but rather that there are double standards, or at least double emphases.

[dragoncar]

But “increase income” and “spend income” is pretty much the default mode among humans.  MMM doesn’t need to change the former, only the latter

[jeroly]

Some of the posters above are acting as if not spending an extra dollar is equivalent to earning an extra dollar, whereas the former is far more effective in boosting your FIRE date.

Not only do you get an already taxed dollar to save versus having to pay the taxes on that extra dollar of income, but you reduce your need for invested dollars at retirement time by $25 due to reduced expenses.

Of course earning more makes things easier! However, unless you get out of the “earn more spend more” mindset, you will be right back where you started.  That change only comes from spending less.  Thus the face punching is appropriately skewed towards spendypants folks.

The advice to earn more tends to be directed at folks who are already spending close to a barebones budget and for whom the easiest way to move towards FIRE faster is to earn more.

[Dicey]

Put it this way - go into the "What were the first 3 things you did after coming across MMM" thread and you will see that I am the only poster who stated anything that related to an increase in income. Everyone else listed three things that relate to debt or savings.

There are things you can do literally overnight to increase your income earning potential. Talk to a recruiter the next morning, for example. Set up a coffee. Talk to friends who work at competitor firms. Not everyone can do this, but much of the MMM demographic can. Not everyone has the means or willpower to do these things, but it applies equally to spending hacks.

Ya think if the topic was "What were the next three things you did...?" You'd be happier with the responses? Frankly, saying something like "Talk to a Recruiter" or "Set up a coffee" would be kind of a BS "First Three" answer. No, for the vast majority of humankind, it is not possible to increase one's earning potential overnight. Sure, one can take steps to increase their earnings, but these things take a little longer.

Asking what were your immediate steps is a very entertaining topic. It's easy for people to relate to. If that helps someone else get or stay motivated, hooray!

There are a million ways to FIRE...

[Bloop Bloop]

Why would "Talk to a recruiter" be a BS first answer? It's applicable to anyone who's in a professional job.

Does it take longer to set up, or organise, or does it have a lesser payoff/value equation than -

- carpooling?
- switching 401k?
- downsizing family home?
- paying off student loans?
- firing the gardener?

Those are all great things to do, but none is a day-1 proposition either, at least no less so than what I suggested.

Also, I'm aware that saving a dollar of spending is worth more in the long run than earning an extra dollar. My point is that for each person you have to gauge how much energy will lead to how much gains. If your income is, for example, 3x year spending, then it may well be that 50 energy/discipline points might increase your income by 5% over a year, or might decrease your spending by 3%, and the former will give you 5x the benefit (or 3.5x the benefit after tax), so it's up to you to then work out the equation.

I have seen how extra work and initiative can double your salary in 3 years (and then double it again) during the formative years of a professional career.

None of the above will work optimally for everyone. But neither will carpooling or downsizing or cooking at home, etc. Horses for courses. You've only got so many energy/discipline points to allocate. Think carefully before you do.

[mm1970]

Put it this way - go into the "What were the first 3 things you did after coming across MMM" thread and you will see that I am the only poster who stated anything that related to an increase in income. Everyone else listed three things that relate to debt or savings.

What percentage of people answering that thread were already making enough money?
What percentage of people are part of a dual-income couple, and thus less able to move for a better paying job?

[Dragonswan]

The problem is in defining "nonsense".  Different people and segments of society value different things.  While the value of an engineering degree is apparent to all, there are not so clear uses for other degrees.  But all degrees have some value; if only in preserving that knowledge and passing it on to the next generation via teaching or writing a book.  It's more about the motivation and ambition of the student than the actual degree that determine success and usefulness.

So things like theater arts may seem like nonsense to some, but the jobs are plentiful in the right locations.  You don't have to be in front of the camera to make money or have this degree be useful.  The world loves to be entertained and has demonstrated it will pay for the privilege.  Even if you don't go into the entertainment industry the skills translate as soft skills in many industries.  High level sales anyone?  Everybody knows about the butt kisser who "manages up" and never seems to have a down day.  There is some serious acting skill involved in that. It also helps with public speaking - giving presentations and being able to train others effectively.  I took both theater and creative writing classes in college, and they have served me well in my STEM career.  I cannot tell you how useful it is to be able to write well about technical things and explain them to non technical folks.

Even a course in underwater basket weaving could be useful for developing dexterity under difficult situations, so maybe helpful for emergency responders or Coast Guard.  I could on, but you get the idea.

I haven't seen too many basket weaving majors in the coast guard academy. Engineer yes, basket weaver English lit, no. Even us lowly enlisted need skills to drive the boats, ships, planes and helicopters and to make them go vroom-vroom to rescue your sweet ass from a watery grave ;-).

 But joking aside, I do think some majors need to be disqualified from public funding unless it can be shown to be a useful and marketable skill. Here in Calif we have lots of community recreation courses that offer classes in such things and at no public taxpayer expense. They are fee-based and aren't too expensive.

Are you 100% sure there were no underwater basket weaver majors on board?  They may have lied when you asked them because they knew you'd ridicule them or have no confidence in the transfer-ability of their skill set.  I knew a woman who was not be allowed to be a lab director under certain regulations because she majored in Dance (although she minored in a STEM subject) regardless of her other coursework or years of experience in the lab.  Being graceful in the lab is helpful from a safety perspective. Though I will admit, you need the other head knowledge as well.

[merula]

Put it this way - go into the "What were the first 3 things you did after coming across MMM" thread and you will see that I am the only poster who stated anything that related to an increase in income. Everyone else listed three things that relate to debt or savings.

What percentage of people answering that thread were already making enough money?
What percentage of people are part of a dual-income couple, and thus less able to move for a better paying job?

Excellent point. I'm in  that "already making enough" category; my salary is set by my East Coast HCOL manager at our East Coast HCOL-headquartered MegaCorp, even though I live in a MCOL city. I'm somewhere in the 75-80th percentile of household income as a single earner.

My opportunities to earn more money are:
-Work for a different company in my industry, all of which are in the suburbs, meaning I'd need to buy a car or spend an additional two hours per day commuting via bike or transit. Moving close to my job would also require a car, as these suburbs aren't served by transit.
-Move to a HCOL city where more companies are within bike/transit distance and there's a solid transit network, for a COLA of approx 4%.
-Switch to a different track at my current company, which would be an additional 10-20 hours per week for ~20% pay increase. Since my current track is almost always 40 hours/week, that's effectively an hourly pay cut.
-Go to law school, incurring that time and monetary cost for approx 30-40% pay increase, with 5-10 additional hours per week of work at my current company, or 40-60 additional hours per week for a BigLaw job but with a 100% pay increase.

That's it, and I've decided that none of these options are worth the non-monetary costs. There's not an entry-level position that I could take that would increase my pay, other than with a law degree. There is not a different industry that would pay me more at this point in my career. I'm ~4-6 years from FIRE, currently have great work/life balance and two elementary-school aged kids.

