Apr 16, 2026
In the world of very early retirement, we tend to ignore one of the most important things for normal retirees: the Social Security program. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great thing for the 73 million people who currently draw benefits, and it provides an essential safety net for many who don’t have much income…
As a man of Science, I’m supposed to hide my enthusiasm about this somewhat controversial subject, and instead direct you only to the peer-reviewed studies. But man, I feel like I’ve stumbled upon the fountain of youth here. And the more I dig into the details and the hype and controversy surrounding the field of…
It all started last winter when I innocently posted a review for a heated vest I had bought on Amazon. I was happy with this fun new way to beat the winter and wanted to share it with others, so I gave it five stars. But soon after I clicked “Submit”, I got an email…
Quite accidentally, it looks like we timed our last talk about the stock market pretty darned well. Back in February 2025, the market put the perfect cap on a multi year climb before stepping onto the wild roller coaster we’re currently riding. Since then it has seen some of the steepest drops and recoveries in…
And by lately, I mean the past several years or more. The value of the S&P 500 index of stocks, where most of us hopefully have a good chunk of our retirement savings stashed into index funds, is up about fifty seven percent in just the past two years. And it has more than doubled…
A couple of years ago, Mr. Money Mustache lost some credibility among the faithful when he wrote this blog post about actually trying to spend a bit more money, while buying a Tesla as the first step in that program. “Look at me!”, I thought to myself at the time, “I’m such an enlightened middle-aged…
Well, it looks like we’re here in another US election year already. As Advanced Mustachians, we already know that the ongoing battle of Harris vs. Trump should not be consuming much of our time. Sure, we do our research and cast our votes but after that we move right on to focus on other things…
“I used to read Mr. Money Mustache”, some people say these days, “Until he got all rich and fancy so that he no longer understands the common person’s plight. Stash probably doesn’t even practice any of these money-saving things he preaches any more!” When I read things like this, I can’t help but laugh. Because…
Almost nineteen years into early retirement now, I’ve come to realize that the complete freedom of this lifestyle can be a double-edged sword. You’ve already heard me raving plenty about the upside: having the freedom to raise a son from the day he was born to beyond his eighteenth birthday with no compromises. And then…
The other day, an MMM reader stopped by and left the following comment on one of my older posts about the principles of FIRE: As with every critique of our ideas, I thought about this comment for a while. Tried to determine if there were any Principles of Mustachianism that were genuinely going obsolete, versus…
The thing that drew me to early retirement is freedom, and that’s still the best part of it. Back in 2005, the primary reason for this freedom-seeking was being able to devote my best hours to being a Dad – I had a feeling my career in tech would be too demanding to sustain once…
Whoa, have you seen what just happened to interest rates!? Suddenly, after at least fourteen years of our financial world being mostly the same, somebody flipped over the table and now things are quite different. Interest rates, which have been gliding along at close to zero since before the Dawn of Mustachianism in 2011, have…
