South African Mr Money Mustache?? early retirement guru

ronz91

ronz91

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Hey I am a big fan of Mr Money Mustache and he is immensely popular with a large following. His lifestyle fits my way of thinking and preferences. Most of his principles are applicable to me but his strategies need modification due to him being American. Anyone know of another early retirement guru who is South African and based here?
 
Nope but I'm a regular reader of MMM. The other one I used to frequent as well was Early Retirement Extreme but I think he's since stopped blogging.
 
Gnarls said:
Nope but I'm a regular reader of MMM. The other one I used to frequent as well was Early Retirement Extreme but I think he's since stopped blogging.
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Damn theres got to be someone, unless its impossible to retire early here lol. Anyone else I should check out locally then?
 
We should. I'm desperately trying to pay off all my debt so the wife and I can live off about 70% of our salaries. My goal is to be able to live off one salary.
 
Just be careful of frugal evangelists like MMM. Some people take it too far. Rather have a specific goal in mind and aim for that, like, pay off your house in 5 years. Then pick the next one.

It is too easy to end up living a poor life for years being a penny saving scrooge just to achieve a very difficult goal of retiring early.

I know that is not what MMM advocates, rather a balanced lifestyle. But saving becomes addictive. I speak from experience because the last 3 years my wife and I went into ultra savings mode. Yes, we achieved our goals, but I think we lived a very empty, frugal lifestyle and missed out on a lot of opportunities just to save a buck. We have since rethought our goals and now live a more balanced life, but still save a decent amount.
 
Gaz{M} said:
Just be careful of frugal evangelists like MMM. Some people take it too far. Rather have a specific goal in mind and aim for that, like, pay off your house in 5 years. Then pick the next one.

It is too easy to end up living a poor life for years being a penny saving scrooge just to achieve a very difficult goal of retiring early.

I know that is not what MMM advocates, rather a balanced lifestyle. But saving becomes addictive. I speak from experience because the last 3 years my wife and I went into ultra savings mode. Yes, we achieved our goals, but I think we lived a very empty, frugal lifestyle and missed out on a lot of opportunities just to save a buck. We have since rethought our goals and now live a more balanced life, but still save a decent amount.
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what are your goals? if you dont mind me asking
 
Gaz{M} said:
Just be careful of frugal evangelists like MMM. Some people take it too far. Rather have a specific goal in mind and aim for that, like, pay off your house in 5 years. Then pick the next one.

It is too easy to end up living a poor life for years being a penny saving scrooge just to achieve a very difficult goal of retiring early.

I know that is not what MMM advocates, rather a balanced lifestyle. But saving becomes addictive. I speak from experience because the last 3 years my wife and I went into ultra savings mode. Yes, we achieved our goals, but I think we lived a very empty, frugal lifestyle and missed out on a lot of opportunities just to save a buck. We have since rethought our goals and now live a more balanced life, but still save a decent amount.
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Yeah, although they have sound advice when that early retirement extreme argued passionately for cold showers as a way to save money i was like :wtf:
 
I fully intend to retire at 45-50.

By retire I don't exactly mean sit on my arse and do nothing all day, but rather just be financially independent enough that I wouldn't need to work and would only do so to keep myself busy.

Part of that ideal though is not to sit on a horde of cash that pays out R60k a month, but to have a comfortable enough living arrangement without the need to pay for expensive assets so that R20k will go more than far enough.

Started paying house off in 2010 and it will be done in 2017-2018.

Will be buying a bigger one once this one is paid for, but with the intention of not increasing my monthly exposure at all and then paying the bigger one off in <5 years. It's more a requirement of needing a bit more space with a baby in the house and a double garage which was my biggest mistake when buying this place.
 
SauRoNZA said:
I fully intend to retire at 45-50.
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done

By retire I don't exactly mean sit on my arse and do nothing all day, but rather just be financially independent enough that I wouldn't need to work and would only do so to keep myself busy.
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Ditto. Still on holiday, though! :D

Part of that ideal though is not to sit on a horde of cash that pays out R60k a month, but to have a comfortable enough living arrangement without the need to pay for expensive assets so that R20k will go more than far enough.
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Same principle I followed. Bit more per month though (is your amount gross or nett?)

Started paying house off in 2010 and it will be done in 2017-2018.
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Very important. When you retire you must have ZERO debt.
 
Gaz{M} said:
Just be careful of frugal evangelists like MMM. Some people take it too far. Rather have a specific goal in mind and aim for that, like, pay off your house in 5 years. Then pick the next one.

It is too easy to end up living a poor life for years being a penny saving scrooge just to achieve a very difficult goal of retiring early.

I know that is not what MMM advocates, rather a balanced lifestyle. But saving becomes addictive. I speak from experience because the last 3 years my wife and I went into ultra savings mode. Yes, we achieved our goals, but I think we lived a very empty, frugal lifestyle and missed out on a lot of opportunities just to save a buck. We have since rethought our goals and now live a more balanced life, but still save a decent amount.
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Very very true, which is exactly why I didn't push to make it <5 years.

Same way I still have a brand new motorcycle in the garage (well it's not brand new any more but you know what I mean) and a nice enough car but I bought it second hand so that my vehicle exposure is <15% of our entire household expenses for both instead of the absolutely crazy 33% most people are in for because the banks allow it.

Same goes for buying a house. You don't buy the one that you can only barely afford because the bank allows it, you buy one for 20-30% less and then you pay it off at the rate that the bank allowed it.
 
MickeyD said:
Same principle I followed. Bit more per month though (is your amount gross or nett?)
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I didn't specifically go work it out now it was just a hard and fast calculation.

I mean to achieve that I would only need R2.5 million invested generating 10% per annum and then whatever "work" I do could generate another 10k for the a total gross of 30k a month.

Very important. When you retire you must have ZERO debt.
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Yeah that's my plan. I want to have house/s paid for by 45-50 and major expenses like my daughter's education covered. Then our family can happily live on 20k a month (in today's money).


More would obviously be nicer, but I think scraping R2.5 mil together in the next 15 years (33 now) isn't really all that difficult. Especially once my house is paid for and I put all that into investment as well.
 
SauRoNZA said:
I didn't specifically go work it out now it was just a hard and fast calculation.

I mean to achieve that I would only need R2.5 million invested generating 10% per annum and then whatever "work" I do could generate another 10k for the a total gross of 30k a month.

Yeah that's my plan. I want to have house/s paid for by 45-50 and major expenses like my daughter's education covered. Then our family can happily live on 20k a month (in today's money).

More would obviously be nicer, but I think scraping R2.5 mil together in the next 15 years (33 now) isn't really all that difficult. Especially once my house is paid for and I put all that into investment as well.
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It's amazing the difference it makes when you have zero debt. My main expense is now insurance - short and longer term.
 
MickeyD said:
done


Ditto. Still on holiday, though! :D


Same principle I followed. Bit more per month though (is your amount gross or nett?)


Very important. When you retire you must have ZERO debt.
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Amazing. Would you mind telling your story? I would love to hear it!
 
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