# CBC interview with Mr Money Mustache



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Yesterday, CBC's Day 6 program ran an interview with Mr. Money Mustache.

Mr. Money Mustache's guide to badass frugality and retiring at 30

If you want to listen to the audio, go 17 minutes into this MP3 podcast: http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/day6_20160624_89255.mp3

The basic message is frugality and lifestyle


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Thanks for sharing James.

I couldn't live his lifestyle, rather, I have chosen not to, but his message is very good overall.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

With a kudos to Mr. Mustache's tips on not overspending, unfortunately he focuses on the symptom instead of the problem.

Math prevails over sentiment, and decades of stagnant wages are showing the consequences.

People and the government can jiggle around the edges for a long time, and they have by making access to credit easier...........but eventually the consequences are inevitable.

No extra money = no savings = debt accumulation = servicing debt costs = real incomes in decline = economic hardship = Brexit, Donald Trump and global social upheaval.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I can't live the type of frugal life he describes earlier. Even though I use a bike and don't have a car, I still have far greater expenses than he had. I travel a lot for example.

sags you've hit the nail on the head. Stagnant wages for decades is the problem. It's fundamentally challenging to just get by.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

Stagnant wages are going nowhere. In fact, they could go negative. Waiting and hoping for someone else to provide a solution isn't a solution. I like Mr. Mustache's attitude. You can do a lot on $2,000 a month.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I have tracked my spending for in great detail for 6 years. My spending pattern averages out like this... this isn't current month but the historical average per month:

Housing/rent: $1,306
Food: $365
Travel/transport: $447
Services: $166
Necessity/home: $104
Consumer: $82
Entertainment: $228
Health: $83
Gifts/donations: $49
Other inevitable: $60 (tax/accounting/legal, mainly consequence of being in USA)

Currently that's my 2890/month = 35K/year lifestyle. I don't have a car and I don't ever have lattes. If I wanted to get more frugal, I see limited options to cut this back.

Housing/rent - a single person in a one bedroom apartment, this is pretty much what I have to pay in this city. There is no room to decrease this.

Food - I'm at $11.77/day which is already quite lean. Groceries are expensive in this city. I think the most I could drop this would be another $20

Travel/transport - I travel a lot, mainly to see family & friends. There is room to cut here esp *if I see my family less*. I could imagine cutting $200 here

Consumer - I'm already minimal on consumer spending but I could cut another $20.

Entertainment - yes I can do mustache-style cheaper entertainment. I could cut $150.

Gifts/donations - I'm already stingy so I don't want to tempt myself to reduce gifts further.

So... how lean can my single-person lifestyle possibly get? By my optimistic estimates above, I can reduce monthly spending by $390 down to $2,500 a month = $30,000 annual

At least with the cost of rent in my city, I don't see any possible way to reduce this number further


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

But James, you're saving 50% of your income, so you ARE living the MMM lifestyle. MMM lives in a lower cost of living place than you do, and he owns his home outright, so if we remove rent from your total you're only spending 19k a year. 

Since you save 50% of your income, according to his chart, you have to work for 17 years before you can retire. 
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/

I think you're doing fantastic, personally.


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## el oro (Jun 16, 2009)

Agreed, doctrine. With advances in all fields, you can get a much better lifestyle on $2k per month than the equivalent wage from decades ago. 

j4b, you can chop housing in half by living with a roommate or roommates. Allocate the money to travel and you increase it 150%. Or save it. If there were more details, I bet there is much more to hack and slash. Unless you're trying to retire early, though, I wouldn't bother. This year, my travel budget is more than 3x yours but will end up with similar annual spend total and I'm also a renter.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

Stagnant wages is symptomatic of stagnant ambition...get better jobs by being the best at what you do. Step on those in front to get to the top. Or complain and resign to mediocrity.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Eder said:


> Stagnant wages is symptomatic of stagnant ambition...get better jobs by being the best at what you do. Step on those in front to get to the top. Or complain and resign to mediocrity.


