#475: Mr. Money Mustache — Living Beautifully on $25-27K Per Year (Repost)

Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferris and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show where it is my job to Dig around, find world class performers of all sorts of stripes and breeds and species. and deconstruct what they do. How do they make decisions? What do they do first thing in the morning? What are the habits, routines, details that you can apply to your life? And this particular episode was very much

An in demand requested episode And the guest is Mr Money Mustache. At Mr. Money Mustache. Pete Aidney in real life.

He grew up in Canada in a family of mostly eccentric musicians, then graduated from computer engineering in the nineteen nineties and worked in various tech companies before retiring in At age. Thirty. Pee his wife. And their now eleven year old son.

live near Boulder, Colorado, and they've not had real jobs. Since two thousand and five. This begs the question, of course. How? How did they do that? They accomplished this early retirement by doing A number of things, but In effect, optimizing all aspects of their lifestyle for maximal fun at minimal expense.

And By Using Basic index fund. Investing.

Their annual expenses on average total a mere twenty five thousand to twenty seven thousand dollars and they do not feel in want of anything. So again, since two thousand five, all three of them have explored a freeform life of interesting projects, side businesses, and adventures. In 2011 started writing the Mr. Money Mustache blog about his philosophy, which has grown to reach about twenty three million different people and three hundred million page views. since its inception, since its founding. It has become a worldwide cult phenomenon with a self organizing community and incredible news coverage. This episode explores his story, philosophies, and routine. So please enjoy my conversation with

The one and only Mr. Money Mustache. P. Even though it's This episode is brought to you by 99 Designs, the global creative platform that makes it easy for you to find and work with amazing graphic designers online.

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Check it out. The dude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I answer you a personal question? No se do. My cyber netting bottom is a living tissue over metal and the scale. S Pete, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Tim. It's an honor to be on here. And uh You are I would say in the top five most requested guests. For this podcast.

that uh that that I see on the internet and beyond. I had somebody come up to me recently in New York City of all places, he said, You know you should have on the podcast and it was you and so I'm Really excited to dig into all sorts of stories. in conversations and discussions because I'm thinking through many areas of my life in which I think you are

an expert or have certainly spent more time ruminating on these things, but I thought we could start With Your experience getting groceries.

Could you describe For people. what your experience looks like. Getting groceries. Uh well it's kind of varied, but I feel strongly about groceries, so in an ideal like uh

Utopian grocery day, I would Throw my bike trailer onto the back of my single speed bike and roll down. to like the local kinda hippie natural grocery store and then just load up with like A hundred and fifty bucks of awesome stuff and then pedal it back up the hill. And then unload it and then have people show up and the giant barbecue that night.

And uh feast. So if that's the utopia. What does the What does the compromised utopia look like? Well, it's usually pretty close to that, but sometimes people don't come over or sometimes uh

There's some reason I have to use the car and maybe I'm taking Taking it past the grocery store so I rush in and get some stuff, but I think the you know, the thrust of the question is like Does this guy really uh Gate groceries by bicycle and it's definitely true. I kinda do everything by bike.

Here in Longmont, Colorado, like at least ninety nine percent of my trips. uh away from the house here are human powered and uh that's just a way of Figure out makes me happiest to live. Mm-hmm. And at at this point in time you have a

A household of three, is that right? Yeah, that's true. One boy. One boy. One girl. And Got it. All right. And w and what uh what is the 'Cause I think this is this is uh this is gonna be a a a core piece of the discussion. What are your

Average annual. Family expenses at this point, would you say? Right. Well we've been Adding this up ever since I started writing a blog, we never really added it up before, but it always comes out around twenty five to twenty seven thousand dollars. of annual expenditures, uh, with the notable exception that we don't have any kind of mortgage or debt or anything. So

That's all on purely. Stuff that we want to buy. Mm-hmm. And Maybe we'll we'll this is gonna be memento style in terms of chronology as a lot of my conversations are. It's just a quirk of my brain that I'm trying to a bug I'm trying to turn turn into a feature of this podcast.

Oh One What was The blog post or the day that you realized

Mr. Money Mustache. had a cult like following. was there and I use that I use that in a uh complimentary way, by the way. Uh you have some of the most die hard fans I've ever encountered. Uh was there particular Peace or moment when you realized

how strongly and uh how devoted your fan base was. I think it's kinda been like one of those frog in hot water situations where it just gradually happens and then Occasionally, especially when my friends stop in on a like a money mustache event, they're like Dude, you're a cult leader. Did you realize that? It's but it didn't really happen any specific time. I would say the first time

I was really surprised by the effects of blogging was when I had a a guest post on this awesome Previous uh blog called Early Retirement Extreme. And a whole bunch of this uh Jacob bloggers fans came over to mine. My blog and just flooded it and just

crawled and read every single article and started putting in all these comments and and then I It was really a rewarding thing and I Just kept going from there. It's sort of a self motivating thing. Um And then the other incident was probably we had a party once uh blog related meetup in uh in Ottawa, Canada, which is kind of one of my homeland hometowns.

And uh all these people came like two hundred people and it overflowed into the backyard of this Like unwaiting hosts. place and uh it was a little weird'cause I didn't even get to meet anybody. And that was the first time I became uncomfortable with like, oh, well, I didn't want to be One of those people where you don't even meet everybody who wants to meet you.

Yeah. Ha ha ha. So Ottawa. I I've actually spent a a a decent amount of time in Ottawa. Uh and of and I had a beaver tail for the first time while ice skating or planning on ice skating in Ottawa.

due to uh a start up there well, it's a quite a large company now called Shopify. Shopify. Oh yeah, I knew that. Yeah, and the Beaver Tail. That's the right way to do Ottawa is skating and Beaver Tails. And now Beaver Tail is I don't even remember exactly what it is, but it's a pastry, right? I mean it's uh what is it exactly? It's like a chocolate covered Pastry. Uh, and for those people who've not been to Ottawa, you can you can skate for hours. I mean, it's this this gigantic uh I guess they lower the water level or maybe they raise the water level so that you can skate effectively around the entire city, if if I if I'm remembering correctly. Yeah, that's right.

And the uh The but to get back to the blog What What do you think has what are the aspects of your philosophy or your writing or your persona that have struck such a chord? Well it's funny you should ask that,'cause the first time I ever did a talk, like a big public talk, it was uh

to a conference of bloggers. It's called FinCon and I just stopped by'cause it was in Denver. And uh I'd realized that this blog was kind of behaving like a cult. And then I looked up like What are the properties of a cult? And then I read some articles and maybe a book or two on cults and I realized, man, I've accidentally done it.

And uh And just because that's my idea of a sense of humor is uh So it turns out if you want to start a cult, you need to just have a few key elements like a recognizable leader. Need to have a sense of us versus zen them. You know, like oh we're an oppressed people and the rest of the world doesn't understand us.

And a couple other things. It helps to feel like you're virtuous, uh, and have some kind of like Good changing the world and the rest of the world needs your help. And uh yeah, so If you look at all the cults including Informal ones like Star Trek or uh Apple.

There's always these same kind of characteristics and I accidentally emulated those. And in retrospect realized, hey, well, I guess that was a pretty good idea. So for those who are part of the us in your case. What is what's the belief system?

What are the uh the tenets? Right. So the belief system, which I jokingly call mustachianism. It's kinda like a lifestyle and a fake religion. And the beliefs are that the You know, sort of the United United States especially is the ground zero of this consumer

insanity that has overtaken all of our minds, and it's just causing people to behave in an irrational way and sort of sabotage Their own ability to have a good life. For example, you they work way more years than they have to because they're consuming a lot more crap than they have to without actually Getting any life benefit about it. over and then the same thing applies to the health. Their health and their

their sanity and their mental mental health their Everyone's very inefficiently going about their life. So the correction uh through mustachianism is just being a bit more thoughtful about this stuff and seeking efficiency In the way that you spend your money and make sure that you get fun out of it each time. That you spend something and uh

applying this, you just end up a lot healthier and wealthier and able to retire. from mandatory work at a much earlier age in your life, which a lot of people are drawn in by the prospect of an extra four decades of Freedom that they wouldn't have otherwise gotten.

Correct if I'm wrong here, but you retired Effectively at age. Thirty? Is that right? Right. Yeah. This is perfect reverse chronology, just like you planned it. So yeah. Now we're back to the year two thousand five and um After working about a ten year career in software engineering.

My girlfriend, who's now my wife. And I uh determined we had enough money saved up to live off the investment returns forever. So we just quit our regular cubicle jobs and just in time to have our baby boy at the time. And that was

And we didn't even know this was a weird thing to do. We thought, Oh yeah, well of course, you know, when you get paid as much as we do, like it only takes so long until you don't need to work anymore. And it was only after several years of retirement that we noticed that we were kind of oddballs and everybody else uh who earned the same amount of money was still broke. Broken in probably more way.

than one. Uh and d I I want to dig into some of the the numbers related to this. So One of the One of the things you you had said over and I always ask guests for potential prompts for for for topics that could be fun to explore. And one of them was you only need to accumulate twenty-five times your annual spending to retire forever.

Could you elaborate on that and how uh how you arrived at that number because I th I think this is This is a useful exercise for people to hear. Yeah, this is a core piece of math that is very uh It's widely known if you're a financial independence enthusiast.

But it's almost uh completely secret to most of the So If you have a if you have a handle on your annual spending and you know how much you need to live on, all you need to do is save up twenty five times that amount. And on the very, very conservative side, let's say twenty eight.

