Mr Money Mustache is a thirtysomething* retiree who now writes about how we can all live a frugal life of leisure.
My (former) wife and I studied engineering and computer science in Canada, then worked in standard tech-industry cubicle jobs in various locations throughout the late ’90s and early 2000s.
Then we retired from real work way back in 2005 in order to start a family. This was achieved not through luck or amazing skill, but simply by living a lifestyle about 50% less expensive than most of our peers and investing the surplus in very boring conservative Vanguard index funds and a rental house or two.
This blog was born in 2011 out of exasperation. Six years into this early retirement, life was going well and our little boy was growing up nicely. But many of my friends and former coworkers remained broke, constantly complaining about how hard middle-class life is these days, and how much they would like to be able to afford to lose at least one of their six-figure salaries so someone could stay home with the kids.
These comments were generally made over expensive pints of microbrew at a restaurant, or on Facebook between announcements regarding the purchase of brand new dealer-financed Subarus, snowboarding trips, and road biking equipment.
And indeed, the whole country seemed to be displaying the same odd behavior: living ridiculously expensive lifestyles while thinking they were completely normal, and then being baffled when they had no money left over to buy their own freedom. All while being so busy that they didn’t even have time to understand the science behind why this behavior is trashing the very home that makes our lives even possible.
So I decided to start this blog to share some of the secrets of how all this can be done. How you can create a life that is better than your current one, that just happens to cost 50-75% less. It has been a long and winding road, but I’ll keep learning and writing as long as you keep reading!
* OK, I was 36 when I started this blog but the years have been passing since I wrote this. I’m up to thirty-fifteen or more now 🙂