You won't find me citing "considered alternatives to increase earnings" in any "what did you do after finding MMM" thread, because my consideration of the above facts hasn't changed since I've found MMM, and even if it had, I wouldn't consider it something I did, because I didn't take any action.

[Bloop Bloop]

Put it this way - go into the "What were the first 3 things you did after coming across MMM" thread and you will see that I am the only poster who stated anything that related to an increase in income. Everyone else listed three things that relate to debt or savings.

What percentage of people answering that thread were already making enough money?
What percentage of people are part of a dual-income couple, and thus less able to move for a better paying job?

How would I know? Are you suggesting that everyone in that thread bar me had a look at their financial position, after first coming across MMM, and immediately thought to themselves "I'm already making enough money"? Because it seems like everyone here can find spending hacks to save a bit of spending, so I'm sure many could be entrepreneurial enough to come up with income hacks to get a bonus or promotion or open up a side source of income.

Also, you don't have to move cities to get a better paying job. You could -
- Do some consulting work on the side
- Start your own business
- See a recruiter and ask for a lateral transfer
- Agitate within your own company for a raise
- Renegotiate your bonus component

etc

Sure, you can always find ways to say "enough is enough". But the same goes for spending. Yet it seems like an awful amount gets written on these forums about reducing spending, in comparison to increasing earning.

[Davnasty]

As long as we're coming up with reasons that we don't face punch people for not earning enough-

What is an appropriate cutoff where we should/shouldn't face punch? Is $30k/year too little? $50k? $100k?

Perhaps the appropriate amount varies based on individual ability but how should we as internet strangers determine the maximum ability to earn for each person we share a few lines of text with. And even if we could, the question of "is it mustachian?" should also take into account the life energy given to increase earnings. It's not about maximum earnings, it's about maximum value.

What I'm getting at is that it's far too complicated to know if someone can or even should pursue a higher salary. I'm sure there are plenty of people who could use a wake up call with regard to their income but I haven't got a clue who they are.

[DadJokes]

I spent a year looking into increasing my income. Sure, I could have increased my income by getting a new job, but then I would have given up benefits, flexibility, and balance that far outweigh the potential income increase. In the end, I took a lateral transfer that did not offer a pay raise but did offer more rewarding work.

And all of that was after a year of searching and interviewing.

On the other hand, I could cut spending dramatically and optimize investing with only a few hours of work.

As to why this forum focuses on spending over earning in general? MMM has said that he is a lifestyle blogger who happens to write about personal finance (paraphrasing). How much a person earns means diddly for their lifestyle. How much they consume, on the other hand, means a lot. Consuming more increases your environmental impact and very likely decreases your life satisfaction. With that in mind, it would only make sense that the forum for MMM focus on the same things that the blog focuses on.

I'll have to find that forum post about the first 3 things people did and read through it. I had quite a shift when I discovered MMM.

[Metalcat]

Put it this way - go into the "What were the first 3 things you did after coming across MMM" thread and you will see that I am the only poster who stated anything that related to an increase in income. Everyone else listed three things that relate to debt or savings.

What percentage of people answering that thread were already making enough money?
What percentage of people are part of a dual-income couple, and thus less able to move for a better paying job?

How would I know? Are you suggesting that everyone in that thread bar me had a look at their financial position, after first coming across MMM, and immediately thought to themselves "I'm already making enough money"? Because it seems like everyone here can find spending hacks to save a bit of spending, so I'm sure many could be entrepreneurial enough to come up with income hacks to get a bonus or promotion or open up a side source of income.

Also, you don't have to move cities to get a better paying job. You could -
- Do some consulting work on the side
- Start your own business
- See a recruiter and ask for a lateral transfer
- Agitate within your own company for a raise
- Renegotiate your bonus component

etc

Sure, you can always find ways to say "enough is enough". But the same goes for spending. Yet it seems like an awful amount gets written on these forums about reducing spending, in comparison to increasing earning.

K...

Except, yet again, the advice to earn more and develop a side hustle is rampant here. Also, very high incomes are extremely common here.

I honestly feel like you and I read different forums sometimes.

[mm1970]

Put it this way - go into the "What were the first 3 things you did after coming across MMM" thread and you will see that I am the only poster who stated anything that related to an increase in income. Everyone else listed three things that relate to debt or savings.

What percentage of people answering that thread were already making enough money?
What percentage of people are part of a dual-income couple, and thus less able to move for a better paying job?

How would I know? Are you suggesting that everyone in that thread bar me had a look at their financial position, after first coming across MMM, and immediately thought to themselves "I'm already making enough money"? Because it seems like everyone here can find spending hacks to save a bit of spending, so I'm sure many could be entrepreneurial enough to come up with income hacks to get a bonus or promotion or open up a side source of income.

Also, you don't have to move cities to get a better paying job. You could -
- Do some consulting work on the side
- Start your own business
- See a recruiter and ask for a lateral transfer
- Agitate within your own company for a raise
- Renegotiate your bonus component

etc

Sure, you can always find ways to say "enough is enough". But the same goes for spending. Yet it seems like an awful amount gets written on these forums about reducing spending, in comparison to increasing earning.

K...

Except, yet again, the advice to earn more and develop a side hustle is rampant here. Also, very high incomes are extremely common here.

I honestly feel like you and I read different forums sometimes.

Yep...always the side hustle recommendations and such.

My side hustle(s) are my kids.
My second side hustle is my spouse (who gets paid straight time for overtime, rare)
My bonus is non-existent.  We don't do that.
Consulting work...eh, you know a couple of years ago, I put out a few feelers.  But you know, two parents, two full time jobs...extra work just isn't happening.
Agitating for a raise...well that's obvious, and I recommend it a lot (doesn't always work for me or others, but it's a no brainer).  But...I see that recommendation on this board quite a lot.

I see both "decrease spending" and "increase saving" recommendations on here...a lot.
Obviously with low incomes, there tends to be emphasis on BOTH.

But high incomes?  I mean, for many people it's as simple has learning to cook instead of ordering in.  But also, simple savings can be a phone call away, like insurance costs or such.

But side hustles or starting your own business are hardly going to be fast and easy.

[oldtoyota]

I'm not a fan of IKEA stores. They skeeve me out. What I do like is their crazy product names.  Makes it easy to search CL for deals on second-hand hand stuff. There's only one IKEA thing in my house that was purchased new, and that was for my MIL's room and needed to be a specific size. Well, I don't have much else from there, but what there is was acquired via CL....

I have the same reaction to Ikea. You would think it was the Second Coming the way people awaited the opening of an IKEA here.

The crazy roundabout floor plan just depresses me,
I don’t know where I am going or where I have been. Their upholstered furniture is, for the most part, junk. Not even gonna mention the crappy MDF hard pieces.

But their names are funny. DH and I would come back from a visit there and would, for about 24 hours after, shout randomly made up Swedish sounding words like “skorsgard!” and “oberming!” to amuse ourselves.

That's how I feel. That floor plan! Yuck!