Times that amount. Uh in conservative investments like a giant Vanguard index fund. And that's enough to fund you with passive income. with a high degree of safety if for the rest of your life. So if you have a to just keep the number simple, if you need uh thirty thousand dollars to live on, multiply that by twenty five and oh darn, I'm giving myself a tricky math question. I think you know it's like seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars you'd need saved up or something like that.

to to quit forever. And that's a lot less than most people Thing most people At least in my age group. They're shooting for the tens of millions uh type of range if they If they were to ever quit work early and they haven't really done the math on how easy it really is.

Mm-hmm. And what are are there any assumptions embedded in that in terms of percentage annual yield and so on. What are what are the Uh Whether historically based or otherwise, what are what are the

Are there any other assumptions embedded in that? It is. Yeah. There's um it's kind of based on a really long term study of the stock market. dating back to the nineteen twenties or something like that, or maybe even earlier. And The idea is it goes up some years, it goes down some years, consistently pays dividends.

And in the worst case scenario, you want to still not run out of money. So that's where the four percent comes from. We've gotten you through a lot of the worst case scenarios. There are some situations when you could have spent up to Five or seven percent of your portfolio every year and still not run out if you had happen to retire just before a big stock market boom that went on for a long time.

But most people don't like taking a huge amount of risk. So the four percent Or three point five if you want to be extra conservative. With today's stock market valuations. That's more of uh A safety net.

And it's really just a mental crutch because what I find is that when people retire early. Almost everybody, like over ninety five percent of people still have a lot of interests and passions and then They're pretty good at making money if they manage to save up that much in the first place. So they still make money. in their quote retirement. They just have a lot more fun doing it. And uh that nest egg that's pumping out dividends and returns.

Just adds extra confidence so they can They can have more fun in the process. Well I've I've read two Different. Definitions of retirement.

Uh or maybe their characteristics. that are I think one was attributed to one was written by you, both of which I thought were very helpful as A orientation for thinking about the subject. And

The first is retirement or financial independent simply means that you have your living expenses covered by non work income, right? Part one. Yeah. Part two Is Definition of a modern retirement the activities you pursue once you are done searching for money. And and uh

I think that's a very useful framework if in particular considering in early retirement. uh at at say the age of thirty, forty, fifty, whatever it might be. Um the How do Let's say media not to

cast aspersions on everyone who is part of The media since I suppose that's what I am right now at this moment. But Yeah. You've been covered a fair amount. And I know like everyone who's been covered a fair amount, you get misquoted.

Or people get the message wrong or they just take s sn snarky cheap shots. Uh Occasionally. It doesn't happen all the time. You've actually had some of the most complimentary profiles I've ever read, but where did they get it wrong? Where do people get you your message. Your principles, philosophy's wrong. Well the the misconceptions are

sort of two different things from the media side. They often assume well, I mean the ones that aren't complimentary, they assume hey, there's this crazy guy and he's just a lifestyle guru. Just like another junior Tim Ferris trying to get everybody excited about his crazy ideas. And he's not really retired, or

Or they say, Yeah, he he made so much money, but that doesn't apply to the regular person when they're, you know When they're trying to make it on like fifty thousand dollar a year salary or what about people with more kids? So um

The media don't understand they o they often assume some kind of extreme frugality. That would be undesirable. to live under and uh that's that's really inaccurate and I I work pretty hard to fight it because I don't have my spending set up. For the minimal level, I have it set up for the maximum amount that I can possibly spend.

And get value out of it, you know,'cause it's easy to make money. So I set my spending at the maximum happiness level. And then stopped spending when I stopped getting more happiness. So that's just That's really the fundamental.

Mistake. And then as for the the non media world. They're a little bit more Suspicious. Like they just think I'm make ever making everything up and and I don't even You know, I never did any of this stuff that I say I did in the first place. So then it's more of a conspiracy theory if you're reading like the comment section of MSN, which you should never do.

Uh You have but you do have Uh and I think this is why this is part of the reason I wanted to bring it up very Really a

standards in the United States, a low household Annual expense. Right. Right. And

Uh It it might be helpful here to talk about because I I asked during our sound check what you had for breakfast. So could you repeat your answer, please? Oh yeah, well I'm my

My breakfast was a fancy Black espresso with foamed milk, uh and coconut. Coconut oil foamed into there too, and then some dark chocolate. Like ninety percent dark chocolate. And uh some nuts, almonds and cashews and stuff.

And uh it's not exactly related to uh Low expenditure, but It's indirectly related. I'm gonna I'm gonna come back to it. What type but since I I love the particulars, what type of coffee What type of chocolate, do you recall? Oh yeah, well right now my co coffee is some kind of

organic y fair trade thing, but bought in a large quantity from Costco. Which is obviously a lot cheaper than getting uh like a Starbucks equivalent every morning. And uh yeah, the nuts are from Costco as well, now that you mention it. So this is the the the reason I bring it up is that Um

I think stumbling. Upon Happiness, Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. Is Is it? good exploration of this. Oftentimes what we think will make us happy

does not make us happy. And we can talk I we should dig into what happiness is for you because I think it's it's it can be a dangerously nebulous term. But The point being that To To have a functional car And then to have what society tells you is the optimal car, say some type of sports car.

Yeah. There's a massive delta in price and you pay some severe penalties for that. But to have a A to go from a good chocolate to an excellent chocolate to world class chocolate, it might only be the difference of Ten or twelve dollars.

Right. And so there there are there are places where you can optimize. Without being obnoxiously or frugal or frugal in a dis to a disabling extent. and derive maximal pleasure. That's the point I was trying to make. Is that Uh.

And Okay. What I would love to hear from you is For those people out there who are spending far more, multiples more. than you are per year.

Who don't know where to start. Are there Any easy optimizations. That Could have a dramatic impact.

on their ability to get closer to uh optimizing for happiness as opposed to Uh Succumbing to Internal or external pressures.

to remain on this treadmill of of overconsumption. Yeah, right. And this might actually be a better answer for your earlier question, too, because As a an engineer, like I was kind of born a part engineer at least. And for me, optimization is really, really fun. It's like beautiful. And when something is not optimized and when something's inefficient, I actually find it offensive and ugly. So I've had a lot of

Joy. I get a lot of joy from looking at each of my life spending decisions and being Comparing it like okay, if I get this car I'd probably make me about this happy and this car would make me this month happy, whereas if I ride my bike, it does this other thing. And you do you apply that to food and housing and transportation and clothing travel. Exercise and then all these categories can become super

efficient where you end up getting incredible happiness out of them. Uh, and the cost can sometimes be not only low, but sometimes you'll get paid for doing stuff. that other people spend tens of thousands of dollars to do. So if you're a beginner at the sport of optimization, you can just start with the stuff that costs you a lot of money. So my favorite one. To be a bit repetitive is the car because uh the average

Middle income American spends like twelve thousand dollars per household, which is just on driving around in these like Gas powered racing wheelchairs. And um that's more than they even invest. in in their future, like that's more than they're spending on their freedom. So step one.

Don't have a car that's worth more than about Ten thousand bucks at the most. Um unless you're at least like a m a single millionaire, preferably multi millionaire. Because you can get a great, perfectly great car that'll be trouble free. For ten plus years for under five thousand dollars. So

The reasonable ceiling would be ten. And that's already gonna be a pretty giant thing for people. And then number two is don't use that car a lot. So Everybody assumes that

You know. A short drive to work is anything under an hour. Whereas I think I encourage people to take a really, really hard line approach on that. Because it's a giant factor in life happiness and fitness and money. And my rule is you should never Get a job.

You know, unless you're at gunpoint, that requires you to drive to it. Like either find a new job Find a place to live near that. Job. I mean, even if in it requires moving to a new city or a new country in the long run, you just gotta keep that nagging thing in your mind, like okay, I drive to work now, but this is not optimal.

In the long run, I will optimize away car dependents. And uh yeah, just start with that one and then you can move on. You can read stuff on my blog and figure out how to Cut your grocery costs down and and your housing and everything like that too. But I really like the mobility because there's fitness involved too, you know, and there's there's happiness of forcing yourself out. into the fresh air every morning as soon as you

You give up the cage of the car. It's such a huge thing and it's such a overlooked thing in our country. I d I couldn't agree more. And I think the um The uh it forces you to make other decisions like you pointed out. I haven't had a car for

Close to three years, I wanna say now. Uh that does not mean I don't spend time in cars. I do. Uh, so I I tend to use whether it's a get around for trips to Tahoe or Things that are further away that require some travel. Or Uber, but I probably walk

Walk I tend to walk more than I bike. Um For whatever reason, but that's that's typically I'd say seventy, eighty percent of my locomotion. Walking and it it's it's helped me to make other decisions to optimize for, say, having people come to me as opposed to having to constantly bounce around a city. or travel around the environs and think about how I can better use the capital I have.

Four Uh Types of leverage that don't require or replace the need for bouncing around continuously and wasting that time in transit and also

I found for me at least very slow or very fast. In terms of transportation work well, it's in the middle. that I get very frustrated because if it's very slow, I can also say batch phone calls, I can listen to podcasts, listen to audiobooks, I can take time. uh for that type of enrichment in the process of moving from point A to point B. So true. Walking is so powerful and so underrated. Like your brain just goes into overdrive.

all of your problems sort of start to solve themselves in the background. And for people who don't do it regularly, like an hour a day. Of walking to genuinely go somewhere. Um They just

dis discount it because they haven't even experienced this incredible power. So I'm glad we're both on that train. That shoe. I Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens.

