Mr. Money Mustache
Founder and Blogger, Mr. Money Mustache · 1 appearance on the record.
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Pete Adeney is a personal finance writer who retired from software engineering at age 30 by living frugally and investing in index funds. He is widely regarded as a central pioneer of the modern FIRE movement through his influential blog Mr. Money Mustache.
25statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 3.88/5average certainty → 2.24/5average debate potential →
1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
2 assertions · 5 opinions · 14 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Mr. argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Everything Mr. Money Mustache said on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Mr. Money Mustache: US car usage should be cut by 90%
“You know, in my personal views, for example, I've become more hardcore over the last year that cars are just like the biggest stupid inefficiency that we have in the United States, and we need to just cut that whole shit down by at least 90%.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Cults are fundamental social structures that enable human cooperation
“People think of a cult as a bad thing, because they're thinking of Waco, Texas, and Kool-Aid, but really it's just a social organization structure, which is a basic Built-in thing to human beings, and it's what allows us to live together and cooperate.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Cars should be luxury tools, not daily commuter vehicles
“Is that a car should be thought of as like a luxury racing wheelchair. So there's times in your life you want a luxury racing wheelchair. For example, when you're with your friends and you're all going up into the mountains in like high altitude in a blizzard …”
Mr. Money Mustache: Self-driving cars are a loss if they enable mega-commutes
“Yeah, if we can keep the self-driving cars around so that they can reduce our crash rate and they can make our cities not be filled with inefficient parking lots, then that's a win. But if you're just doing a mega commute from like Pleasanton over to San Franc…”
Mr. Money Mustache: Driving an older car imposes no social cost
“Your friends don't care what kind of car you have, so you're not getting any social cost by keeping your Honda Civic. When your friends have like a brand new, you know, top of the line BMW.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Watching TV boosts happiness only through secondary social bonding
“Watching TV is not a life boosting activity. To a certain extent, it might have a second order effect of boosting happiness, because you might get to talk about TV shows with your friends, so then you're creating that social bond”
Adeney: Shrinking fossil fuel and RV sectors won't harm the economy
“If less of that type of stuff happened, that doesn't hurt our economy at all. It just shrinks the fossil fuel section and the recreational motor vehicle section, which I would argue are just drains on human productivity, really.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Over-scheduling kids with organized activities harms real learning
“Don't fall into the trap of booking up your kid's life with organized activities, because then you're depriving them of all the real learning that, that they're built to do.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Formal Higher Education Is Unnecessary for Most Non-Traditional Careers
“Without schooling, formal schooling, you can probably do it better and learn it better yourself. It's only like the most traditional professions now, like medicine and other like certain types of law that require this really formal stuff.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Children Should Pay for Their Own Education
“I think it's good for kids to pay for their own education to the most degree that they can, because it's good to understand the money part of it.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Building cult-like followings requires 'us versus them' framing
“I think the pro tips are you need to have a identifiable philosophy that's maybe a bit different Than what the normal world is into. So because your people, your cult members are going to organize around this cult. So you maybe want just a little bit of a feel…”
Adeney: Many San Francisco residents pay near-zero rent through special arrangements
“There's a lot of people who live in San Francisco for little to no rent just through special arrangements, like they're friends with somebody who has a space or they're trading services for rent or they own a place and then Airbnb out the rest of it or whateve…”
Adeney: Lower earnings make time spent on frugality hacks more valuable
“So the less you earn in your regular job, the more valuable your time becomes in, in these frugality hacks of cutting down your expenses, And figuring out how to get around for free and where to get the food that is good for you, but not super expensive.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Choose partners who already share frugality values
“If you're still looking for a person or like in the circulating dating stage finding someone who has these similar lifestyle values is awesome. And I've met so many couples now that are of that style and they really are, they get along well.”
Pete Adeney: Maintaining a daily routine maximizes post-retirement happiness
“When I do have a daily routine, that's when I am happiest, I find, because I've been retired for a long time, so I've kind of had ups and downs.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Very few people quit being productive after achieving financial independence
“Very few people quit being productive at that point. They just quit a job if they don't like it. And then they typically will start another business doing something they like, or they'll start volunteering more or start being an interesting, better person in s…”
Mr. Money Mustache: Learn to produce whatever expensive goods you consume
“I would say get good at anything that you get good at producing anything that you like consuming, especially if it's expensive.”
Adeney: Relying on restaurants without high income is a financial tax
“That's a fundamental tax on your life, unless you're good at making the money for that, but most people specialize in buying restaurant meals, and they don't have much income, so that's a misalignment, so it's no good.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Principles enabling early retirement also make individuals crash-proof
“Luckily the same principles that get you to early retirement in good times, Are the same ones that make you more crash proof in bad times. So, which is not designing a bunch of costs into your life that don't have to be there and not you know, not compromising…”
Adeney borrowed money to build speculative houses after early retirement
“When I quit working, I immediately started a construction company because I said, I love building stuff and designing houses and I'm going to make some good. I got style. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we borrowed money to buy land and then borrowed money to build these b…”
Mr. Money Mustache: Do not view angel investing as a money-making technique
“So I think it's a good use if you have the money, but I wouldn't advise people to think of it as a money-making technique unless they are passionate enough about it to be quite good at it.”
Mr. Money Mustache: Used Craigslist roommates despite earning modern $100k equivalent
“When I moved to the US, even back at the time, I was probably making, in today's dollars, like close to a 100,000 dollars, I still went straight to Craigslist and got a roommate situation. For the first year, because I had to save up a down payment”
Adeney: Savings rate exceeded 60% as income grew without increasing spending
“Towards the end, we got over into the sixties, because our income was going up, but our household spending wasn't going up.”
Pete Adeney retired at 30 and started blogging six years later
“I just did everything according to my own strange values, and then retired roughly, like, just before I turned 31, so that's why I still claim I retired at 30, and then lived that way for about six years before even thinking of writing this down in the form of…”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Don't Start a Blog, Start a Cult - Mr. Money Mustache · Y Combinator | Sep 27, 2017 | 40m |