Comment by jacquesm
9 years ago
The MMM way is more about locking in your luck than anything else. Be frugal, when lady luck smiles and you have a lot of income make sure you do not waste the proceeds and avoid living above your means at all costs. Having skills is a plus and in his particular case it helps if you are good at building a personal brand so you can ride the self help bandwagon.
Very useful information compared to most other self help institutions though, far more actionable but a bit preachy and unaware of how complex other peoples lives are but such over simplification can help to make a point.
Also, he seems to pretend as if he is the first person ever to live like this but there are many others that simply never thought of themselves as special in any way. See also: the millionaire next door.
> Also, he seems to pretend as if he is the first person ever to live like this but there are many others that simply never thought of themselves as special in any way. See also: the millionaire next door.
He believes the world would be a better place if most people lived a bit more like him (independence, hard work, frugality, etc). I don't see anything wrong with blogging about it. Also, he certainly doesn't claim he's the first person to live like this, and regularly cites influences, including an entire post dedicated to Millionaire Next Door: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/14/weekend-edition-bo...
And the book he credits with changing his life: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/28/weekend-edition-th...
I find his schtick over the top. On the other hand, some people really do need to learn that they'd have an easier time saving money if they didn't lease a BMW, go out eating and drinking every other night, and vacation at expensive resorts.
He has a pretty healthy attitude to debt and in plenty of countries that are less consumption oriented he would be pretty normal. I know lots of mustachians here in Europe who most likely have never ever heard of him.
Actually, that's a good point - I've known quite a few people who lived carefully off of investments/property. Fairly common in some (usually rather posh) circles in the UK.
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In fairness the bulk of The Millionaire Next Door subjects owned their own business and could often pull in salaries of $500K+ per year.
Yes, owning your own business can be a good way to end up 'middle class' or 'comfortably poor'. But it works and that's good enough for me, and I never paid myself $500K per year either. And still had my first property paid off 20 years ahead of schedule.
Things that helped:
- ability to save
- driving cheap cars (my current daily driver is 20 years old)
- very little debt (usually only to finance the next property)
- buying quality stuff and what I need
- living in a country where healthcare can't bankrupt you
- with free education (though that is changing now)
- making reasonably good money because of my chosen profession
None of the above would matter much if I would work as a store clerk or something like that, that's a much harder situation to get out of.
Being frugal is the biggest baloney to wealth. People like you and I obsess over it because $COST_OF_LIVING is the one variable of the Income Wealth Equation we can control.
You want to become wealthy? Affect millions.
Well, change frugal to 'don't be wasteful' then if that makes more sense to you. A friend of mine has four holidays per year, lives in an 800K euro house, has a whole pile of other interesting expenses and wonders out loud to me why he has no money left over. And that's with both him and his wife pulling in six figure salaries...
Sounds like your friend sacrificed the future for the today. But far, far too many of us are guilty of sacrificing today for a tomorrow 40 years from now.
Get rich slow when you're 70, or get rich fast by working your ass off and being accountable for your wealth.
It's a two step process.
1) Make lots of money
2) Don't spend it all
You need to succeed at both steps to be wealthy. However doing well at either step will still improve your circumstances.
Yes! You need an incredible flow of income to become wealthy (selling your company, book you wrote becomes a hit, etc). You cannot accomplish step 1 through a job.
Rich people telling you to invest in mutual funds and treasuries to become wealthy are frauds. That's what you do to MAINTAIN wealth, not to generate wealth.
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