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Okay. What are some Of the books that have And this could be two different lists, but some of the books that have had the biggest impact on you Or books that you most frequently

recommend to your readership. Yeah, I don't have the the ultimate I'm not the ultimate book connoisseur. Um I don't spend as much I don't burn through as many books as some people, so uh but in recent uh months Three books that have had a pretty big impact on me that I'm about to recommend to people. It really depends on who you're talking to. So

If you're into changing the world for the better Um one book that's spectacularly opened up my mind is this one called Happy City. By an author called Charles Montgomery. And it

kind of just pulls back the curtain on how we're wasting most of our resources. and our human and money resources on building up the country. Into a spectacularly inefficient. Ash vault jungle. So that's for urban planning nerds and fixing the world nerds. Um but for

People who feel like they personally want to Um, they're wondering why they're such a weirdo. I'm a big fan of uh the book on Elon Musk. by the author Ashley Vance. I think it's called Elon Musk and Musk and The Quest for a Fantastic Future. That book.

I read and it talks about Elon as a little kid and growing up and it's like that's exactly How I was as a kid and I thought I was the only one and it He has this feeling where the world is incredibly illogical and no one's listening and he just wants to just fucking change it. Like I'm just gonna do everything myself then. And I can really Everything except for the fact that he actually does it and I don't, I can relate completely

And finally A really, really old fashioned book. If someone just wants to wake themselves up and start turning into more of like a positive

Um Less depressed person. Is this nineteen fifties classic called The Magic of Thinking Big I've recommended that to like so many friends because I stumbled across it when I was like 15 years old and it was really, really old even then. And uh it's like this uh

This nineteen fifty is cheesy. Stereotypical like man's world. has some flaws in that way, but that just makes it more funny. And it's a great way to just remind yourself, like, oh when you think big and act. confident and sparkly, then it's amazing how much stuff actually goes better for you.

So those are my three. So I can't comment on the first two, but I I have to comment. On The magic of thinking big. So I have

A copy. My original copy of The Magic of Thinking Big about fifteen feet to the side of me right now in my living room. It is one of the books that has traveled with me. And it's face out, so I see it. Every day. When I'm sitting on my couch.

Along with a handful of others. Tribe from Sebastian Younger, Dune. Frank Herbert. That's a bit of a long story. Gratitude, Oliver Sachs. I'm looking at them right now. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont, Zorba the Greek, and Less is More, which is an anthology of writing. on minimalism. And uh The magic of thinking big by David Schwartz. This book, despite the title, which like you said, I mean it's it's it screams cheesy at you. And it will That's why it's good, though. It is cheesy. It's like gorgeously, delightfully cheesy, and you're like, Yes, I am a powerful nineteen fifties man as well. I'm just conducting business.

No, exactly. And it was it was introduced to me by A man named Stephen Key. Stephen Key, fascinating guy. He lives in, I think it's Turlock, California, middle of nowhere. And has built this This Fantastic career for himself.

Developing Products. lot of toys and licensing them to gigantic companies, whether it's Disney or Nestle Coca-Cola, you name it. And uh he he makes these incredibly simple prototypes out of construction paper oftentimes and then will license these ideas for

I'm I'm assuming hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars over time. And he was given the magic of thinking big at one point by uh I believe it was a Fortune five hundred CEO. So the lineage at least or the path that the book took. to me was was fascinating in and of itself. And I read it, I would say, around Two thousand uh

three two thousand four, which was just before I took my My walkabout. And all did all the experiment. with my business at the time to either redesign the business or

Shut it down. And that was the journey that then precipitated the writing of the four hour work week. So the the magic of thinking big, I I I've been meaning to reread it. And part of me I don't know, tell me if uh I'd be curious to get your opinion. So I read it so long ago and I have Such a high opinion of it. that I'm worried I will read it now and it will not age well when I read it a second time. Have you read it recently? Uh last time was probably about five years ago.

And I found it was just as good. I just love the cre the you know, the overly simple examples like Imagine that there's two little gentlemen in your head. There's Mr Success and Mr. Defeat. Mr. Defeat always wants to throw some oil and sand into his cr your crankcase of your mind and It's just like these

You know, I find that most Maybe this is my engineer's uh brain. Handicap again, but I really get annoyed by overly flowery language, like kind of Harper's magazine, Atlantic stuff, where people just go on for like eight pages to cover something that could have fit in a couple sentences. Right. And Dr. Schwartz doesn't do any of that to

Shit. And uh in fact his writing style really inspired Me and like when I write as Mr. Morning Mustache, I'm thinking, I'm like channeling David J Schwartz. And he always starts off every story with this little anecdote, like that makes him sound like casual and powerful. He's like, I was relaxing in my lounge one day. When a few of my employees came in for questions and You know, like it's just you know, you gotta read it again. I'm I'm gonna read it again. All right. It's been on my it's been on my to do list for January because I've set aside

We're doing this interview in January two thousand seventeen and I've set aside uh the first two weeks minimum to simply Consider options. I've got to be a little bit more.

In the past. s uh fallen prey to over calendaring myself uh and for fun things in in many cases, but nonetheless over calendaring so I don't have as much Uh Slack in the system.

Uh empty space as I would like. And uh been meaning to as part of my self-imposed curriculum reread the magic thinking big so I will I will jump into that. How are you Different from Mr. Money Mustache.

If if at all. Um, well, the lines are pretty fine, pretty You know, I I I don't know if there's like a really formal diff Difference, but um

He's probably a bit more. perfect than me, like I I'll complain occasionally. And uh if I don't catch myself and you know, I won't I don't actually complain. On the blog about, you know. Way, way, wow, this the world is being mean to me, but

In general, like because I read Magic of Thinking Big so long ago And internalized it so much, and I kind of ran my work career. in my, you know, my international adventures of moving to the US and everything. Under those. Assumptions I I feel like

You know, I'm pretty I'm fairly Mr. Money Mustache. I'm more sensitive. Here's the thing. Like I don't lecture people in real life about, you know, like I don't actually smash my fist through the driver. Window of pickup chucks and honk the horns. With their foreheads and tell them they shouldn't be Going through the drive through with a stupid off road. Diesel thing.

But I think it but and I write it. So yeah, the Mr. Money mustache is a little more violent. In uh in his writing and and confrontational and I enjoy that'cause it helps me remain more calm in my real life. Because nobody wants to Be lectured.

In real life about Even if you have some ideas you want to share with them, you have to wait for them to come to you. And when you're running a blog, they have come to you by definition. Which means they're a lot more open.

To uh having uh their faces punched in a literal uh a literary sense. Right. To get to get pros mugged. Um while you're while you're shaping their behavior. Uh

The question of the US, so the uh I've spent a little bit of time in China and even as a uh as an American who's somewhat desensitized to consumption, I think that China is It s appears to be ten times more materialistic and and o in it. driven towards overconsumption, but the that's not really leading I don't want to lead us Necessarily into a conversation about China. The the uh the question I was going to ask, and this might have a very simple answer, why did you decide to stay in the US? I just love it here. It it goes uh

It's kind of like the furnace of the world, like Many of the problems uh in the US That stem from under regulation are also its strengths in the sense that you can just start stuff up and then Nobody even notices that you're doing it and you can have a giant company.

before anyone's even noticed and uh It's just The entrepreneurial and the optimism and the lack of rules is kind of It goes along with my personality. Personality because I hate rules.

Um, I'm really in favor of people self regulating. In the sense that Don't uh Be a jerk to your neighbor and don't pollute the world and everything like that, which is the part I that annoys me.

About some of the US uh Business. But in general I just love it here and I I love the Giant range of Geographies too compared to Canada, which is kind of just a string of cities along the border.

In the US you have a grid. of cities and islands that range from like Arctic Tundra too. Tropical islands and coconut. You know, coconut shell tops and everything like that. It's just a

A lot more variety and excitement here. Yeah, there i uh there is a lot of variety here and I've actually decided that this year will be my year of exploration in the domestic United States. And I've I I've I've realized that my default and the default of of many people, I think, when they have their designated time for travel or vacation is oftentimes to fantasize about the trips overseas and I've realized I've neglected

to explore so much diversity. in the United States itself. So I'm uh planning on somehow transporting uh me and my pooch around the country, which I'm uh very excited to do. And

Next thing I'd like to do is is read something and get your comments on it. So this is uh this is from A uh piece a profile of yours in the The New Yorker. Uh, which congratulations. I guess it's one of the top sixteen, is it? Most read

of the year. Uh Profiles, something along those lines. Oh yeah, yeah, I saw that thanks to you, I think, on Twitter. I did do I might have driven uh Some traffic there which which Uh

I was happy to do and also hesitant to do because I I know that there sh I'm s I'm for sure there are things that are At the at the best incomplete. Uh and and maybe completely off base at worst, but that's just the nature of the beast when you're dealing with these types of profiles. Yeah. I did a snarky responses uh section for that, like complete on that genius.it website. So if anybody your inline responses Yeah. The writer can write his story and then I can add my stuff right on the side. And that kind of corrects for the one sidedness of

Normal. New Yorker journalism. Yeah, I might have to do that myself, although I'm not sure I want to reopen the wound. I was misquoted even after correcting fact checkers. I was misquoted and number of people were misquoted probably half a dozen times in m in the piece that I had in the New Yorker, which really rankled me because of course it sits at the top of Google with PageRank. But Water under the bridge for now. Uh I'll put that aside. The the piece I wanted to read though, I d I don't think is is going to uh

Uh let me Start. With The following. So being an engineered, he runs the numbers. Once after his bike was apparently stolen, he ruminated on the wisdom of locking one's bike.

And this is uh This is then to your writing. This was the first theft in many, many years of very carefree living. The Craigslist replacement value of that bike was probably around$500. What value do I place on a decade of the fearless freedom of leaving shit happily unlocked and not worrying about it? How about the value of my time saved and not spending my life fumbling with an enormous keychain, 90 seconds a day for 10 years is 91 hours, or at least$4,500 of my time at$50 an hour. I was still coming out. Way ahead. And you concluded, if you can't afford to lose it, you can't afford to buy it yet.