We do have two IKEA pieces that I've had recovered. Love the shape and feel of them. We lucked out with these. I would never buy their MDF furniture again, though. A bed we bought there broke pretty quickly. Learned my lesson.

[Bloop Bloop]

As long as we're coming up with reasons that we don't face punch people for not earning enough-

What is an appropriate cutoff where we should/shouldn't face punch? Is $30k/year too little? $50k? $100k?

As with expenditure, it depends on the person's background, ability, family situation, desires, needs etc

So I wouldn't give out face punches, obviously, on the basis that someone is not earning enough. Unless it was really clear this person wanted to earn more but was slacking off in his or her job and wilfully refusing to improve, or something similar.

But, for the same reason, I don't agree with face punches for things like a "clown house" or "clown car" without understanding another person's financial situation and needs, desires and so on. Unfortunately MMM tends to use this language quite loosely.

[Fomerly known as something]

How would I know? Are you suggesting that everyone in that thread bar me had a look at their financial position, after first coming across MMM, and immediately thought to themselves "I'm already making enough money"? Because it seems like everyone here can find spending hacks to save a bit of spending, so I'm sure many could be entrepreneurial enough to come up with income hacks to get a bonus or promotion or open up a side source of income.

Also, you don't have to move cities to get a better paying job. You could -
- Do some consulting work on the side
- Start your own business
- See a recruiter and ask for a lateral transfer
- Agitate within your own company for a raise
- Renegotiate your bonus component

etc

Sure, you can always find ways to say "enough is enough". But the same goes for spending. Yet it seems like an awful amount gets written on these forums about reducing spending, in comparison to increasing earning.
[/quote]

Add me in as someone who came to this site after I'd already figured out my income is sufficient and like Bloop Bloop any change would be a major change, as in starting a whole new career.  And honestly I don't come here to "get rich quicker," I was already getting rich on my own timeline that hasn't changed. I like it hear because of the question what is enough, what do I need for my life.  Since I've found this site, some spending has gone down, some has gone up dramatically because I use it to reflect on life.  In other words MMM, appeals to my inner environmental hippy tendencies. 

As to answer what I could still do to up income if I so desired.  Here a my "excuses."  Also I am a government worker so yes when I talk about salary I know, I'm not guessing.

Consulting on the side.  I basically have a "noncompete," any skill that I earned in my current career while I'm still working for my current employer basically belongs to them.  Any side job no matter what the industry must be approved per my contract and they will deny any directly related consulting as a conflict of interest.

Start your own business, why, I don't need the money and I don't have an idea of a business outside of my current skill which I can not use in a non-compete.  I also have no desire to run a business.

Lateral transfer, my industry that would mean a lateral salary, I am at the top of my industries pay range for my position.

Ask for a raise, again I am at the high end of the pay range for my industry.

Bonus, what's a bonus they don't really exist in my industry.

[rothwem]

Wow, I normally don't agree with @Bloop Bloop , but I think he stumbled upon something here.

These excuses for not raising income sound suspiciously like the complainlypants excuses people use when they can't save. 

"Gah, I'm just too BUSY to cook, so I HAVE to go out to eat!"
"I HAVE to have a maid clean my house because I'm too TIRED when I get home to put my shit away!"
vs
"The company I work for doesn't DO bonuses, so I can't possibly get a bigger one!"
"I'm too BUSY to consult for extra money!"

I think the point that bloop bloop is making is that you can do all kinds of shit you don't want to do to SAVE money, but for some reason its frowned upon in this forum to do shit you don't want to do to MAKE money.  And if you just don't want to do stuff, own it the same way you would if you were to cop out and spend more money on the easy way, like grabbing takeout when you're tired.  Just be aware that there are other options. 

[Cranky]

I sort of thought the whole premise of MMM was that people were already doing shit they didn't want to do to *make* money, so if they spent less of it they could quit doing the shit they didn't like doing?

Since my goal was always different than that, I've never paid much attention to the "make more money" end of things.

[Metalcat]

As long as we're coming up with reasons that we don't face punch people for not earning enough-

What is an appropriate cutoff where we should/shouldn't face punch? Is $30k/year too little? $50k? $100k?

As with expenditure, it depends on the person's background, ability, family situation, desires, needs etc

So I wouldn't give out face punches, obviously, on the basis that someone is not earning enough. Unless it was really clear this person wanted to earn more but was slacking off in his or her job and wilfully refusing to improve, or something similar.

But, for the same reason, I don't agree with face punches for things like a "clown house" or "clown car" without understanding another person's financial situation and needs, desires and so on. Unfortunately MMM tends to use this language quite loosely.

Except that rampant consumerism is a huge societal problem, the vast majority of people are wastefully spending and society leaves them almost entirely unchallenged on it.

If anything, there's an overall sentiment that this place has gotten extremely soft on spending, and I couldn't agree more.

Absolutely, each person needs to find their own balance, and that is very much respected here, but that doesn't mean that that spending should be sacred and left unchallenged.

A Facepunch is not a decree that you cannot spend, it's a signal to contemplate if that spending really will improve your life. We have deeply respected members who talk openly about their luxury cars and enormous houses with no facepunches at all except from themselves, so I'm not sure where you are seeing this excessive judgement on people's spending with no regard for their personal circumstances.

You've made it very very clear that you are high income and that you are comfortable with a high spend. Cool, so have many, many, many, many other posters here, and literally no one is attacking you or any of us for it.

I'm typically actually shocked by how little criticism I get for what I admit to spending on. I'm generally left alone for what could be considered absolutely ludicrous spending choices as long as I provide the slightest of context for my decision.

I'm actually frequently disappointed by how little this place challenges me to consider spending less. I'm always going to do what I feel like doing, but I like having my own thinking challenged. It's why I bother spending time here.

So again, I feel like you and I read two completely different forums sometimes.

Contrary to how it might sound, I'm not actually criticizing you, I'm more fascinated by how we can have such wildly different interpretations of the exact same material.

[Metalcat]

Wow, I normally don't agree with @Bloop Bloop , but I think he stumbled upon something here.

These excuses for not raising income sound suspiciously like the complainlypants excuses people use when they can't save. 

"Gah, I'm just too BUSY to cook, so I HAVE to go out to eat!"
"I HAVE to have a maid clean my house because I'm too TIRED when I get home to put my shit away!"
vs
"The company I work for doesn't DO bonuses, so I can't possibly get a bigger one!"
"I'm too BUSY to consult for extra money!"

I think the point that bloop bloop is making is that you can do all kinds of shit you don't want to do to SAVE money, but for some reason its frowned upon in this forum to do shit you don't want to do to MAKE money.  And if you just don't want to do stuff, own it the same way you would if you were to cop out and spend more money on the easy way, like grabbing takeout when you're tired.  Just be aware that there are other options.

Well...except the entire point of this whole thing is to live your best life and be happier.

Often making more money does come at an enormous cost to a person's well being and life balance. There are of course exceptions, but in my line of work, I'm typically advising more people to cut back than to take on more.

