Mr Money Mustache

MF2015

michaels wrote: »

50% - pah, My gross would be over 70k instead I take home 10k and stick 50k into various pensions and savings and work part time - the annual pension contribution limits mean it makes sense for me to take part of my retirement now


What I find interesting is playing with the firesim calculator to work out how much pension each extra year of work might earn you....

Sadly 10k would not even cover my mortgage payments let alone raise a child.

michaels

MF2015 wrote: »

Sadly 10k would not even cover my mortgage payments let alone raise a child.

That's what state handouts, an offset mortgage and the tfls are for isn't it?

[Deleted User]

ams25 wrote: »

Mr money moustache is a leading proponent of the growing FI (financial independence) movement out there... especially in the US....but still a strictly minority pursuit.. 50% savings rate is not for everyone. But I love this maths..

Save 10% pa and you need to work 9 years for 1 year of financial independence
Save 50% pa and you need to 5 years for 5 years of financial independence. (More if you're investing into reasonable markets over time)

you might like to check out
https://www.madfientist.com
https://www.choosefi.com
http://www.gocurrycracker.com
https://www.1500days.com

To just scratch the surface. A lot of inspiring and informative stuff out there.
Some great podcasts from some of these sites....great way to learn in the gym or on the commute.

I started doing a lot of this stuff 30 years ago before I knew FI was a thing (primarily high savings rate/living below means/ decent job combined with agressively investing throughout) to get me there at 52. It can work.

Another one is theFIREstarter (UK blogger): http://thefirestarter.co.uk/

He has a long list of links to other blogs on the bottom right. If you are interested in FI they are worth a browse.

We manage 60% savings all going towards FI. Whenever we had have pay rises, or a bonus we have upped investments instead of spending it all (with the odd occasional big buy for things we really want).

Sea_Shell

I've had a quick read, and there are some good points raised. It seems we've been doing most of them all of our (married) lives...before blogging was a thing!!!

So now we have our 25 x Annual Expenditure sorted...with a buffer of £125k on top of that!!!

(I'm still working a little bit...but we're pretty much all FIRE'd up and ready to GO GO GO !!!!!)

jamesd

MF2015 wrote: »

Sadly 10k would not even cover my mortgage payments let alone raise a child.

But can you do it with more tweaking? For example, higher one year then a couple of years very low so you qualify for working tax credits? The high year and 0% credit cards can subsidise the low years because WTC ignore savings and deduct pension contributions from income.

Extending the mortgage term to reduce the mandatory payment can also help such gaming and you could concentrate any overpaying in the high years.

atush

bostonerimus wrote: »

MMM is very well known in the US. He's a bit extreme for me, but his principles are excellent. I started doing my own version of MMM...ie being frugal and saving lots into index funds....back in the late 1980s and retired when I was 52. So there's another successful data point on the frugal/aggressive saving allows for early retirement graph.

That is what i meant, he (and his followers) are extreme but the principles in general are good.

for instance, we dont buy new cars, we buy late model used for cash (having saved in reg savers). We just replaced 17 and 14 yr old cars with 2 year old ones. But I wouldnt live a life so frugal as to not have any fun (like some of his fanatic followers do).

michaels

jamesd wrote: »

But can you do it with more tweaking? For example, higher one year then a couple of years very low so you qualify for working tax credits? The high year and 0% credit cards can subsidise the low years because WTC ignore savings and deduct pension contributions from income.

Extending the mortgage term to reduce the mandatory payment can also help such gaming and you could concentrate any overpaying in the high years.

Hard to get wtc/ctc these days unless you have at least 3 kids, instead it is universal credit which is savings tested

fred246

It would be interesting to know how many people read Mr Money Moustache and then really change. For example I was a regular cyclist when I read his blog so it just confirmed my opinion. How many petrol heads with a BMW on PCP would read his blog and then buy a bike?

Malthusian

fred246 wrote: »

How many petrol heads with a BMW on PCP would read his blog and then buy a bike?

If you measure them across the space of a week then none. But chances are that more of the BMW drivers will later decide for themselves that they quite fancy getting fitter and stronger and not wasting so much money on cars. If we went away for ten years and then compared how many BMW drivers who read Mr Money Mustache had bought bikes compared with those who hadn't read MMM, then it's a reasonable bet that more of the MMM-readers would have bought bikes.

99% of the time, any kind of advice or evangelism is about planting seeds. You don't change people's minds, you create the conditions in which they change themselves.

When you present someone with a convincing argument you don't expect them to fall to their knees and shout "Hallelujah, I have seen the light". On Monday they will think you are talking crap and go read another blog. On Tuesday they will re-read your blog and comment to say why you are wrong. On Wednesday they will be weighing up the pros and cons. On Thursday they will be enjoying their cycle commute. And on Friday they won't be able to remember why they ever thought it was better to be stuck inside a smelly tin can.

OldMusicGuy

fred246 wrote: »

It would be interesting to know how many people read Mr Money Moustache and then really change. For example I was a regular cyclist when I read his blog so it just confirmed my opinion. How many petrol heads with a BMW on PCP would read his blog and then buy a bike?

I found the site enlightening and helpful when deciding if I should go early or not. However, it is US-based (cost of living a lot cheaper over there) and he does get a bit "religious" about things. So his "cycle everywhere" mantra I can't agree with, as I am a petrolhead and you will never see me on a bike again before I die.

But I would never take out a loan to buy a fancy car. We bought our Ford Focus estate brand new with cash in 2011 and plan to keep it for at least another 10 years unless it needs expensive work. It's got a couple of nasty scratches in the bodywork and I will be repairing those myself rather than paying a bodyshop (thanks to Youtube for the instructional videos).

I have a "fancy" car which is a classic car and that is going up in value every day. I get real pleasure from driving and using that but it is not depreciating. MMM's zealous views about cars don't take things like that into account.

Personally I prefer the Escape Artist (https://theescapeartist.me/) because he is a Brit and his situation and circumstances are much closer to mine. I am encouraging my son (22, just started work) to read that site and adopt his mindset.