38: Mr. Money Mustache: Rebel with a Financial Cause

**Farnoosh Torabi** (0:00)
So Money Episode 38, Mr. Money Mustache.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:05)
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.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (0:33)
Good day, good day to all of you. Welcome back to So Money. I'm your host, Farnoosh Torabi. And today's guest, I am confident, will be putting a smile on your face for the rest of the day. It's a big promise, but he is going to deliver.
My guest is a 30-something-year-old retiree. That's right, he doesn't really work anymore. He's pretty much thrown in the towel for a better life. He has a very popular, uber-popular personal finance blog. You've probably heard of it, with a cultish following. He also likes to go on two-month-long vacations. It's quite the life. And occasionally take on some cool carpentry projects here or there, only if he feels like it, only if he's inspired. How can I live this life? Well, he's here to share that with us.
And his name is Mr. Money Mustache. I actually met him a couple years ago. I was intrigued by his cultish following, by his advice and his story. And I flew out to Colorado to visit him at his home with his family. Lovely guy, lovely family. He's down to earth. He's good-natured. He's got a great sense of humor, a healthy amount of self-confidence.
And I say cultish following because, get this, while I was out filming him for Yahoo! in Colorado, there actually was a follower of his blog that was traveling through the West, going through Colorado, had reached out to Mustache and said, Look, I'd love to meet you. Shake your hand. Spend five minutes. See you in person. And he said, Sure, come on over.
And so these are the kind of people that follow him, that consider him a leader. And so I was like totally blown away by this. And honestly, how can you not love his alias? I mean, genius, right? Mr. Money Mustache. I live in Brooklyn and like mustaches are the thing here. And he was way ahead of the curve. And in real life, by the way, he goes by Pete. His wife calls him Pete.
A few takeaways from this interview. One, how was he able to retire at age 30? Can you please share that with us? And the rules behind his religion, which he identifies as mustachianism, the cultural forces that pressure us to spend beyond our needs and what drives happiness and why still so many of us have yet to figure out the whole happiness thing.
Here is the one and only Mr. Money Mustache.
Mr. Money Mustache, I'm really excited to have you on the show. Welcome to So Money.

**Pete** (3:06)
Thank you, Farnoosh. I'm excited to be one of your early guests.

**Farnoosh Torabi** (3:09)
Yes, yes, I have been wanting to get you on the show since the day I thought of this idea. I have known you for a little while now. I interviewed you, maybe it was a couple years ago, I flew out to Colorado, to your home to see who is this Money Mustache guy. You are just dynamic, dynamite online, you have a cult following. For those listeners on the show who don't know kind of what you're about and your take on things, share a little bit about the Mr. Money Mustache persona, the blog and the story.

**Pete** (3:44)
Well, it's actually a lot less exciting than that. I'm not Tim Ferriss or even a mini Tim Ferriss. I'm actually just a family man who used to work as an engineer and I was a little bit interested in optimizing stuff as I went through life. So I didn't buy quite as much as my other engineering colleagues and I invested that surplus money and got married during those years as well. As it turned out, we had enough to retire just about age 30, just before turning age 31 and that was 10 years ago now and it's still going pretty well. So I started a blog about four years back explaining what I thought was really self-evident and it turned out everyone else is saying, how did you have enough money? I'm still broke even though I earned more than you did.
So that's what has blown up a little bit into the Mr. Money Mustache.
I like to call it a cult just because it's an interesting word. I'm continually explaining this stuff even to this day.