The drive to make more in our society is already pretty extremely intense.

[Kris]

As long as we're coming up with reasons that we don't face punch people for not earning enough-

What is an appropriate cutoff where we should/shouldn't face punch? Is $30k/year too little? $50k? $100k?

As with expenditure, it depends on the person's background, ability, family situation, desires, needs etc

So I wouldn't give out face punches, obviously, on the basis that someone is not earning enough. Unless it was really clear this person wanted to earn more but was slacking off in his or her job and wilfully refusing to improve, or something similar.

But, for the same reason, I don't agree with face punches for things like a "clown house" or "clown car" without understanding another person's financial situation and needs, desires and so on. Unfortunately MMM tends to use this language quite loosely.

Except that rampant consumerism is a huge societal problem, the vast majority of people are wastefully spending and society leaves them almost entirely unchallenged on it.

If anything, there's an overall sentiment that this place has gotten extremely soft on spending, and I couldn't agree more.

Absolutely, each person needs to find their own balance, and that is very much respected here, but that doesn't mean that that spending shouldn't be sacred and left unchallenged.

A Facepunch is not a decree that you cannot spend, it's a signal to contemplate if that spending really will improve your life. We have deeply respected members who talk openly about their luxury cars and enormous houses with no facepunches at all except from themselves, so I'm not sure where you are seeing this excessive judgement on people's spending with no regard for their personal circumstances.

You've made it very very clear that you are high income and that you are comfortable with a high spend. Cool, so have many, many, many, many other posters here, and literally no one is attacking you or any of us for it.

I'm typically actually shocked by how little criticism I get for what I admit to spending on. I'm generally left alone for what could be considered absolutely ludicrous spending choices as long as I provide the slightest of context for my decision.

I'm actually frequently disappointed by how little this place challenges me to consider spending less. I'm always going to do what I feel like doing, but I like having my own thinking challenged. It's why I bother spending time here.

So again, I feel like you and I read two completely different forums sometimes.

Contrary to how it might sound, I'm not actually criticizing you, I'm more fascinated by how we can have such wildly different interpretations of the exact same material.

+1.

[Davnasty]

As long as we're coming up with reasons that we don't face punch people for not earning enough-

What is an appropriate cutoff where we should/shouldn't face punch? Is $30k/year too little? $50k? $100k?

As with expenditure, it depends on the person's background, ability, family situation, desires, needs etc

So I wouldn't give out face punches, obviously, on the basis that someone is not earning enough. Unless it was really clear this person wanted to earn more but was slacking off in his or her job and wilfully refusing to improve, or something similar.

But, for the same reason, I don't agree with face punches for things like a "clown house" or "clown car" without understanding another person's financial situation and needs, desires and so on. Unfortunately MMM tends to use this language quite loosely.

If your stance is that we shouldn't be criticizing anyone for their financial choices then that's quite different than what your posts seemed to suggest. But in that case, you're not alone. Lots of posters push back on the idea that certain types of spending can't be justified and say that it all comes down to personal values. I actually agree in a lot of ways. This forum has taught me that there a lots of exceptions to what I thought were rules, whether financial or otherwise.

However, I still believe there are situations where we can say with a high level of confidence that someone is spending money on something that doesn't bring the value to their life that they think it does. Car insurance for example. I grew up being taught that having full coverage is the responsible thing to do and I'm sure I'm not alone in that experience. Now that I understand the math and the reasoning behind insurance better, I'm confident in my choice to carry minimal insurance on my vehicle knowing that I can replace it in the worst case scenario.

Speaking of vehicles, this is another area where people tend to drastically overestimate how much value spending more on a vehicle will bring to their life. Many mustachians have experienced this phenomenon and since come to realize either through math or a better understanding of hedonic adaptation that their car doesn't bring them the value that they thought it would. Now they can look at someone who hasn't put that time and thought into the decision and tell them, "I've been there, I understand how you feel, and I think you're making a big mistake".

The difference between this and telling someone they ought to be earning more is that, as we've discussed, job choice is so much more complicated and has so many more personal variables than vehicle choice.

[OtherJen]

As long as we're coming up with reasons that we don't face punch people for not earning enough-

What is an appropriate cutoff where we should/shouldn't face punch? Is $30k/year too little? $50k? $100k?

As with expenditure, it depends on the person's background, ability, family situation, desires, needs etc

So I wouldn't give out face punches, obviously, on the basis that someone is not earning enough. Unless it was really clear this person wanted to earn more but was slacking off in his or her job and wilfully refusing to improve, or something similar.

But, for the same reason, I don't agree with face punches for things like a "clown house" or "clown car" without understanding another person's financial situation and needs, desires and so on. Unfortunately MMM tends to use this language quite loosely.

Except that rampant consumerism is a huge societal problem, the vast majority of people are wastefully spending and society leaves them almost entirely unchallenged on it.

If anything, there's an overall sentiment that this place has gotten extremely soft on spending, and I couldn't agree more.

Absolutely, each person needs to find their own balance, and that is very much respected here, but that doesn't mean that that spending should be sacred and left unchallenged.

A Facepunch is not a decree that you cannot spend, it's a signal to contemplate if that spending really will improve your life. We have deeply respected members who talk openly about their luxury cars and enormous houses with no facepunches at all except from themselves, so I'm not sure where you are seeing this excessive judgement on people's spending with no regard for their personal circumstances.

You've made it very very clear that you are high income and that you are comfortable with a high spend. Cool, so have many, many, many, many other posters here, and literally no one is attacking you or any of us for it.

I'm typically actually shocked by how little criticism I get for what I admit to spending on. I'm generally left alone for what could be considered absolutely ludicrous spending choices as long as I provide the slightest of context for my decision.

I'm actually frequently disappointed by how little this place challenges me to consider spending less. I'm always going to do what I feel like doing, but I like having my own thinking challenged. It's why I bother spending time here.

So again, I feel like you and I read two completely different forums sometimes.

Contrary to how it might sound, I'm not actually criticizing you, I'm more fascinated by how we can have such wildly different interpretations of the exact same material.

It is interesting, isn’t it? The assumption that most of us haven’t done our own cost/benefit analyses is also interesting (and insulting).

I’m here because it has been amazing and empowering to learn that it will be completely possible for husband and me to retire in our early 60s on our modest (over the US median but modest relative to the forum) household income. We had fully internalized the mass media message that our generation wouldn’t ever get to retire, and by the way, you should take on another auto loan and of course everyone carries credit card debt.

We’ve both been through work-related burnout; in my case, it wrecked my health for a few years. I’m now a happy freelancer on contracts and might make more money as a W-2 employee, but that would require taking on an hour-plus daily commute (I work at home) with all the related car expenses. I would also lose the time in my day that I use to cook from scratch to accommodate our dietary restrictions and keep our food budget fairly low. We could also make more if we moved far out of state, but that would increase our COL and take us away from our elderly parents and young niece and nephew. I’m an only child and dad just turned 70 so being thousands of miles away is not appealing.