Ambition is the easy part. Turning the ambition into concrete results requires opportunity and luck.

I remember the Dale Carnegie courses from back in the day...................."Dare to be great" was the headline.

Of course, the owners of Dale Carnegie were making all their money selling course packages to millions of people who wanted to be great.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

If everyone replicated Mr. Moustache's example.........consumer spending would collapse, corporate earnings would plummet and stock prices would collapse, and the government would have declining revenues.

Best hope we all don't decide to live in a shack in a field and grow our own food.

Anyone can live the lifestyle of the poor. It just depends on if you want to. Most of those who have tried it, on purpose or being forced upon them, didn't say they liked it all that much.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Spudd said:


> But James, you're saving 50% of your income, so you ARE living the MMM lifestyle. MMM lives in a lower cost of living place than you do, and he owns his home outright, so if we remove rent from your total you're only spending 19k a year


James, you're doing VERY WELL saving ~ 50% income.

Few people can do that 

If you exclude our extra mortgage payments, I recall with RRSP and TFSA contributions we're around 30%.

We save a bunch and live for today. I think anyone saving >50% is killing it - in a good way.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Spudd said:


> But James, you're saving 50% of your income, so you ARE living the MMM lifestyle. MMM lives in a lower cost of living place than you do, and he owns his home outright, so if we remove rent from your total you're only spending 19k a year. ... I think you're doing fantastic, personally.


Spudd and My Own Advisor, thanks for this. I didn't realize MMM owned his home outright, that makes a huge difference.

I am currently saving 50% of my income but what makes me nervous is that this is not a sustainable situation -- I don't expect this high income to continue until retirement. My job is not stable and my income has been volatile. Currently I make over 100k but the average over my working years has been only 65k, due to volatile business conditions and layoffs.


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## scorpion_ca (Nov 3, 2014)

Is there any basement in that city where you could live like Sean Cooper and save some money?

I have been living in the same basement when I did not have a job and now I have been making around six figure salary. The landlord did not increase the rent $750 in the last eight years as I pay my rent on time.


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## GalacticPineapple (Feb 28, 2013)

I try to craft my life after MMM. One red flag though is that he got unreal (unsustainable) investment returns while building for his retirement. Ethos still good but don't feel bad if you don't make it by 30.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Good point, he got lucky along the way. He also didn't have the misfortune of something like a costly divorce or big health problem. One of my coworkers makes something like 140K, but after paying out money to 2 ex wives every paycheque he has nothing left. He can Money Mustache all he wants, but he will never retire early.


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## smihaila (Apr 6, 2009)

I'm personally perceiving MMM as an arrogant guy. There are people conducting an even more frugal lifestyle than him (and his family) and not bragging so much about it.
He got somewhat lucky by being able to secure (I presume) a permanent residence / green card in US (he lives in Longmont, Colorado).

Not sure if you guys checked his blog, but it clearly shows his arrogance. One can't post anything that is contrarian to his highly-opinionated ideas over there - the posts are either rejected or "boo'ed" by all of his "zelots". His blog is just an advertisement machine.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

I find him interesting, and has some good points, but he has to live his life and I have to live mine. I do find his site to be 'righteous'. They make fun of others, and have even shame threads. Though I agree with many of his principles of frugality, I find it a little bit of a put off that they have to be so judgemental. I have found in real life, the people who have different views and are convinced of them, don't have to be very righteous about is. It's often those that are trying to convert people or lack some of the confidence. 