Otherwise the object own you rather than vice versa. And There there are plenty of folks out there who Who think we are more Opposed then

I think we are, uh, because the type of math that you did here, and I'd love to get your thoughts on it, but These are the types of things that I think about constantly. Um Because the How the in the

How many of these rote Decisions, common decisions. Are burning up the non-renewable resource of time in the interest of some marginal utility. perceived marginal utility in terms of of dollars and cents. But

Uh I'd love to hear any sort of thoughts or or elaborations that you have on this because I I love this example. Yeah. Well it's it is the the math.

Sometimes explicit like that, and sometimes more implicit. Um, that drives most of my decisions. And that's why I'd I'm surprised, like anybody who says that Mr. Money Mustache and Tim Ferris are opposites in any kind of way, I think they're not really understanding the picture because it's really just an optimization process, right? Like Um

I'm not opposed to spending money. My only limitations on spending money are number one, it has to make me happy. And number two A factor in my personal happiness is like resource consumption because I kind of know the numbers behind all the the costs to other people, like into the earth or everything that I buy. So

That kind of rules out certain types of spending that other non-sciencey, non-environmentalist people might feel okay about. But if you push that bit aside. Um, it's all just about having the maximum amount of fun. So Um and if you have limited money Then

Having to go to work for a longer time. is a genuine source of non fun and thus Spending less money is gonna give you more of something that's more fun, which is time. And then you're all set. So that's a win. And then now in this Post work.

uh world where I've stumbled into more money than I could have imagined having. Um my spending hasn't changed and that's just a sign that I got some of the decisions approximately right to begin with. And and if I had started buying more stuff afterwards, that might have been a sign that I didn't really Do the math right to begin with. What do you do with the

Sir and I apologize if this is a simplistic question, but what do you do with the money that You have as a surplus. in this post work life. What what happens to

If the expenses aren't going up or nominally go up and down by a few thousand dollars a year. How do you allocate The surplus. Yeah, that's some that's another thing that has to be optimized and because I I feel that money is such a valuable resource, so

I'm still working on it. So I try to l you know, I've I've been doing small Donations like paying for more stuff when other people I know can't afford it. And then I did a medium size donation. Uh with the effect of under the effective altruism uh movement.

That I know that you've covered at one point in your Tools of Titans book. Yeah, had Will McCaskill on the um On the podcast the co founder or maybe founder of Of that movement. Yeah, and I think one of those two founders sent me an email after I sent my donation to them. And uh

They seem really, really, really sharp people. Uh so that's a that's one useful thing to do with surplus money. Um the only reason I have some of it still sitting in my investment accounts. And it's still rolling in, of course,'cause I still have this unexpected blog income. Um is I feel like I can leverage the attention of all these people.

For something good. And that would be bigger than just donating like You know, a million dollars. to um to standard causes, I think.

Um, I would I would like to create kind of like one of those Tipping point effects in the US that might, for example Tip us more towards bike based transfer. Temperation, um instead of uh car based, you know, and and and potentially save like

Billions or trillions of dollars. of society's wealth and have it go somewhere better if if the whole society got more excited about A different way of living. So that's why I haven't just given away all the money. Cause I feel like, for example, what if I could start like a little mini town Where we do things really awesomely. And this, of course, sounds a bit like a cult, like, Oh yeah, we have to start a commune.

But uh also sounds like Singapore, right? Yeah, right. In a sense. So a town within a town based on the ideas of cohousing or something like that. So these guy ideas are still swimming around in my head. I haven't solved the problem. of how to deal with uh surplus money efficiently. But once I do, then I will. Start having some fun with it and then I'll probably also start

Trying to make more money, like have the blog make more money. Uh because then I'll have a use for it. And the I'd love to Hear more about how you Your decision making process or thought process or internal dialogue when you are considering buying something.

What are the questions that you ask yourself and if it's related to happiness? I want to define that. And maybe a way to do that is, you know, how do you know when you're happy? Or unhappy. Uh but I'd I'd love to just maybe take those.

In in either order, really, but What what's the what's the thought process like or the internal monologue slash dialogue when you're considering buying something? Yeah. Well usually I try to start with like No, you weenie. What do you think? What kind of consumer are you? You know, like just a little bit of mental beatdown to Shut off the easiest things. That's what keeps me from buying like

Like a Tesla model S or something like that because Even though I think it's a great car, I support it. I know for sure that wouldn't make me any happier'cause I don't even have anything to do with it. Like I I don't drive really. So So obvious stuff gets shut off. But then when you get into like

Things that you're pretty sure you want. Then you Just think about it for longer, procrastinate a little bit, see if the desire goes away a bit. And then consider how much space that thing is gonna take up in my

my limited uh space of my studio, for example. And then imagine how I would feel if it broke, because a lot of stuff does break, even if you have high quality gear and it's really annoying to deal with. Think that Things that break and if you have to warranty fix it.

And finally I ask myself, uh, is this removing a negative in my life because It's pretty well studied that happiness is Not very much affected by adding positives to your life. It's mostly

Especially in a rich world environment like we live, it's mostly accomplished by removing things that are a strong negative to every day. So getting myself like a remote control. photography drone is unlikely to make me happier because My life doesn't currently suck due to the absence of photography drone quadcopter thingies. So that's

You know, and whereas if there's something that every day I'm like, damn it, I just wish I didn't always trip over this. you know, broken dishwasher or whatever, then then replacing your dishwasher is It's probably gonna be a happiness uh boosting proposition. What What purchases

Uh or productions for that matter. I know you make a lot of things, but What purchases Just to that come to mind have most improved your happiness by removing negatives.

Yeah, well that's a perfect follow up question because I'm talking to you right now in this studio building. That I made over the process of the last year. It's kind of uh it's roughly like a four hundred square foot Modernist uh

And uh overlooking this nice forested park behind my house. So um I had a consistent problem after I moved to this current house we live in in two thousand thirteen. It's a bit too small for our style of living. So I was genuinely tripping over stuff a bit and always having to move things around and I had some of my equipment out in the back, like my table saw I would have to live under a tarp.

During the rare Colorado precipitation events. And uh realized, you know, more space would actually solve this problem. And I Always wanted to have a detached studio anyway to play music in because Um I don't want to have to like

Drown out my family's ears when I'm playing. bad rock music with my friends so I built the studio and um I did it all myself because I know from experience that This manual labor and solving physical problems is one of the happiest things I can possibly do. Just like You know, hundreds of hours of

Lifting and sweating and digging and You know, all these amazing Useful outdoor things with friends. And now I'm I'm in it. You know I'm

Recording a Tim Ferris podcast in my studio. Surrounding my drums and bass and guitar and watching the trees sway outside. So this has been a really A genuine uh happiness boosting spendage expenditure of money. And it's brought me happiness pretty much

From the day I broke ground on this You know, this piece of dirt. So So no regrets there, even though that was A lot more than uh And a few dinners out that I spent on this thing.

I've been Uh, I've been hoping and wishing and fantasizing at some point about building My own structure. I've not done this. And I've thought about it ever since I had Kevin Kelly on the podcast, founding editor of Wired magazine. Incredible guy. I mean really

The real life. world's most interesting man in so many ways. Uh a an impeccable technology futurist who has an Amish beard and spends time with the Amish. It's a l people can listen to the episode. It's a long story, but I asked him what every person should do at least once in their lifetime and he said, Build a home, build a house. Yeah, and I I've every time this is a lesson I need to relearn over and over again.

I use my hands in that capacity. that manual labor reward, like you said. It's it's just unbelievable. Even yesterday I was I was Purging donating a bunch of stuff that I just don't need. I was I was I was getting rid of a bunch of stuff and the but the These simple

visual reward of the before and after using my hands to move a bunch of stuff around and have that before and after was so much more rewarding than Some of the biggest things I've done on a laptop or on the web in the last few months, I felt ashamed in some ways that such a menial, mundane set of tasks was so rewarding. Dude, yeah, Kevin Kelly is right. And this is why As a fellow Lifestyle guru, admittedly a junior lifestyle guru, I spend most of my time doing manual labor. Even though I can make

you know, infinite money typing shit into the computer and publishing it Two You know, the cult following. I hardly do that at all because the It not doesn't work for everybody, but certain people get incredible satisfaction out of building because it's like the Zen aspect of it. There's like physical

And mental and problem solving. It's it's like It's like what a human was made to do. So Kevin is right. In fact the house that I live in I also built Before I built the studio I Built as a slight exaggeration'cause there was a bit of a shell.

I tore it down to like a brick shell and then rebuilt it. To a different shape, but um and every time, like every night, especially in the winter here when it snows, I look up at the trees and like the snow falling on the roof that I made and the fireplace that I put in there. And the heating system that I designed pumping water under my floors and heating up my feet. I'm like, this is the most satisfying thing I could possibly

Experience. So Yeah, you should figure out a way to build something, at least like a shed quarters or like a man cave type thing in your back yard and I have this thing called carpenturism where I go out to People in need and build.

fun stuff with them and teach them how to build. So If you ever want to do a a teamwork, um Tim Ferris Studio then I'm I'm making the software now. It would make a quite an interesting story. Like an operating room.

uh assistant of sorts. You'd be like hammer, hammer, screwdriver, screwdriver. I think I'd be more of a liability otherwise, but uh Well that's how you learn though. I'll I'll give you the nail gun and then you'll make some mistakes and we'll bring a welder and then you're like Explode some stuff, but later you'll be making fine welding lines and Yeah. You know, I might take you up on that. I love Colorado. I've I've I've uh been spending more and more time in Colorado. Well, I was assuming we would build something at your pieces of the world where you need a structure because

You don't need to like build stuff for me. That's not No, not for you. I was thinking about the people in need, but maybe they don't want like some horrible Oh ferocious. Picasso painting. of a table where they're like, I didn't really want some abstract, weird Thing, Ferris, if you could if you could use parallel lines next time, please.