Ergo, we spend less. It’s Jan. 7, and all monthly bills are paid except the ones that haven’t arrived yet, and some money went into savings. I haven’t even received payment from December’s invoices yet (those will arrive mid-month). We have no debt other than $50k on a mortgage. We have more than enough money to cover our modest expenses (thanks to spending cuts and refusal to inflate our lifestyle) and set aside a decent chunk. We have time to spend with family and friends, volunteer, and DIY many things that our busier, spendier friends outsource. More money is nice, but I love my life already. I thought that was the point.

[roomtempmayo]

Jeepers, I thought the message of MMM was that the vast majority of people are doing money and life wrong, and the way to do it right was to change the fundamentals of your lifestyle.  Yeah, that's super arrogant and exclusionary, but it was an effective clubhouse motto for the membership.

Now it seems like there are three camps:

1) People who are anti-consumerist and are willing to reconsider their lifestyle all the way down, from the clown house, to the clown commute, to the cleaning service.

2) People who want to be frugal in the little and medium stuff, but aren't willing to abandon the clown lifestyle.

3) People who are conventionally rich and mostly want to be affirmed.

The more the tone shifts toward 2 and 3, the more it becomes like every other tired bit of personal finance media.  Maybe MMM can sell the blog to Forbes in a few years.

[mm1970]

Wow, I normally don't agree with @Bloop Bloop , but I think he stumbled upon something here.

These excuses for not raising income sound suspiciously like the complainlypants excuses people use when they can't save. 

"Gah, I'm just too BUSY to cook, so I HAVE to go out to eat!"
"I HAVE to have a maid clean my house because I'm too TIRED when I get home to put my shit away!"
vs
"The company I work for doesn't DO bonuses, so I can't possibly get a bigger one!"
"I'm too BUSY to consult for extra money!"

I think the point that bloop bloop is making is that you can do all kinds of shit you don't want to do to SAVE money, but for some reason its frowned upon in this forum to do shit you don't want to do to MAKE money.  And if you just don't want to do stuff, own it the same way you would if you were to cop out and spend more money on the easy way, like grabbing takeout when you're tired.  Just be aware that there are other options.

Well...except the entire point of this whole thing is to live your best life and be happier.

Often making more money does come at an enormous cost to a person's well being and life balance. There are of course exceptions, but in my line of work, I'm typically advising more people to cut back than to take on more.

The drive to make more in our society is already pretty extremely intense.

Yup

As OtherJen put it:

It is interesting, isn’t it? The assumption that most of us haven’t done our own cost/benefit analyses is also interesting (and insulting).

This right here.

"I'm too BUSY to consult for extra money!"

I'm almost 50 with a full time, demanding job, a husband who works overtime, two kids at two different schools (one of the kids is SEVEN for shit's sake, do you know how much work a 7 year old is?)  FUCK CONSULTING. I think I've done my cost/benefit analyses thankyouverymuch.  If I want to spend 5 hours a week cooking from scratch instead of consulting, I've kinda earned the right.  Peace out.  (Plus, we make a shit ton of money and have a good NW.)

Someone who is making $50k a year with a bunch of debt and little upside to their job?  Yeah, consulting probably a much better choice for them.

[LennStar]

As to why this forum focuses on spending over earning in general? MMM has said that he is a lifestyle blogger who wants to save the planet from overconsumption, for which the best way to do it happens to write about personal finance (paraphrasing).

I respectfully inserted the important part, because it easily answers the question.

You could also say he wants sto make people happier, which in 90%+ of cases does not mean "chase the highest income".

Maybe MMM can sell the blog to Forbes in a few years.

In that case he should just close it down.

[roomtempmayo]

Maybe MMM can sell the blog to Forbes in a few years.

In that case he should just close it down.
[/quote]

I guess that's the point: the further we get from anti-consumerist facepunches, the closer we get to the useless Forbes personal finance clickbait garbage.

[Bloop Bloop]

If anything, there's an overall sentiment that this place has gotten extremely soft on spending, and I couldn't agree more.

Absolutely, each person needs to find their own balance, and that is very much respected here, but that doesn't mean that that spending should be sacred and left unchallenged.

A Facepunch is not a decree that you cannot spend, it's a signal to contemplate if that spending really will improve your life. We have deeply respected members who talk openly about their luxury cars and enormous houses with no facepunches at all except from themselves, so I'm not sure where you are seeing this excessive judgement on people's spending with no regard for their personal circumstances.

I think rothwem does a good job to express my point perhaps in a better way. I couldn't agree more that spending needs to be analysed and you need to figure out whether it "really will improve your life" as opposed to being mindless spending borne of laziness or a desire to keep up with the Joneses. I generally don't see any excessive judgment on people's spending except in the Anti-Mustachian threads where there's a humorous pile-on but that's to be expected.

My point is though, if you're going to put the magnifying glass on spending, the same goes for earning. So it seems interesting that you would say:

"I'm actually frequently disappointed by how little this place challenges me to consider spending less."

But not:

"I'm actually frequently disappointed by how little this place challenges me to consider earning more."

As rothwem said, there are usually ways of earning more - they may take a day, a month, a year or three years; they may be completely suitable or completely unsuitable...but just as people in society have a very wide range of spending, they also have a very wide range of earning.

And I don't think all high income earners get there by chance.

It's trite to say there are two ways to FIRE - high earning and/or low spending. My only point is that this site tends to concentrate very heavily on the latter.

I also think it's interesting that many people in this thread have said that they are quite happy with their earning scenarios and the cost/benefit to any moonlighting or consulting etc is not worth it to them. I accept that at face value, of course. But the same way that MMM has clearly struck a chord with people by showing them ways that their spending might have been out of whack, I think there's an argument that for a lot of people (perhaps not those on this thread, except me) their earning might be out of whack too.

I would find it surprising if people looking for personal finance advice online all preternaturally had clownish spending habits (of the type MMM wants to solve) but at the same time had all optimised their earning. My belief is that most people who haven't come across MMM/personal finance have probably optimised neither. And it may be that we only have energy to optimise one, fine. It's worthwhile discussing which it is that we should do.

I thought I was quite happy with my earning till a few years ago when I bumped into a few people and learned how to accelerate my earnings. They offered me a great part-time working from home opportunity. I sell these special pills and I get income while I sleep. It was amazing! I didn't have to be a 9-5 rat any more, I just had to rely on my downline.

(Haha. Kidding on the last part.)

[Bloop Bloop]

Jeepers, I thought the message of MMM was that the vast majority of people are doing money and life wrong, and the way to do it right was to change the fundamentals of your lifestyle.  Yeah, that's super arrogant and exclusionary, but it was an effective clubhouse motto for the membership.

Now it seems like there are three camps:

1) People who are anti-consumerist and are willing to reconsider their lifestyle all the way down, from the clown house, to the clown commute, to the cleaning service.

2) People who want to be frugal in the little and medium stuff, but aren't willing to abandon the clown lifestyle.

3) People who are conventionally rich and mostly want to be affirmed.

