The frugal stuff is rubbish. He can be frugal because the main outgoing for any family is rent. He's taking in two rents. The rest is just a cheap show.

The reason why we are all suffering is because of rentiers. It's not because we have slightly expensive data plans on our phone. Rentiers are using this to explain away the real problem. This guy is along for the ride for the web-clicks.

Go on his site and ask a question that gives the info that he has two rental properties and see if he lets it through moderation. Be polite as you can. He won't. MMM knows where it's at.

Except that it's not rubbish. Most people do spend large amounts of their paycheck on things they don't need. Just because he makes good money doesn't mean his concepts of saving a large percentage of what you earn aren't sound. They apply to all income levels, even more so for the lower ones.

Following his advice and sticking to a budget has gotten me from saving nothing every month to saving at least half of my take home on the same salary. Most people spend their money without thinking and then look for external sources to blame when they run out.

He's not playing it straight. He's deriving income as a rentier but saying we can all live like him. We can't because rentier income by definition is income with zero value added.

These guys hiding in the grey area are very damaging. Maybe you were a total fool with your money, but for most people they are on the breadline not because houses are expensive to construct, not because fuel is expensive but because they have to pay a significant portion of their labour to rentiers.

People like this put the blame on the individual. No - it rests with the rentier.

You are starting from the inexplicable premise that these properties he rents out were somehow ill-gotten, and not the direct consequence of him saving significant amounts of his income while he worked a totally normal job and investing them intelligently in property.

And of course landlords (since you're obviously using rentier as a pejorative) DO provide a valuable service: housing to people who either value the flexibility of renting or don't have the finances to buy housing where they live.

Your apparent disagreement with the entire system of rental property around the world is certainly principled, but singling out Mr. Money Mustache as some kind of hypocrite for earning money off his investments is absurd on its face. Are you also opposed to people buying dividend-issuing stocks?

> Most people do spend large amounts of their paycheck on things they don't need.

Maybe. Or maybe they're spending their paycheck on things that they do need because they have to work for a living, they can't live by renting out their assets like MMM can. Example from the other branch: MMM can say "buy a bike instead of a new car" because he had the privilege of putting his "job" (rental properties) as close as he liked to his house. Most people don't have that option.

Yes, we all have bills that need to be paid. But many people (especially those who aren't making great money) continually and stupidly buy stuff they don't need, not even realizing they can't afford it. You make 35k a year? Then you really shouldn't be buying a brand new iPhone with a large data plan, or a new car with monthly payments that eat away at your already limited income. Or maybe instead of going out for lunch everyday for work, you should pack something. People love to complain about not having money without taking any responsibility for their spending habits.

Also, if you've read more of his stuff you'd know he worked for a decade before he retired, saving up a significant portion of his income by staying frugal. He didn't just magically have two houses to rent out.

I'm not sure where the insane hatred towards renting out a property is coming from. A lot of the time the landlord doesn't actually make much money off of it. Even if the rent covers their mortgage payment (which it often doesn't), if something serious breaks or needs to be repaired, they're on the hook for that and may end up losing money on it that year.

You're right that I don't know MMMs specifics. But I think at this stage I'm justified in being skeptical of anyone who claims to be self-made - far too many people gloss over their inherited advantages. It's possible he's one of the exceptions.

No doubt much of his advice is correct, and all of it well-intended. But one has to be careful about advice from people in very different circumstances. They can get it disasterously wrong.

Landlords absolutely do make large, unearned amounts of money. Think about it for a minute: MMM is a finance expert, why would he put his money there if it didn't generate the best return. The idle rich (rentiers) in general are hated, but landlords in particular make additional money through sharp practices. The profession inherently involves (legal) tax avoidance, because a landlord makes a lot of their money through appreciation of their properties which is not taxed, and their rental income is usually taxed at a lower rate than ordinary earnings. Finally, while it's unfair to pin this on MMM, many landlords take advantage (wittingly or not) of their tenants' ignorance of their rights.

Finally, when a rich person says "it's easy to make money", it's a very small step from there to "the reason I have more money than you is that I'm smarter/more self-controlled/etc." Which is often a lie; often inherited privilege has a much bigger impact than personal qualities.

> their rental income is usually taxed at a lower rate than ordinary earnings.

Not in the US. Rental income is income. I think you may be referring to deductions, which exist, but are not nearly as advantageous as taxing rental income at a lower rate outright.

We're all embedded in an economic infrastructure, that's unavoidable. Its not black/white. Everything from the internet to traffic lights helps speed commerce, and all of us inherit benefits from society.

So circumstances are everything, that part rings true. We're born into a good bit of that, and trained into the rest. From accent, to attitudes about race and religion we spend our lives accumulating advantages and albatrosses.

I'm really not sure how this thread turned into a honeypot for "Kill the landlord" types. Especially given how things turned out the last time public policy decided to make it relatively easy to get mortgages even for people who were a bit shaky on being able to make regular payments and cover upkeep.

Again this is totally the wrong end of the stick. We have loose credit, that's what rentiers love. Credit is a claim on your labour and they can issue it with zero effort.

Sub-prime hurt the poor, since 2008 with QE we've seen the gap widen as more banker credit is created and flows into land prices.