In this case, you were the person in need because you're this You know, this accomplished guy who yet has yet a hole in your life where you haven't actually built house yet. So so I felt sorry for you, that's all. All right. I I will I will put a bookmark in that. I I may take you up on it. Uh here's Here are a few questions related to

Consumption because I I think about I do think about consumption a fair amount. Living in San Francisco on some level helps because you can't walk five or ten feet without having someone talk to you about it or seeing billboards or seeing uh Announcements and so on. Uh related to

Some type of conservation or Or curbing consumption, but A few a few questions for you. The the first is I

And this is related to kids, so I don't have kids. One of the considerations has been a concern for Consumption. So how do you reconcile Kids with consumption, or do you do not see them as uh dramatically increasing.

the sort of consumptive burden. Oh yeah. Yeah, kids are definitely a huge um form of consumption. Like if you're a A rich world resident and you have a kid, you know, that's That's another hundred years of Rich World Life style going on there.

So uh but I'm not a pure person, I I strategically in indulge in fun stuff and And my wife and I knew we wanted to have kids. And we just happen to feel that one was the right

number for us, um, and I'm not judgmental of against other people. But I think um It's just good. It's one of the things to throw into your equation of of like child raising, like should I have one or maybe thirteen. Like, well, if If consumption of natural resources uh is a Factor you might

Not have thirteen. But if it's not a factor, you know, no judgment from me. And so we got one and then uh you can have probably like a four X, you know, four hundred percent difference in the amount of consumption you do on behalf of your child.

Just depending on how you raise them. depending on what activities they're into and what kind of stuff you buy them and How you train them as well. If you train them like hey We're rich and rich people get to buy whatever they want. Then you're gonna raise a super consumer.

And more, the richer you are. Whereas if you teach them that there's a balance and biology and science in their upbringing, then they're gonna have a value system That prevents them from being nearly as Destructive.

And yet they'll probably still have more fun in the world as well. Is it true that you Paid your son per mile ridden on his bike at one point? Yeah, we still do that. There's just kind of a

I like this, by the way. This is not in any way a criticism. Yeah. Right. Uh, many of them like to find excuses to give their kids money. in order for them to figure out how to manage it at a young age. So

I didn't want to just hand over money like you're money comes from nowhere, so I thought that bicycling would be kind of a little income system for him. So He has an Odometer on our on his bike, so it automatically tracks the miles. And then uh just give'em ten cents a mile. Which adds up pretty fast if you're an all bicycle family. So

And just give him little payouts and then we've got a spreadsheet where we keep track of his money. He's eleven years old, by the way. And uh And that earns interest so he has A comparison of like if I keep my money in the bank of dad, then I'm gonna earn interest. Whereas if I spend it, my capital decreases And then that interest.

Bearing piece of like my little green employees are Gone forever. So He still spends his money, of course, but He just knows everything's a trade off, which is makes it more More thoughtful.

Yeah. Now you are an engineer. And it's it seems like you have a strong Uh Yeah.

engineer genetic through line in your family. Has your son tried to Ferris Bueller the Odometer at any point. Of course, doing the opposite. Has he figured out how to how to tinker with his odometer, or I guess is he so good that perhaps you wouldn't have noticed? Yeah, I mean you never know, he might be hooking it up to a cordless drill and spinning that front wheel. But uh No, I don't think uh he's not That's not in his personality, like uh

He's not into really cheating on anything. He's plus it's it's kind of an abundance. Like he has more money than he can spend. The little dude has like a thousand bucks. In his uh spread sheet now. And the only thing he really wants to buy is Is the odd video game, which might be like twenty or thirty dollars. Once every few months. So he's pretty much retired already because the passive income

That he's earning his uh He's close to finding his video game needs. Either that or he's got the best long con in history. Like he's been he's been conning you with his good behavior for eleven years. Just to just to tinker with the s odometer. Which I don't think is the case. But For for those people who are listening.

And I'm sure you're asked this all the time, but Books on investing or personal finance. Uh are there any go-to recommendations? And they don't have to be books, they could be resources, but for people who want to self-educate. Could certainly be one of your top, you know, one or two blog posts as well. But uh if you were to pick from

Potentially your own stuff, but also from other work that's out there. Where would you direct people? I think uh it depends on how interested in investing you are. One of the key

Um nice things about the world, especially the US financial system. is you don't have to know much to be a very good investor, like You can be a top ten percent investor by just buying one Vanguard fund and leaving your money, just putting all your extra money in there forever. Um so if you're if that's your

Idea of Of good enough. Uh Which it should be for most people. Then you can just read uh Any book by

Jack Bogle, John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard is one good example. Um a friend of mine who's a blogger named Jim Collins wrote this book called The Simple Path to Wealth. Which is just sort of like a even simpler, more story based. Like enjoyable old man's tales.

Explanation of how why you should invest in index funds. And uh so that's another idea. But much more important than how to invest, as long as you don't screw up your investing, like leave your money in a checking account or buy A shifty life insurance. whole life program or whatever, you know, the uh

The things that swindle people out of their money. um you're gonna be fine on the investing side. So the other side of that equation is a book. And I really want to write a book myself so then I can just recommend my own, but for now is a really great one. It's called um

Your money or your life that everybody's heard of. And if you just get your get the whatever the latest edition of that. book is. Um it really teaches you A philosophy that's pretty similar to mine, which is that consumption is not really what's making you happy buying yourself treats and and it's quite easy to become financially independent as soon as you

Modify your spending in that way. So huge surplus of money is on a weekly or monthly basis is the real solution to your financial problems rather than becoming a super kick ass investor. Yeah, there's a book that I read. I don't know if you've ever

read this book. It does primarily focus on low cost index funds, if I remember it correctly, but Uh by Daniel Solon, the smartest investment book you'll ever read. Oh yeah, I've heard of it. And I had uh I I I quite enjoyed

uh that book is a little more nuanced. Certainly anything by Bogle is is fantastic. Uh. For People who want to dig deeper, are there any additional Books that you would recommend or that you've enjoyed yourself?

Yeah, if you want to get deeper, like for example, more into the Warren Buffett side side of things where you're an active investor. Um One really interesting book that I read a few years ago is called The Little Book That Beats the Market. Mm-hmm. And uh it's really a lesson on investing value investing fundamentals.

how to understand if a company actually is a good deal to buy. And that helps put a regular you know, like a sober shell around investing instead of the ridiculous speculation. Like technical chart investing, I think is It's kind of universally proved to be bunk, but people are still doing it. Like, oh yeah, the Bollinger bands are wild this week. I'm gonna, you know, I see a support level at fifty three point five unless something happens. Like all that stuff is statistically.

It keeps being proven wrong and people keep doing it. So Don't do that. If you're gonna be an active investor, then get really good at understanding companies rather than technical fluctuations. And that's why Warren Buffett. Makes a lot of money. uh above the rocket returns is because he's a savant in understanding Business. And some people genuinely are that.

Like it maybe it would probably be less than one in a thousand people. He's also a savant in emotional detachment in the sense that I'd love to talk to you uh a bit. About Stoicism and so on at at some point, but he he is

Utterly unaffected by what he would call Mr. Market, right? The the ups and downs. Of any given company that uh he may have bought in the form of shares or outright if he purchased the entire acquired the entire company and that type of emotional detachment is also

Exceptionally, exceptionally rare. Yeah, and that goes without saying like To me that's a prerequisite. You should have to do it. I don't have that at all. So I mean Well well no, in the sense that if if I'm going to be active It is very hard for me to be an active investor in publicly traded equities.

Uh, for whatever reason, I can do highly speculative startups and that's a disturbingly high percentage of my portfolio because I can't balance a portfolio with uh illiquid assets. Uh it's very challenging, certainly. Uh but with with publicly traded equities, if I'm trying to be active uh in any capacity.

I do very poorly. emotionally with those fluctuations and I make bad decisions. Okay. But If we're talking about something like an index. Then I'm fine. If it's if it's ex if it's in If it's entirely hands off.

And I have other people or in some type of say automated fashion with whether it's a wealth front or something else, then I don't have any trouble with it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's and since I don't do active stuff anymore. Then that's I'm totally with agree.

With you on that in agreement. The uh the book you mentioned was that by Joel Greenblatt, the little book that beats the market? Is that right. Yeah. And it was a little book, which is perfect for my short book attention span. He is, yeah. Joel is is exceptionally he's an exceptionally smart guy. And uh he has a fascinating track record because he He can teach and he has taught. uh in in classrooms in New York. Uh

at universities. He can write. And he's also very, very well respected. as not only a value investor, but also an an an in it what you would call an event based investor. So his first book, I think it was his first book.

sophisticated of them all, which is where people can make the most mistakes. So I I think that the the little book that beats the market makes more sense as a as a first reader. Maybe the uh his later book, The Big Secret for the Small Investor. But Book with the title that is is sort of blessed and cursed in the same way that the four hour work week just sounds so shlcky as if it's gonna appear at three in the morning on an infomercial that it's uh but it's highly memorable. So it's been

uh helpful and punishing at the same time. He has a book called You Can Be a Stock Market Genius, which is actually really sophisticated. I've met some of the most successful um and most of by the way hedge fund managers are not successful, but a ha the handful I've met who have been exceptionally successful, this book, which is intended for novices, effectively is one of their favorite books. Uh so lots of lots of Yeah, lots of interesting stuff out there. Yeah, I'm gonna check that one out for sure. Since I like

Joel Greenblatt's writing a lot. And I I still follow Um, I you know, I read in investment and finance books all the time. I just try not to recommend them too much on my blog because It's supposed to be about lifestyle and and making your life good. And I don't want it to be all esoteric, but sure. I do read like the Timothy Geitner

Book. Uh Stress test, I read that. eight hundred page. um description of the financial crisis and I was found it pretty captivating knowing what really happened in the background, but oh yeah. For the average person, it's not gonna help them.