The more the tone shifts toward 2 and 3, the more it becomes like every other tired bit of personal finance media.  Maybe MMM can sell the blog to Forbes in a few years.

This is the sort of judgey behaviour that I refer to. If your'e going to refer to people who are objectively not frugal as having made clown decisions (without any reference to their individual goals or wants), then you are surely justified in doing so, at least part of the time, but not perhaps all of the time. But why only judge (if you're going to do so) on one side of the ledger?

Davnasty makes a good point - there are some expenses which objectively are "clownish" regardless of what your needs or desires might be. Not shopping around for insurance or a mortgage is a very hard thing to justify. For the same reason though, you could say the same about anyone who hasn't shopped around competitors for a higher salary, who hasn't spoken to recruiters, who hasn't done this or that. It's not universally applicable, but it has enough application to be an important point, yet the balance of discussion tends away from it.

Malkynn also makes a good point in that a higher salary sometimes or maybe usually comes at a cost. But then, a lot of savings measures also come at a cost in terms of energy/discipline points. You can't just analyse the cost; you have to analyse the benefit too. And the analysis is a worthwhile one.

[Metalcat]

If anything, there's an overall sentiment that this place has gotten extremely soft on spending, and I couldn't agree more.

Absolutely, each person needs to find their own balance, and that is very much respected here, but that doesn't mean that that spending should be sacred and left unchallenged.

A Facepunch is not a decree that you cannot spend, it's a signal to contemplate if that spending really will improve your life. We have deeply respected members who talk openly about their luxury cars and enormous houses with no facepunches at all except from themselves, so I'm not sure where you are seeing this excessive judgement on people's spending with no regard for their personal circumstances.

I think rothwem does a good job to express my point perhaps in a better way. I couldn't agree more that spending needs to be analysed and you need to figure out whether it "really will improve your life" as opposed to being mindless spending borne of laziness or a desire to keep up with the Joneses. I generally don't see any excessive judgment on people's spending except in the Anti-Mustachian threads where there's a humorous pile-on but that's to be expected.

My point is though, if you're going to put the magnifying glass on spending, the same goes for earning. So it seems interesting that you would say:

"I'm actually frequently disappointed by how little this place challenges me to consider spending less."

But not:

"I'm actually frequently disappointed by how little this place challenges me to consider earning more."

As rothwem said, there are usually ways of earning more - they may take a day, a month, a year or three years; they may be completely suitable or completely unsuitable...but just as people in society have a very wide range of spending, they also have a very wide range of earning.

And I don't think all high income earners get there by chance.

It's trite to say there are two ways to FIRE - high earning and/or low spending. My only point is that this site tends to concentrate very heavily on the latter.

I also think it's interesting that many people in this thread have said that they are quite happy with their earning scenarios and the cost/benefit to any moonlighting or consulting etc is not worth it to them. I accept that at face value, of course. But the same way that MMM has clearly struck a chord with people by showing them ways that their spending might have been out of whack, I think there's an argument that for a lot of people (perhaps not those on this thread, except me) their earning might be out of whack too.

I would find it surprising if people looking for personal finance advice online all preternaturally had clownish spending habits (of the type MMM wants to solve) but at the same time had all optimised their earning. My belief is that most people who haven't come across MMM/personal finance have probably optimised neither. And it may be that we only have energy to optimise one, fine. It's worthwhile discussing which it is that we should do.

I thought I was quite happy with my earning till a few years ago when I bumped into a few people and learned how to accelerate my earnings. They offered me a great part-time working from home opportunity. I sell these special pills and I get income while I sleep. It was amazing! I didn't have to be a 9-5 rat any more, I just had to rely on my downline.

(Haha. Kidding on the last part.)

Well, as I said, I'm fascinated that we're reading the same forum and seeing a completely different reality.

[bacchi]

You've made it very very clear that you are high income and that you are comfortable with a high spend. Cool, so have many, many, many, many other posters here, and literally no one is attacking you or any of us for it.

Wait a minute.... Bloop Bloop makes a lot of money?!?

[MonkeyJenga]

This is the sort of judgey behaviour that I refer to. If your'e going to refer to people who are objectively not frugal as having made clown decisions (without any reference to their individual goals or wants), then you are surely justified in doing so, at least part of the time, but not perhaps all of the time. But why only judge (if you're going to do so) on one side of the ledger?

Going back to the question of, why are the first 3 things people do all about spending less, not earning more? Easy answer is: spending cuts are easier and faster. No need to wait around for your first consulting gig before cutting your premium cable membership.

Pete addressed this question as well. If you focus on earning more and don't get your spending under control, you could end up spending that increased income anyway. Plus, cutting a dollar from your budget is more powerful than adding a dollar to your income. It reduces the stash needed for retirement by $25, it gives you more income to invest, and it's a post-tax dollar, not pre-tax income. (I can't find the post that discusses this aspect in more detail.)

Why judge over-consumption more harshly than under-earning? Because of the below bolded bit. Let's say there are two choices:

1) Rearrange our cities to make them more walkable and bikeable, significantly decrease our consumption, but we work median income jobs forever
2) Keep the car culture and Amazon habit but we all get lucrative gigs that allow us to FIRE at 35

I would bet money that Pete chooses option #1. Early retirement is the draw to get people who already make plenty of money to spend less of it on garbage.

As to why this forum focuses on spending over earning in general? MMM has said that he is a lifestyle blogger who wants to save the planet from overconsumption, for which the best way to do it happens to write about personal finance (paraphrasing).

I respectfully inserted the important part, because it easily answers the question.

[roomtempmayo]

If your'e going to refer to people who are objectively not frugal as having made clown decisions (without any reference to their individual goals or wants), then you are surely justified in doing so, at least part of the time, but not perhaps all of the time. But why only judge (if you're going to do so) on one side of the ledger?

In addition to everything @MonkeyJenga says above that's spot on, I'll just add that most of the folks I know who are seriously under-earning their potential are highly educated, extremely self aware, and they've made very deliberate choices about their occupation.  Their under-earning is usually in service of others.  I'm going to presume the commendability of that choice until proven otherwise.

[Bloop Bloop]

Going back to the question of, why are the first 3 things people do all about spending less, not earning more? Easy answer is: spending cuts are easier and faster. No need to wait around for your first consulting gig before cutting your premium cable membership.

Yes, no doubt. But of course easiness and quickness are not the only measures of effectiveness.

The blog post you linked to contains an example of someone for whom doubling income was less effective than reducing consumption. This might well be right. But the point is that you can make spending and earning choices independently; it's not a binary proposition. You might choose to put 30% of your energy towards earning more and 70% towards spending less, or vice versa. Whatever works for you. I'm sure you would agree that different things work for different people - but I'm still awaiting the MMM post that talks about someone whose income maximisation paid dividends.

In my case, it has. I worked my butt off in my own business and I'm confident that the burst of hard work has helped my FIRE trajectory more significantly than an equivalent amount of effort in cutting down expenses. It probably helps that my expenses have always been moderate (using the standard for a median earner) so there just wasn't that much fat to trim without impinging on things I liked.