His marketing is great though.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

For me, I am frugal where it suits me, but I also recognize that money does bring enjoyment. I spend on areas that bring more enjoyment to my family. I don't see anything wrong with owning multiple vehicles, if you can afford it, and do drive a lot. If you don't, then that's fine. 

money is meant to be spent on things that bring you happiness. Unfortunately, many don't know what truly makes them happy and buy stuff that adds no value to their lives.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

smihaila said:


> I'm personally perceiving MMM as an arrogant guy. There are people conducting an even more frugal lifestyle than him (and his family) and not bragging so much about it. He got somewhat lucky by being able to secure (I presume) a permanent residence / green card in US (he lives in Longmont, Colorado). Not sure if you guys checked his blog, but it clearly shows his arrogance. One can't post anything that is contrarian to his highly-opinionated ideas over there - the posts are either rejected or "boo'ed" by all of his "zelots". His blog is just an advertisement machine.


I agree. I'm not a fan of the guy either. He has found a money-making niche that he milks like any good promoter.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

If he wasn't arrogant, and was quiet about his good fortune and saving habits, you probably never would have heard about him in the first place.


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## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

Couple of points. 
Even if you own a house outright there are still expenses that can add up to more than rent on a basic apartment.
My house, utilities 3-500 per month, insurance 110 per month, taxes 250 per month, plus maintenance of 1 to 2 % of house value. In my case 4 to 10,000 per year on average. In my case on the lower end as I diy as much as possible. Of course some years this is nothing. Roof, furnace, windows, flooring, hot water, driveway etc all eventually need replacing, plus spouse mandated upgrades to kitchen, baths etc  

Second, the MMM blog is interesting but he now makes several hundred thousand a year from ad revenues so does he really live the life style he promotes or does he just write about it now,. I am sure at one time he did live frugally but he made a much better than average salary and made very good investmemt returns.


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## smihaila (Apr 6, 2009)

doctrine said:


> If he wasn't arrogant, and was quiet about his good fortune and saving habits, you probably never would have heard about him in the first place.


Wish I've never head about him - nothing new to me, at least personally. I've actually unsubscribed from his revenue-peddling blog. More recently, he tinkers with "Mother Earth" and church of Global warming propaganda. Bleah...


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## OurBigFatWallet (Jan 20, 2014)

I'm not even sure I'd call him retired since he works full time on his site that pulls in $100k+ per year. A career change, maybe, but not sure if that is retirement as most would define it. But either way good for him, it's excellent marketing as someone mentioned above


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

It's a bit like to guy who retired at 30, and now shills books full-time. At best he is "retired".


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

james4beach said:


> If I wanted to get more frugal, I see limited options to cut this back.


Agreed. You are already at the minimum for optimized comfort, IMO, slashing more is fruitless and detrimental to long term success and happiness. Earning more is the only rational option. Not that you couldn't have a full and vibrant life on 20k instead of 35k, but in the end you risk missing a lot in career opportunity and life experience/happiness, vs. losing cold hard cash by spending more.

I'm convinced the optimal state is one where you are at most spending 1h/week thinking about frugality, and 2h/week implementing frugality. The MMM crowd is probably spending 5hrs thinking and 10hrs implementing, wasting almost all of their precious surplus mental energy and youthful time on trifling matters to save a few bucks/hr. They should be thinking bigger.

Keep in mind also that MMM had a fully employed girlfriend-->wife from his early 20s onwards that almost doubled their take home pay and reduced his social and dating expenditures.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Lots of people did a lot better than Mr. Mustache and all they did was buy and live in a home in Vancouver or Toronto decades ago.

They could have a blog on how to get rich summed up in a single sentence.

Buy a home 50 years ago in Vancouver and live in it


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

So the method is work like a dog in a high paying career you hate, save every nickle and invest it until you have a million buck, discover that it only throws off about $40k per yr and its not enough to live on and you are too scared to chase higher yields, so peddle bogus sh*t on the side and scam wannabes for $100k per yr. Nice business model.