Get rich and retire earlier so I don't talk about it too much. Well, on top of that, if you want a a cautionary tale, so for those of you out there who love, love, love reading uh at least if if a book is captivating, what you should get at the same time if you decide to get The You can be a stock market genius by

Uh. Joel, Greenblot, which is exceptional. you should also read a book that will be a cautionary tale. And it's a cautionary tale because it it It details the types of people that you are competing against. If you choose to be really active uh in certain respects. And it's a fantastic read. It's uh more money than God, and it is about the birth

of the hedge fund model and a number of the characters. uh and most successful managers in that world. It's a bit like a liar's poker, but instead of bonds they're talking about hedge funds. And it will give you a very good idea of who you are competing against and when you step on when you step onto the metaphorical

Uh Golf Green. And you throw your money down as your participation and bet on yourself. Uh the fact that Tiger Woods is probably two holes ahead of you uh becomes super, super clear. Uh and I I should also

Um Just to in in a sense reinforce what you said about Index funds say when I went to the only time I had a chance to go to the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, and I think they've stopped doing

Open Q and A with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, but I I actually ran in And it's it's insane. I mean it is like a gigantic rock concert for investment nerds and people will camp out overnight to try to get a good seat. And I ran in.

And uh I was someone's guest. Which was great because I I I was able to get in a little earlier than The entire um the entire stadium full of folks, effectively. And I ran in and I found somebody who was volunteering or working there and I said, which microphone is the hardest to get to?

Because they had microphones all throughout this. this venue, and that's where you would be able to ask your question if they got to you. And I I figured, you know what, people are gonna be long winded. Maybe the answers would be long winded, although they very seldom are, especially if Charlie Munger's involved. And I need to find a mic where I can be first or second person in line. And so I ran up, went through this crazy

set of staircases and found this mic that was in the middle of nowhere. And I asked. Warren Buffett. If you were thirty And uh I I said uh hypothetically if you were thirty

You had say five hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars in savings. Uh and there were a couple of other stipulations, but what would you do with the money? And he's and uh he said, assuming you're not a professional investor, I would put it into the S P five hundred or in an index fund. and get back to work.

That was it. That was that was the end of the answer. And you know, Charlie, do you have anything more to a to add? Nope. And then On to the next question. So Uh yeah, it's good advice. It is,'cause there's so much more to work on in your life. Like

If you're gonna become a really good investor, you're probably going to compromise in the areas of being a good parent or being A good Maintaining good physical fitness. Or

And life, like you're not really optimizing. You're not supposed to optimize for money. You're supposed to optimize for happiness, which has a lot of dimensions. So you should really like Take the sort of the four hour investor. approach and be like, everyone says this is good. I'm just gonna do it and I'm gonna work on all the other stuff in my life that that also needs to be addressed. Yeah.

Well let's let's jump into some Some rapid fire questions, uh, as I call them, but your answers don't need to be short. I'll just try to keep my long winded question asked to a minimum. So outside of your immediate family. When you hear the word successful Who's the

First person who comes to mind for you, or who is a person who comes to mind for you and why. Yeah, I've racked my brain over this question because I know it's a standard uh Fairest podcast question and I don't have a answer. Then anybody would recognize because I I can't judge the success of any celebrities or well known people.

Because success is such a balanced thing and it depends on how happy you are at home and how Nice you are to the people who are close to you. So to me the people In my life that I've seen Um

seem to be very high in the success range are a couple of friends. These are male friends. that run their own business. They basically both fit into the same description. So they run their own business. A little bit older than me. Their business is extremely successful, but they've scaled it right, right back in order to be a lifestyle business. And handed off a lot of responsibility to their employees and they kinda pay them more because there's so much

Surplus anyway. And they're like, okay, you deal with all the junk. In exchange for you never calling me on the weekends. So Both these friends work Pretty minimal, like. ten to twenty hours a week and yet somehow their businesses keep doing better because of this hands off approach.

So they're making even more money. Um, but yet they have a fairly mustachian lifestyle and this is Probably because I I met these guys through the blog. And then they they both have kids and they have really, really good relationships with their their children, their semi adult children, their wife and

Basically just really good shape. Physical shape. They do a lot of adventures. They always say yes if I invite them do something they're like, Oh yeah, that's sure, we'll we'll fly over and meet you in that random spot for some Mountain biking or whatever. So they've c they've managed to combine all of these dimensions of

What most people want. In a kind of a carefree way. And and they're not overly focused on any one of them. Which allows them to be extremely fun people to be around. So that's my definition of success and that's what I kinda hope for.

For myself, by the time I'm like Fifty years old with a Pretty old kid. Where we're on the flip side. Yeah.

some of the critics get wrong, what perhaps media sometimes uh misinterpret. Where do Where do your fans get it wrong? What are the most common mistakes? That you're

Readers make. Or misinterpretations. Uh when when do they get the message wrong? That's pretty rare. It's pretty there's I I write a lot of stuff, right? So anybody who reads a lot.

They'll see all the little. Nuances and But for those of um Um those readers who don't have all the details. A lot of people assume that I'm very

It's you know, I like I would be mad at them if I ever found out that they bought something luxurious, like oh don't tell Mr. Money Mustache I bought this. two thousand dollar mountain bike'cause I really love bikes, but but you know, everything else is good and like I don't I don't judge people To nearly the standards that they think I judge them to

So and uh the other thing is it's the same For people who don't know my real life. They often assume that it's pretty spartan and And then I'm always penny pinching and this goes back to the same answer with the New Yorker article too. But um I'm I'm really

I'm really in favor of of celebrating and decadence and and feeling like stuff is luxurious. So uh so I'm really not As minimalist as people. People think I am. I'm really maximalist in the fun department.

Besides the studio. what are some of those luxuries. And we could tie that into Uh Let's limit it to purchases that have most positively impacted your life or that you just love because they're so damn fun for you.

What what is what are some of those things? Um well some of the some of it is vacations. So Since um Since retiring from real jobs. My wife and I have

Had a nice tradition of going somewhere semi tropical. Every winter for a good long period. Most winters at least. Sometimes the school schedule messes it up a bit. But But yeah, for a month or more. We'll often go and and so we spend some money on these vacations and we'll rent a nice house on a beach.

Um like in Florida or Hawaii or Costa Rica or whatever. So vacations Um, most of the money goes to rent, basically, like VRBO type stuff, Airbnb. Sure is one example of indulgences that I still have a lot of warm memories from.

And I really like knowing that I can do that at any time. So even when I'm not on vacation right now in January And uh sometimes if the cold weather blows in, I think. Man, I could just press a few buttons on this computer and just fly right out. to anybody's VRBO.

And be there within like A day or two and uh just having that freedom is is a form of luxury in itself. And then I can go out and shovel some snow and Be happy about it. And uh yeah, the other purchases, um, nothing's really expensive, but

When I built out the current house main house rather than the studio. I was feeling pretty rich at the time, so I I went a bit high end on some of the stuff. Like I have this really gorgeous High efficiency wood burning. Wood stove fireplace thing that

Brings me pleasure every day, even though it was More expensive than uh You know, than than just a basic fireplace. And the windows in my house, for example, are very Kind of these fancy windows that cost about five times more than

than it would have cost if I'd gone bare bones. So it's usually stuff related to home, vacation. And food, you know, we've we've been known to Go out for sushi a bit more than a A person in debt should go into sushi, so we take advantage of our non

Debt status. It's it's really not too much though, yeah. Do you have any favorite documentaries or movies? My favorite uh I've actually got a huge, huge list of documentaries that I've

From the guests on your um Tools of Titans book. But the one that I did watch and enjoy is actually a a series rather than documentary, but the um The Cosmos, the the remake.

Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yeah, I love Neil DeGrasse Tyson and uh I love his awkward But scientific way and The topics he covered in those In those episodes where like

So stunning and it was a great education for my son who is very, very Into science himself. Um, so that's kind of Like that's the documentary that stands out in my mind.

Probably the most interesting thing in the last five years anyway. Yeah, it's a fa it's a fantastic series. I've been Hoping and meaning to have Neil on the podcast. Uh we've had I guess some some indirect email exchanges. So if if anybody's good buddies with Neil, give him a poke and let them know that it's still like to have him on the podcast. Uh If you were to give a TED talk. On something that you are not known.

Four. What would you give it? On. So any any kind of pet obsession or something you're lesser known for. Maybe your diehard fans who've read every single line of everything you've ever written would

But uh Yeah, we had to get it. I think I do have an answer. Yeah. So If you define the thing that I'm known for as the early retirement Mr. Money Mustache stuff. Then um

The other topic that I'm super passionate about is Is energy and um Like the world energy balance and solar power and how the humans how humans consume it and how we can basically fix our energy consumption related to climate change and all this stuff. So I'd probably write one up about that and explain how we're at this

Insanely close tipping point where Fossil fuels are just about to be Economically unfeasible. Even without regulations and stuff. And uh I think that can make a good Ted Ted talk because a lot of people are

You need to popularize the ideas. And right now they're kind of dry and numbers based, like you're talking about Terajo and kilograms CO two and all this stuff and There's a lot more fun and emotion in that topic if you if you package it right. So I think that'd be a good talk. Yeah. Mm.

What is your and what what I've been curious about, and I know you've written about this before, but Uh when you are if you if you were to Think of When you in your when you were in your best physical shape in the last five years. Yeah.

