Hello, I'm Matt. I live in England with my wife, son and dog. I was recently introduced to MMM by a friend who recommended it on his blog and I'm hooked! Having given the matter a lot of thought over the last couple of weeks, I have realised that I am naturally quite mustachian. I have never had an expensive car with monthly payments (until last month!), always cut my own hair, never liked wasting money on expensive clothes or electrical goods (never bought a TV or mobile phone in my life, always had hand me downs) and just generally hate feeling like I'm being ripped off, so I always resist big spending. I have felt like this has been getting away from me a bit recently though, due to peer pressure (entirely imaginary) and my wife, who is a bit happier to splash the cash! Where I've always been a bit remiss is that I give very little thought to saving of any kind, or making sure my utility bills etc are as low as possible. I've taken the attitude that I don't spend money because I hate worrying about it so I don't actively waste but I don't actively save either.
This general frugality has allowed us to get by on a pretty meagre household wage between the two of us, but has seen some debt creeping up. I knew I had a couple of credit card balances but just ignored them. No more! I am committed to clearing all credit card debt urgently and to making sure I'm not wasting any money anywhere. I've paid off one card and am now completely in the know about what balances I have on what cards and the order I need to work on them. I have switched our supermarket and started stretching meals out further and trying to completely eliminate any food waste from our house. I've done a full review of our bills and switched electricity and gas supplier today, for a better deal. I cancelled my DVD postal account and netflix and have banned myself from buying coffee out (my one big indulgence!), looking out a thermos we already own and getting it nice and clean for days when I'm out all day and would normally buy coffee.
The one thing that I could do, but won't, is get rid of the new car. It's nothing massively expensive and is actually relatively economical fuel wise but it was probably much newer (3 years old) than it needed to be and (here comes the really bad bit!) bought on credit agreement. In all my 35 years, this is the first time I've signed up to one of these, having driven a succession of bangers, purchased with cash, for all my driving life. I was getting so sick of the state of the last one though (dents, rust, squealing fan belt that three garages have failed to fix, funny smell inside, wife refuses to drive it!) that I gave in and got something nice. In my defense, I plan to keep it for as long as I can (at least a decade) and it is more economical on fuel than the last one, which was really thirsty.
Apologies for the essay!