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## Koogie (Dec 15, 2014)

I still use the forum on his site occasionally but his arrogant "schtick" got old fast. I stopped reading his blog when he decided to "redefine" the word "retirement" because to many people were pointing out that earning money on the side as a contractor, a landlord (at the time) and a blog runner didn't really qualify as retired. He said "retired" could mean anything he wanted it to (oxford english dictionary be damned) and that anyone who disagreed with him was the "Internet Retirement Police"

Plus it's a bit cultish and attracts the very young mostly. Nothing wrong with that necessarily but their naivete grates after a while.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

peterk said:


> Keep in mind also that MMM had a fully employed girlfriend-->wife from his early 20s onwards that almost doubled their take home pay and reduced his social and dating expenditures.


Wow, an _employed_ girlfriend and two-income household? That's practically a retirement plan right there!

Thanks for all this feedback. You may have helped save me from diving into the MMM deep-end.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

doctrine said:


> If he wasn't arrogant, and was quiet about his good fortune and saving habits, you probably never would have heard about him in the first place.


I suspect there are a few, not lots, but a few of early 40-somethings out there doing very well for themselves but don't boast about living a MMM lifestyle, while earning a six-figure income from their blog. 

He seems to practice what he preaches which is good. There are also many truths to what he is saying.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

sags said:


> Lots of people did a lot better than Mr. Mustache and all they did was buy and live in a home in Vancouver or Toronto decades ago.
> 
> They could have a blog on how to get rich summed up in a single sentence.
> 
> Buy a home 50 years ago in Vancouver and live in it


+1. Many multi-millionaires in Vancouver now. Must be nice. Right place, right time. #Luck


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

james4beach said:


> You may have helped save me from diving into the MMM deep-end.


The blog is pretty decent, has lots of good common sense stuff, and the earlier years are worth reading I suppose...IF you find yourself to be such an uncreative person that you can't manage to figure out your own ways to cut costs effectively. I doubt you are this person, James.

You are also a pragmatist and maybe even cautious pessimist, while MMM is an Outrageous Optimist to the 3rd degree!

The forum is pretty bad. As Koogies says it's very cultish and there are way too many young people who are being led to think that retiring at 30-35 with 500k in stock and a 20k/year budget is a "safe" retirement, because of the "4% rule".

As far as blogs go though, there are much worse. It ain't bad for some casual "at work" reading.


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## SMK (Dec 10, 2015)

peterk said:


> Keep in mind also that MMM had a fully employed girlfriend-->wife from his early 20s onwards that almost doubled their take home pay and reduced his social and dating expenditures.



Very good point.


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## Tawcan (Aug 3, 2012)

I think his story is fascinating and the messages are generally positive. It's definitely interesting to see people on opposite spectrum when MMM is discussed. 

Personal finance is personal. What's right for MMM might not be right for you. Likewise, what's right for you might not be for him.


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## coptzr (Jan 18, 2013)

I think it is good what he has to offer, but is definitely not the path everyone should follow. There are important messages throughout and mainly to bring awareness and save those from excessive debt and future stress. 
I personally know those who made double digit million $ cash-out money in the early 2000's at age 40 and thought they were retired for life. I also know a couple others who made the same money by 40 building their own companies which continue to pay them huge amounts. There are quite a few who chose the only earn what you need to get by from working the summer and take the winter off, live in a smaller older home in the back country alone and drive a beat up pickup truck. If I check out the other 75% of the people I know I see the work, spend, play, busy lifestyle.

The MMM has just walked the fine line of trying to be perfect and build something that is attractive to others like many others trying to sell something online.


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## PrairieGal (Apr 2, 2011)

I have been a fan of the MMM blog and forum for a while, but lately one of the moderators of the forum is promoting a scam whereby you get paid to add authorized users to your credit card for one or two months. These people are complete strangers, they never receive your credit card number (or a card) and are only doing it so they can improve their credit score. This is in violation of the user agreement on the credit card, and you run the risk of getting the card shut down if the cc company figures out you are doing it. This is highly unethical, in my opinion, and the fact that the forum moderator is promoting it (he gets a referral fee) is really disappointing.


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