What did the exercise regimen look like? I saw a photograph of you, I wanna say squatting outside at an outdoor squat rack. Am I making that up? Yeah, that was my most recent blog post. It's starting to get a little old now, but yeah. So Uh If you think back to when you were in the best shape and you can define that any way you like, what what did your exercise regimen look like? Yeah, it's I might be

In s in some ways, in some of the best shape I'm in my life right now. And that is Just a pretty casual program but with really efficient barbell exercises. combined with just a whole bunch of walking and biking construction. So um

So The the barbell stuff is just squats. Deadlifts, clean and press. Little bit of benching and stuff with kettlebells and dumbbells. And

Generally Using weights that I can just barely lift five times. And the total expenditure of per week. It's only in the the order of like an hour or two. So I'm not like a A gym rat?

Um so that Right now I'm pretty happy with the way my body's working, especially for a forty One year old or whatever I am. Um, but the The strong I was slightly stronger when I was in my twenties and it was basically the same stuff, but just going to the gym.

For a longer period. And training. It was really just more hours put in and that's when I I've probably had my record. Um

Weightlifting in certain exercises. Do you have a a quote or any quotes? That you live your life by or think of often. Um I don't really think in quotes too often.

Mm maybe with the exception of use it or lose it. Seems to come up at least a couple of times a day. I'd say that's often enough to want to be a response. Yeah, it's so short. And uh and thus memorable. You don't have to be all flowery and po poetic to appreciate lose use it or lose it. But I think it's because uh In the current stage of my life

Uh being over forty and then having some family members with You know, some people have died in my family and had serious health. Problems like in the extended family. And uh it's really made me more aware of mortality and how

Stuff doesn't automatically stay in perfect condition. And Even if even if it does stay in perfect condition, you're unlikely to live forever. Unless some really, really big medical stuff changes. Before I turn a hundred.

So anyway, use it or lose it is is the philosophy like brain, body Skills, friendships. relationships just do everything that you want to be good at. as often as you can and uh don't fool yourself that you're gonna keep being able to do this stuff unless you continue doing it regularly. In the

And uh I I I don't know which label to use here, but in the say frugality or Low cost living. world. What is the worst advice Or what is bad advice that you hear?

Given often. I think The biggest issue with that I have with a lot of this uh mainstream financial advice. is that they're

They make you think of saving as a negative A kind of a negative Obligation. They're like Yeah, we know it's But But come on, like if you can just squeeze out five percent or even 10%.

Then you're You're doing okay. Just do that every week and Make a budget and all this stuff and uh So you're you're training people to think that saving is bad and you want to minimize it, whereas I think It's a win win and

Most of our spending is is a sign of weakness and it's a bunch of stuff that we do to compensate for our weaknesses. Because we couldn't solve the problem in a smarter way. Like As we talked about earlier. it's possible to walk or bike to work, which is a a physical and mental win.

It just happens to cost a lot less. So I encourage people to radically reshape their entire lifestyle to be optimized in all these dimensions. And

Sure, you happen to save fifty Seventy five percent of your income as a as a byproduct, but The only reason that's a w a win is because Your life is better as well. And normal financial advice is it doesn't really address the life stuff. And you know, you see a lot of

He's totally out of shape. business guru people trying to sell life insurance at the same time as they're giving you financial advice. And they're not really You know, they're not really in it for making people's lives better. I think that's where

That's where it falls flat. Yeah. For sure. And Yeah, it's uh

It's important. I think certainly in in almost every area, but in uh the world of financial planning and advice to ensure that the person giving the advice has done what they're suggesting or has some practice putting their words into action because otherwise um they haven't stress test. their ideas, uh, or at the very worst, they're a hypocrite and they're doing the opposite of them.

Uh Are there any failures that come to mind which are uh favorite failures? of yours in the sense that they ended up sowing the seeds of A later success. Does anything like that come to mind for you?

Yeah, I have a pretty Pretty serious one. But I call it. have an article called Mr. Money Mustache's Big Mistake. And uh it's right after I retired in two thousand five, I kind of faded in

to a my first dream retirement job, which was to start a custom house building company. Where I was gonna make these beautiful eco friendly houses. I did actually. We started making these houses. And um And the problem was

It was way, way more stressful than than what I wanted for a retirement job. And I just had this new baby boy at the same time and suddenly I had all these obligations and like a construction loan to build this thing and I was Doing marketing and working late. And

wrangling all these cats together like the contractors to help out building the places. And uh it wasn't really retirement at all. And on top of that We did it. Uh right.

in time for the housing crisis. So like we sold our first house into the two thousand six Boom market for housing, but then By the time the second one was done. It was two thousand seven and everything was slowing down and and then starting to drop like a rock. And then I was stuck with this. beautiful ready to sell house and nobody wanted to buy it for any kind of reasonable

Some So that was kind of soiled the fun, spoiled the fun of my first Three years of retirement as running this company. Um at the same time though Going through hardship.

Was was really good for me. I had to do a lot of hard stuff that I wouldn't have done. And that's how I learned a lot of my Um, best carpentry stuff, you know, the skills that I'm most skill I'm most proud of. is uh like I've I've always messed around with woodworking since I was a little kid, but by uh being forced into production on these expensive

modernist houses where everything has to be perfect. It really trained me a lot and I enjoy those skills now. So the combination of Shittiness and skills and then Then we shut this company down. And since then I've been

truly retired and had so much more fun. Looking back, I'm like, wow, I'm sure glad I'm not doing that anymore. So it lost a bunch of money, you know, some of my retirement savings. When happened smoke initially. Um

And then I was started to be a bit more worried about money. That was a big part of it'cause I was like, Oh, all my hard earned savings. And if I could go back and change that. I would probably

Still do it, but I would train myself to be just so much more relaxed about and be like, dude, don't worry, you're gonna have So much fun after this and you're not gonna run out of money. So just have a good time with your business. Um even if it even if it fails. What was the process like of shutting it down in the sense that was there a particular

dinner or conversation or bike ride or uh Moment. When you decided to start the process of shutting it down and how how did that What did that look like?

Well it was pretty. It's pretty quick,'cause I bought these two vacant lots in kind of a premium new urbanist neighborhood. With my business partner and the And the company

And then we started building the first one and it was The aforementioned stress was high. And I was like, Oh shit, what have I got myself into? Okay, let's just get these things done and then be done with it. So then I got the first one done and then Like, woo, that was great. You know, big success. It sold for more than we were Even asking for it.

And then the second one. Um got more and more stressful and I already knew before I even started that second one that I wanted to shut down the business afterwards. It just got drawn out longer. And then we got into like renting it out, but then the tenants turned out to be horrible and I had these like

Scam artists move in. That we didn't realize were scam artists and they were like, Oh yeah, we got we just sent you the rent. Uh yeah, it's in your mailbox. Check your mailbox, click and they hang up and all these like little tricks and The guy had like this, you know, fancy Like brand new Corvette that he had bought and he had to hide it in the garage'cause the repo man would take it back if he ever saw it outside. So all he could do is like pull it out, polish it and rev it, and then put it back in the garage. These people were just really

messed up and I happened to get tangled in their web for a while. And we had to use the uh the full on eviction with like sheriff Coming to the door to get him out of my place. And uh so yeah, there's some education in there. That sounds like a headache.

Huh. What did it feel like? Uh when was it finally done? Shut down completely and what did what did that day feel like? Um, I'd say it was shut down. The one of the biggest problems with this is that the the relationship between me and my friend who started it and business partner. It just it just soured and it became pretty bad by the end and we had totally different views about work and money and dividing stuff up.

So We finally got him out of there by I basically had to buy out the company I had to put like I'd lost all this money and I had to put like a final four hundred and sixty thousand dollars into the company to pay off this mortgage that was on the house.

Um just to kick him off the The deed, the property deed, so that I could have control of it. So that day was kind of like You know, we're like frowning at each other over the Lawyer's table or whatever.

And then since then That that lifted the weight off of me and then everything was so much better. And then for a while I rented out the house to great tenants and I had it in that situation. I was just using the rent for Kind of our grocery money'cause That house was a fairly big portion of our retirement savings uh income at the time.

And then more recently, I think just less than two years ago, I the market in our area here in uh Colorado. Started to boom again, so I just sold it. For a nice High price and then now I've been super relaxed. And then that's kind of like another wave. And it really taught me a lot about happiness because

This negativity In my life. At least I was choosing to perceive it negatively. It was washed away. And Then suddenly I was happier than I could have ever imagined being.

Um Because I'd gone through this. Somewhat hellish situation. And then remove the negative, right? Yeah. Which uh is is such a valuable question. I the the question to ask before purchase. This the that

That alone will Return. Yeah, t a hundred X the effort of scheduling and doing this interview for me. That question is this removing a negative from my life? That's such a powerful reframe because I th I think that is so true. Uh and so so incredibly useful. But

The the next, which is going to be Completely flipping that on its head. And I this is not one of my usual questions, but I'm so curious to know how you will answer this. If if you had

had to spend. You were given a hundred thousand dollars. And they said, You have to spend this, you have to buy something or some things. You cannot donate donate it to charity. Uh you cannot stick it into an investment vehicle. You have to spend it.

And it has to be on you, your family, or your your close friends, but it can't be Charitable in the sense that you're say par paying for the college tuition of your friend's kids and so on. Nothing like that. How how would you spend that? What would you do with it? That was my answer. You just took my answer. I knew because I felt like it was coming. 'Cause I could pay off somebody's mortgage. I s there's still one family member in my close family that has a mortgage, but

But yeah, we want we want to consume here. Um hundred thousand or No, it's not limited. It's not limited. This is just Let's just say that you took a step into bizarro land where everything was what it wasn't, and suddenly you were the anti-mustache, right? Yeah. And What what would you do? Well, the thing is This might actually be somewhat realistic because

I still consider every day, you know, is there something I could spend money on um that would be worth it? It's still an open question. You don't want to be ideological about this stuff, but So one thing I've been interested in maybe buying and if I was forced to, I would do it quickly is a is a building. I kinda wanna own a commercial building on our town's little Historic Main Street.

