1967: Mr. Money Mustache Is Back. Ten Years Later. Life After Early Retirement

**Farnoosh Torabi** (0:00)
So Money episode 1967, Mr. Money Mustache Returns, A Decade Later, The Truth About Early Retirement.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:08)
You're listening to So Money with award-winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day, get a 30-minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons? Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life? Welcome to So Money.

**Pete Adeney** (0:35)
It was accidental for me because I like what I like, and I didn't change what I like in order to be able to retire early. But for me, I happen to enjoy what you might call productive activities rather than consuming. So I would way rather spend my Saturday like renovating a kitchen or building a house or building a deck than being on a golf course or going to like the five Michelin star restaurants or showing off in any way. I just love hard work, solving problems, preferably outdoors and using my body. Like outdoor construction is my favorite thing in the world. Always has been, always will be. So that's an activity that doesn't cost anything. It happens to make a small amount of money even when I just do it for myself.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (1:18)
Welcome to So Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Torabi. I've been so excited to share this interview. It has been in the works for some time. And here we are. It is rare in personal finance that someone comes along and doesn't just offer advice, but completely rewires how we think about money and work and what it means to live a good life. My guest today did exactly that. Pete Adeney, better known as Mr. Money Mustache, helped ignite the fire movement long before it was trending on TikTok or debated on the news. His message, radical at the time, spend less, live intentionally, invest wisely, and you might just buy yourself the freedom to walk away from traditional work decades early. And here's the thing. Pete didn't just write about it. He lived it, retiring in his early thirties, raising a family on his own terms and building a cult-like following of readers who wanted to do the same. I've actually had our front row seat to his journey. We first met more than a decade ago, filming in his backyard in Colorado when his blog was just beginning to take off. And back then, his ideas felt almost rebellious. But today, they're part of the mainstream conversation. Although Pete has not stood still and neither has life. In this episode, we catch up on everything. What early retirement looks like after a decade, how his thinking on money, family, and even divorce has evolved, and why despite having enough, he's still rethinking what a rich life actually means. Take a listen.
Pete Adeney, welcome to So Money, aka Mr. Money Mustache. How lucky are we?

**Pete Adeney** (3:00)
We'll determine that based on how well the interview goes.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (3:03)
That'll depend on your answers, because I have pretty good questions.
It's on you. It's all on you. It's been a minute, Mr. Money Mustache. And audience, if you've been living under a rock, maybe you haven't heard of Mr. Money Mustache, the poster guru for the fire movement. And you and I go way back. I remember visiting you in your home in Colorado with the Yahoo Finance team, sitting in your backyard talking about your philosophies on money and spending and budgeting. Do you remember those days?

**Pete Adeney** (3:38)
Yeah, it was more than a decade ago. And I remember I had a little kindergarten boy back then who is now a 20-year-old.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (3:45)
Wow.

**Pete Adeney** (3:46)
And you guys were one of the first interviewers that stopped by when the Mr. Money Mustache blog was first starting to just get out there and get unexpected news headlines and interviews and everything. And it was an honor.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (3:58)
It was an honor for us. And I have to ask, your son was such a sweetheart and very talented. I remember he played, he made his own music. Is he still into music?

**Pete Adeney** (4:07)
Yeah, that is still his main thing. He just devotes like 12 hours a day to sitting in front of the computer in actually this very room that I'm using because he still loves the hospitality of his mom and dad. In our two respective houses, they both, he has a music studio in each and he just works all day.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (4:25)
Wow, that's so nice to know that you get the spark at that young age and it endures. Things have changed for you over the last decade. I want to catch up. I want to catch up on the blog. I want to catch up on life. I think maybe we could start with Mr. Money Mustache. When we met at this very pivotal time in your career, you had started this massively popular blog, Mr. Money Mustache, which for those who aren't familiar or want to refresh, the foundation of the blog and you can jump in and correct me, but you were first of all behind a guise, Mr. Money Mustache. No one really knew who you are, so had this aura of mystery. But what you were preaching was very aspirational. People wanted to learn how you were thinking about money and budgeting. The idea of being frugal was a flex, and this idea of living minimally. I remember, I don't think you really drove. You had simple meals, you spent very conservatively, but you were very happy as well. Take me back to those beginnings of Mr. Money Mustache and what it was really founded on, like what you really wanted people to understand about money, and maybe even yourself, because I think people blogged to digest and unpack their own thinking around certain issues.