Also, a lot of 'convenience spends' - e.g. eating out, or employing a housekeeper, or paying someone else to service your car - are not necessarily permanent. Someone with good insight and self-control might choose to employ them only during part of their work career.

Again, I'm not saying that this will work for you. I'm saying that it might work for a significant number of people, and it's underrepresented.

Why judge over-consumption more harshly than under-earning? Because of the below bolded bit. Let's say there are two choices:

1) Rearrange our cities to make them more walkable and bikeable, significantly decrease our consumption, but we work median income jobs forever
2) Keep the car culture and Amazon habit but we all get lucrative gigs that allow us to FIRE at 35

I would bet money that Pete chooses option #1. Early retirement is the draw to get people who already make plenty of money to spend less of it on garbage.

Well, when I look at the net worth threads, most of it is people whose FIRE plans depend on the share market and / or lucrative gigs. One way or another they are tapping into that consumerism, even if they themselves share no part in it. So while Pete might agree with median income jobs forever, I think a lot of people here don't. The share market gains we've seen rely on overconsumption as fuel.

If your'e going to refer to people who are objectively not frugal as having made clown decisions (without any reference to their individual goals or wants), then you are surely justified in doing so, at least part of the time, but not perhaps all of the time. But why only judge (if you're going to do so) on one side of the ledger?

In addition to everything @MonkeyJenga says above that's spot on, I'll just add that most of the folks I know who are seriously under-earning their potential are highly educated, extremely self aware, and they've made very deliberate choices about their occupation.  Their under-earning is usually in service of others.  I'm going to presume the commendability of that choice until proven otherwise.

Why do you assume that under-earning must be a deliberate choice by people who choose careers beneath their earning potential in order to serve society? That's one form of under-earning, but not the only form. For example, I have a friend who's a very successful worker who was offered a 5% raise by her firm. Market standard is 4%. She was going to put 7% and accept that, but with my help and a bit of coaching she eventually got a 12% raise plus a significant increase to her bonus. She is a very smart person who just didn't quite maximise her market worth, because she didn't play the market, nor have the contact with recruiters that I have. I would be willing to bet that many people could tweak their finances in a similar way. That is the sort of maximisation, over time, that I am talking about. It doesn't usually change the actual parameters of the work.

It's not for everyone, but I think your characterisation of "under-earning" is a very limited one when you look at the entire scope of ways to increase income. Of course, increasing income usually requires some research and some serious work on communication/negotiation skills, but that's well within the ability of anyone who's smart enough to be reading these forums.

[SwordGuy]

My point is though, if you're going to put the magnifying glass on spending, the same goes for earning. So it seems interesting that you would say:

"I'm actually frequently disappointed by how little this place challenges me to consider spending less."

But not:

"I'm actually frequently disappointed by how little this place challenges me to consider earning more."

As rothwem said, there are usually ways of earning more - they may take a day, a month, a year or three years; they may be completely suitable or completely unsuitable...but just as people in society have a very wide range of spending, they also have a very wide range of earning.

You are spot on.   Whether or not we already do this is immaterial, we should always do so in the future.   

And I don't think all high income earners get there by chance.

It's trite to say there are two ways to FIRE - high earning and/or low spending. My only point is that this site tends to concentrate very heavily on the latter.

I also think it's interesting that many people in this thread have said that they are quite happy with their earning scenarios and the cost/benefit to any moonlighting or consulting etc is not worth it to them. I accept that at face value, of course. But the same way that MMM has clearly struck a chord with people by showing them ways that their spending might have been out of whack, I think there's an argument that for a lot of people (perhaps not those on this thread, except me) their earning might be out of whack too.

Spending cuts should generally be done first because the odds are overwhelming that the cuts can be done more quickly than increasing income.   Some spending cuts are 100% in the control of the family.    Increased earnings not only (usually) take more time but also (typically) rely on cooperation of others outside the family unit.

But we should be asking people, what have you considered doing to increase your income?   What are your strengths and weaknesses?   What are you going to do to improve your strengths and reduce, workaround or mitigate your weaknesses?

[Kazyan]

Regarding the division over whether the forum challenges the reader to increase their income: from my perspective, it does, but in a more general and less useful way. When it comes to reducing expenses, the advice is specific and can be acted upon. We love our spending-reducing advice, here, and it's well-tailored. When it comes to increasing income, though, the advice is more like an overview. This is somewhat a consequence of there being a million kinds of jobs and a million careers, but even so, the reader can't use it to figure out if they're on the right track or not. You can figure out if you're doing well on spending, but we don't have an agreed-upon way to decide if a person is using their skills to their best income potential. We just kinda state big numbers and expect people to be inspired by them.

This isn't to say the income-increasing advice doesn't give any direction at all, though. Such advice is generally one of the following: 1) Get a better job, 2) Negotiate with your employer, preferably by leveraging a job offer you got elsewhere, 3) Start a side hustle, 4) Be self-employed, or 5) Start a business. 1) and 2) are essentially the same thing. 3), 4), and 5) are also sort of the same idea.

Personally, I'm a bit stuck on 1 & 2 because I'm in the Mecca of North America for my field, which is an engineering field, and have still hit a wall. I have a median-income position here, but in applying to other companies, I haven't get gotten further than a phone interview--let alone a job offer. This method works for other Mustachians, including MMM himself, who has a blog post describing the job search and interviewing process as something wonderfully encouraging. On the forum, I see stories of people so skilled they control negotiations with the managers of U.S. government departments. So it might work for other members of the forum, too, who have median incomes and are looking to raise the bar. On the other hand, I'm skeptical if this actually works for normal people like me, to be blunt. I've had such a defeating experience with the job search that my perceptions are distorted; it's very difficult to stay calm and non-miserable in the process.

I'm also stuck on 3 through 5--the best thing I can come up with using my own skills would be less than half of the hourly wage of, say, a weekend job working in fast food. However, side hustling is very popular, and on this forum full of people sensible about money, so is starting one's own business. Being one's own boss is empowering, after all.

(This post might come across as personal Complainypants-ing, and that's because...yeah, it is.)

[mm1970]

Personally, I'm a bit stuck on 1 & 2 because I'm in the Mecca of North America for my field, which is an engineering field, and have still hit a wall. I have a median-income position here, but in applying to other companies, I haven't get gotten further than a phone interview--let alone a job offer. This method works for other Mustachians, including MMM himself, who has a blog post describing the job search and interviewing process as something wonderfully encouraging. On the forum, I see stories of people so skilled they control negotiations with the managers of U.S. government departments. So it might work for other members of the forum, too, who have median incomes and are looking to raise the bar. On the other hand, I'm skeptical if this actually works for normal people like me, to be blunt. I've had such a defeating experience with the job search that my perceptions are distorted; it's very difficult to stay calm and non-miserable in the process.