This town I live in, Longmont, Colorado, is kinda one of these Over a hundred year old things. Where it's all historic with big trees and the the narrow Main street with the tall brick buildings on it. So I could buy one of those.

And then set up You know, some kind of fun Community space in there where we We play music and we have parties and we rent it out. And do some teaching too,'cause I like to uh

Do a bit of volunteer. Math and science teaching. To uh to kids. Kind of advanced stuff. That they don't get in the normal school. So I could have like

Professor Mustache's uh school of science. In my downtown building. So that that'd be kind of a fun use of money. Yeah. This is more, of course, a uh

Metaphorical question, but if if you could have one gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it. Um what would it say? You know, short message or image or That you would like to

Right. I'm picturing this in a US metropolis because that's kind of where I'm focusing my efforts right now. So I think I would say I think we would say walk, or maybe you'd say just walk. Something that people can really Understand quickly. I like to do it.

Yeah. Back to our original thoughts, like It's the under It's the best prescription medication in the world and yet it's so under Done so far.

So that's my bookboard. Yeah, it's we've made as a species so many evolutionary trade offs. To be able to walk. With a level head. unlike say a pig that doesn't have a nuclear ligament, so their heads bob all over the place. Like we've evolved to

be able to as it would seem a survival imperative walk very long distances. Can I just feel like humans are generally better humans and less neurotic when they walk a lot. Uh at least that's true for me, I'll speak for myself. Uh I'm like ten percent less neurotic.

Yeah. Which is which is a win for me. So our billboard could say, just walk, you've paid a high evolutionary price for this ability, and let's not squander it. What what are what are one of your Biggest. Challenges right now. How do you plan to

Think about it or face it. I think my biggest challenge is the Over Satisfied. Rat in a cage.

Syndrome where Uh it's a fine line between being too satisfied with your life with your life and not doing enough. So that you feel Like a bit of a A weenie at the end of the day for squandering one of the few days of your life.

Uh versus overdriving yourself. To be like, Well, I gotta accomplish more, you know, I have all these Gifts and and great situations and I have to make the most of it. And Taking either of those two extremes.

Um can lead to a pretty unsatisfying life. And this often I often compare myself actually Because um this is a little bit weird, but To you as Tim Ferris, because I've read some of your books and I see some of your self reflection in there where you have some of these battles. You're like, well.

Should I be perfectionist or should I relax? And I have a lot of these same questions to myself. And one of the differences is that I I chose to have a kid and I focus a lot of energy on that. Which by definition subtracts a lot of the other stuff I could do, like why am I not running my own kind of Tesla type company or whatever. So that's my challenge is is trying to walk the line.

And Have the at the end of each day be satisfied that I've created the right balance of like stress and accomplishment. Versus lazy decadence, which is part of the fun of really

being early retired is that you generally can like just Smoke a bowl and have some fun with your friends on a Wednesday and like sleep in and it does not matter. And you still are gonna have all the money that you need. No matter what. So And it's still, yeah, I still

Have trouble. I've been a little bit On the lazy side in the last couple weeks. Because of family conditions here at home and so I'm Um

craving to get back to work on something hard. How will you how how how do you think you'll explore that in the coming year? uh testing that balance or or trying different things to Try to find it. Oscillating between the poles.

And that's how you achieve balance. It's not like you're never it's not like you're ever fifty fifty for a long period of time. You just oscillate between the poles. I don't know. But how how are you thinking about that? Because I'm I'm also thinking about the same thing in two thousand seventeen. Yeah, well it's a continuing series of experiments. Um And it's always changing. Look, I've been at this for a long time. It's been eleven years. Since I had a real job and I've done a lot of Hard stuff and then

a medium amount of laziness in this time. So I keep trying stuff. To see if I enjoy it. So like last August, for example. I wanted to see if I enjoyed the TED Talk kind of public speaking and I did a whole bunch of traveling around that as well. And I found it was a bit too much. Like I enjoyed the actual

stuff that I did, but I was craving being at home and then that's made me realize that most of my joy comes when I'm actually creating something. And this is why I'm less travel oriented than other people because I can't really create while I'm traveling. So I need to do a certain amount of like nitty gritty.

construction and design and just hanging out and having un Unplanned, spontaneous People coming over for a party or barbecue or whatever. So I need this village life. If you imagine a primitive man living in a village where he spends half the time hunting. Some of the time like building stuff and some of the time

Raveling around the fire. That's kind of my core of happiness. And when I get too much into Lifestyle guru activities like oh I'm gonna publish more articles or get this book done quickly. Or say yes to all these interviews so I can have more and more Fans and page views.

Those things sound. Actually they sound dumb when I say it like that, but um when you look at the you know, when you look at news headlines about yourself, you're like that's successful, or you look at page views or money. You go, Yeah, that's success. But it's actually the kind of the least happy thing that I do. It's the least satisfaction bringing. So I have to balance

that with um with these much more villagey type of activities But if I d if I totally neglect The internet world. Then I'll feel like I'm Letting the world down because

You can actually create good positive change that way that you could never do just in your own Village. Right. What have you changed your mind on?

In the last year. Say handful of years. Is there anything that you've Done and about face on in any way or modified substantially in your thinking. Um there have been a few Little things.

Like What type of eating is healthy? I kinda switched to the uh The high fat, low carb eating. on a whim after reading some books and uh I'm really, really happy with that.

Whereas before when I was a teenager I was the ultimate Low fat. Bodybuilding magazines back then and Oh yeah. And they were always telling you like Oh yeah. Ten grams of fat would be way too much to have and all this stuff.

So that was a change in a little way. Um The biggest change I've had though is more In my understanding of happiness, uh, I thought that happiness came from From maximum achievement and maximum wealth.

And as I got into experimenting with those things Sounds too much like my other answer, but I I learned much more about the balance that's required for happiness. So it's changed my goals for the rest of my life is that There's a lot more to happiness than just being maxed out in one dimension.

So I only have a few Questions. Left, I'm having a lot of fun. I mean we could keep going for many, many hours, but Uh

Do you have any ask or request? Of my audience. Uh any experiment you'd like them to do. exercise anything. It it could really be anything, but uh any Any parting thoughts before I ask you where I'm

People can find out more about you and so on. Right. Well If you are new to this stuff that I talk about. Then I would suggest and if any if anything that I am advocating sounds crazy, like for example

Not using a car to get your groceries. Or Not using a car to get to work. Then try and think of the idea of voluntary hardship. Like put this uh that phrase into your mind.

And then C where you can apply it through the day. And then you're like, hey, that looks hard. I think I'm gonna do it. Instead of that looks hard, I'm gonna try to avoid it. And the voluntary hardship is the the gateway drug to the rest of mustachianism and thus Being able to save seventy five percent of your

Silicon Valley income while everyone else is still broke. Um so yeah, find some things that are hard. Even if it's just skipping the elevator and and taking the stairs like up to the Fifteenth floor or whatever. Um Just if the other people are not doing it, then that's probably a sign that it's something that you should do.

And then just record your results. See how much better it makes you feel and then just keep pushing yourself a bit further. I would Echo that. And uh spin it.

Uh slightly differently. It's not th these are complimentary viewpoints. But even if people listening, those folks out there listening, if if you do not want to focus on saving. Even if that is not the objective per se. Voluntary hardship is a fantastic way to short circuit. Hidonic adaptation.

where you need more and more and more almost like an opiate to satisfy your need for X. And I would highly recommend everybody read uh a letter. You can find it. in the public domain, online. Uh you can also find it in Tools of Titans in a slightly edited fashion.

But on festivals and fasting, it's letter thirteen. From Seneca. Uh Seneca the younger to Lucilius. The moral letters to Lucillus. on festivals and fasting and it talks about setting aside

A few days per month, let's say. Two. experience voluntary hardship in different ways. And it is It is such a fascinating psychological trick in in many respects with all sorts of beneficial side effects like cutting down on

expenses that I think allows you to realize it is possible to recalibrate yourself to experience greater happiness and well being without simply adding more and more and more and more and more. Whether that's page views, Money. fancy shit you don't need or otherwise. Uh so I I definitely want to Second that notion. Yeah.

Uh Pete, where can people Find out. more about you and uh you've you've written a lot. Where should they where should they start also? So where can they find you on social Where can they say hi? Where can they read your stuff and where should they start if if if they're

They're just Opening the doors. to your writing. I'm a big fan of old fashioned website. So there's always mister MoneyMustache dot com and you'll see

A start here button on there and that takes you kind of to an introductory article. And then the design of the website. To the limited extent that it has a design is just to poke around and follow links to other links and or you can start at the beginning and read all The four hundred plus articles uh dating back to twenty twelve. Or twenty eleven.

And uh yeah, that's how most people do it. And then you can read it. If you get really into the rabbit hole, then there's a forum where like all these users discuss their intimate problems with each other and it's got like tens of thousands of members that Spend all day on there. And uh or you can just for keeping it really light, you can just go to Twitter and look up Mr. Money Mustache. And uh

And say, Hey, I enjoyed the podcast. Perfect. Oh Pete. Thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate you taking the time.

And to everybody listening, as always, you can find links to everything we discussed, books and otherwise at the show notes, which is for this episode and every other episode. Four hourworkweek.com forward slash Podcast all spelled out. For our workweek.com forward slash podcast. And As always.

Until next time, thank you for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite. of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com, that's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

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