This is an important point to bring up too.  I think that MMM is exceptional.  I think that a lot of people on this board are "exceptional".  Engineers, lawyers, businessmen and women.  When you are exceptional - whether it be because of sheer brute force hard work, skill, or intelligence - it can be a lot easier to move yourself into a better position.  If you are known in your field, doors open.  If your former coworkers LOVE you, doors open.  If you are exceptionally skilled at interviewing (even if not great at jobs), doors open.  (We had a few years where we hired 5-6 middle-aged duds who KNEW THE LINGO but could not perform at the level we needed.)

Most people in the world, in the US, or whatever, are not exceptional.  They are average.  Their results will be average.  They can try really hard, and still be average.  That doesn't mean you don't TRY, but... it can eventually get tiring.  I can spend an intense amount of time, effort, and training to get faster at running and still never break a 1 hour 10k.  Likewise, I have spent quite a bit of effort in the past looking for a new job - time on the weekends and at night applying, days taken off work to prepare technical presentations and full day interviews...all to result in no new job.  (On the flip side, in good times, I can get a new job with a few phone calls because the right people are hiring at the right time.)

Working very hard and spending a great deal of time for months or years on end to improve your situation is commendable, but it can also be very taxing.

[Schaefer Light]

Personally, I'm a bit stuck on 1 & 2 because I'm in the Mecca of North America for my field, which is an engineering field, and have still hit a wall. I have a median-income position here, but in applying to other companies, I haven't get gotten further than a phone interview--let alone a job offer. This method works for other Mustachians, including MMM himself, who has a blog post describing the job search and interviewing process as something wonderfully encouraging. On the forum, I see stories of people so skilled they control negotiations with the managers of U.S. government departments. So it might work for other members of the forum, too, who have median incomes and are looking to raise the bar. On the other hand, I'm skeptical if this actually works for normal people like me, to be blunt. I've had such a defeating experience with the job search that my perceptions are distorted; it's very difficult to stay calm and non-miserable in the process.

I'm right there with you.  I was unemployed at this time last year.  I applied for over 30 jobs and only got 1 interview.  I was fortunate to land that job because I don't know how much longer I would have been unemployed otherwise.  Frankly, I have neither the energy nor the desire to attempt to get another (higher paying) job right now.  I'm pretty close to my barebones FI number, so to me it's just not worth the effort.  Looking for a new job takes a lot of time, and I'd rather be enjoying what free time I have than looking for another job I really don't want.  And the fact that I can't even imagine a job I would enjoy makes the process even worse.  I guess I might be willing to put in more of an effort to get a better job if I knew what job I wanted.

[roomtempmayo]

Why do you assume that under-earning must be a deliberate choice by people who choose careers beneath their earning potential in order to serve society? That's one form of under-earning, but not the only form. For example, I have a friend who's a very successful worker who was offered a 5% raise by her firm. Market standard is 4%. She was going to put 7% and accept that, but with my help and a bit of coaching she eventually got a 12% raise plus a significant increase to her bonus. She is a very smart person who just didn't quite maximise her market worth, because she didn't play the market, nor have the contact with recruiters that I have. I would be willing to bet that many people could tweak their finances in a similar way. That is the sort of maximisation, over time, that I am talking about. It doesn't usually change the actual parameters of the work.

Perhaps this is a case where we all see the world through the lens of our own unique experiences.

I think there are all sorts of reasons people don't have much bargaining power in salary negotiations, but I'll give you an example from my own field.  I live in a metro of a couple million.  Within this metro, there are maybe five positions that are roughly equivalent to mine.  Typical longevity within those positions is 20-30 years.  So, the chance of finding a local position to leverage is basically nil, especially since those positions pay about my current salary.

I could leave the field to make more money, but much of my expertise is institutional, and moving would mean doing different work under conditions I don't want.  Or, I could look nationally (there are about 20 positions in my field per year nationally), and maybe five of them pay substantially more than I make now.  So, I'd literally be trying to get one of five jobs in the country, in hopes of leveraging it in my current position, a move that would be unlikely to work since the person approving salaries knows I don't want to pack up and move across the country.

As a person develops highly specialized, niche skills, it become harder rather than easier to negotiate salary, especially if you're not willing to pack up and move.

I think when people write about salary negotiation, they're often doing so with the presumption of a large pool of jobs and workers, but that's often not the reality of the labor market for senior professionals.

But here's the good news about frugality and anti-consumerism: I don't care.  I'm not going to waste my life chasing another buck.  I don't have to because I already have more than enough.  Why would I compromise my quality of life for a dollar I don't need?

[Just Joe]

And you make room for the next person to move into that specialized career path.

[Bloop Bloop]

Perhaps this is a case where we all see the world through the lens of our own unique experiences.

I think there are all sorts of reasons people don't have much bargaining power in salary negotiations, but I'll give you an example from my own field.  I live in a metro of a couple million.  Within this metro, there are maybe five positions that are roughly equivalent to mine.  Typical longevity within those positions is 20-30 years.  So, the chance of finding a local position to leverage is basically nil, especially since those positions pay about my current salary.

I could leave the field to make more money, but much of my expertise is institutional, and moving would mean doing different work under conditions I don't want.

Thanks for your example. No doubt, everything is seen through a personal lens. If your job has only a couple of dozen equivalent positions in the whole country and only a half dozen in your city, and you don't want to use your transferable skills to go to a different sector, then no doubt your income will be hemmed in. It's similar to someone who owns a lovely colonial house not wanting to move to any other sort of house because he or she is perfectly happy with that style of house. A rational decision but one which would limit their ability to save on housing costs.

As a person develops highly specialized, niche skills, it become harder rather than easier to negotiate salary, especially if you're not willing to pack up and move.

It would depend on the field. I don't think you can generalise what you just say to most "senior professionals". In my field (law), we all have niche expertise but the general skills of client contact, negotiation, written advocacy and oral advocacy are easily transferable and there are lots of moves across practice areas, firms and locales. Even as we tend to specialise more, as our reputation and experience grow, our negotiating power increases. As you go up the pyramid, there are fewer people with your level of skill and experience and therefore it's easier to set your rates high, and easier to use your friends to get you desirable jobs.

That's only my experience - as you say, a lot of it has a personal flavour and depends on your type of work - but having spoken to friends in accounting, finance, consulting and banking, most of them say similar. However, my dad, who is a very good medical researcher (much more talented at what he does than me at what I do, yet paid less than me), tells me similar to what you tell me.

[OtherJen]

A rational decision but one which would limit their ability to save on housing costs.

Everything in life is a trade-off. One must determine which trade-offs yield the greatest benefits (which are not merely financial) for one's personal situation.

(As an aside, your father is correct about available opportunities in medical research. Once you hit the doctoral level, the field narrows considerably, especially by region. Here in the US, funding opportunities and job positions have been cut so severely over the last 20 years [I entered the field in 2001 and watched prospects get steadily worse] that I and nearly all of my grad school cohort decided to leave research and pursue more stable opportunities. I wasn't aware that the field was just as narrow in Australia. I'm genuinely sorry to hear that.)