It's "renters" BTW. [EDIT: Scratch the previous. I am, of course, wrong about the renters correction. Misread.] I'm not sure what he did to get your back up so much or when being a landlord became such a terrible evil. Also, "we" are not suffering. Yes he has a schtick and probably a pretty profitable one. His general advice is probably good for some but mostly isn't my thing because I like restaurants and traveling and that sort of thing. And I certainly don't care enough to go to his site and ask questions.

> when being a landlord became such a terrible evil.

It's not being evil per se, but being an economic leech of sorts. The only reason people need to rent is because of the requirements to own (down payments, emergency funds to cover your mortgage in tough times so you don't lose your equity). Its an arbitrage between someone on financially sound footing versus someone not so.

Disclaimer: My family has a landlord or two in it. I make my disdain for what they do known. If I had Facebook money, I'd create a B Corp to provide housing to people that gave them a non-transferable equity stake, co-op style. A small amount would be "off the top" for management of the organization and for upkeep of the properties. I would make the org fully transparent ("Buffer Style") and ruthlessly accountable.

> The only reason people need to rent is because of the requirements to own (down payments, emergency funds to cover your mortgage in tough times so you don't lose your equity)

So, in other words, the landlord is selling a service? In exchange for a monthly fee, you don't have to do any of the crap (down payments, mortgages, property taxes, maintenance) it takes to own a home?

Do you view farmers the same way? If it weren't for the fact that you need to eat to survive, you wouldn't have to buy their product! And what do they do anyway? Just plant some seeds in the ground and wait for them to grow! Those damn leeches!

The landlord is selling the service of "having a lot of money". It's usury by the back door.

Not even having a lot of money. Their service is having a credit score high enough to obtain low-rate mortgages, which they then arbitrage against "market rate rent".

People complain we shouldn't subsidize people buying homes who can't afford them. Then why the f____ are we subsidizing landlords instead?

Yeah you get it. Worrying how bad HN is at economics.

> Do you view farmers the same way?

Providing food for free is next on my list. I don't need labor. I just need clean energy and automation.

Why not ask the whole world to slog themselves to death and serve you for free?

If they refuse to condemn themselves to such, you can always call them evil.

I didn't quite get your comment. Did you have a problem that I'm trying to avoid using labor at all costs to achieve my goals? I don't think its wrong to give everyone what they need to survive without them needing to work if I don't need labor to do it. Perhaps you could enlighten me?

Uhh, and land.

Technically, not with hydroponics. I can build up.

>>It's not being evil per se, but being an economic leech of sorts.

I'm not sure from where this kind of thinking arises. Any investment is supposed to be a vehicle where your money increases without you having to directly work for it.

By that definition, all investments are wrong.

Ok you've really shown you have zero background in economics with that one. It's "rentiers", I can spell renters fine but it makes zero sense in the context above. Go read.

On that one point, I misread and you are, of course, correct. We will however have to agree to disagree about the evils off living of rental income.

Come on man up. Rentiers is peppered across - you never heard of it. If that's the case you haven't read enough to have an informed opinion.

Read some Henry George and get over my side of the fence :-)

I'm not sure you can argue MMM is trying to hide his rental situation given that he has published numerous blog posts discussing it in depth starting in 2011:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/23/get-rich-with-owni...

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/06/29/good-times-for-lan...

His whole message of frugality makes zero sense in the wider context of his behaviour. He's giving advice to everyone but if everyone behaved as he did the world would end because we can't have a world where every family derives a significant proportion of it's income from two other families for zero value added.

Of course you can't have a world where everyone becomes a landlord, but that doesn't mean this is a completely invalid form of income generation for some people (that's the benefit of being able to take a nuanced view of advice from others).

It seems like you are being reductive and misleading in characterising his position - First you argue he won't dare talk about rental income, then when examples emerge of him doing so you say that he is exhorting everyone to do it!

MMM talks at length about other sources of income generation too, but let's just ignore those:

* Stocks: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/18/how-to-make-money-...

* Peer-to-peer lending: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/26/the-lending-club-e...

* Carpentry: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/27/nicer-legs-and-som...

As for frugality this may not be a path to financial security for many but it sure is a refreshing departure from the "more, more, more" of modern life.

No the more, more, more is from the rentier. They set the rent not at the cost to deliver but at the cost the market will bear. Which is the money left over after food/fuel which puts everyone living hand to mouth with no money in their savings accounts.

God he does p2p lending also. Yuk.

However let's get this straight, there are plenty worse than him out there but I do hate to see his holier-than-tho "be frugal" when in fact he's a rentier who can be "frugal" because he's a rentier.

And if everyone became doctors, who would you call to fix the toilet?

I don't see why it's an issue that he owns two rental properties. Of course he has investments of one kind or another, that's his shtick. Save money, but income-yielding investments, retire. Whether you buy properties or live off the dividends of your XOM shares (or more sensibly, do both) is immaterial.

If your point is that it doesn't scale because its literally impossible for everyone to have two investment properties -- well, yeah. Frugality doesn't scale well. If everyone else stopped buying shit they don't need and working more than they needed to, production would go down and yields of all investments would suffer. So it's not actually a good idea to persuade everyone to quit buying shit they don't need, but it's advantageous for every individual to do so.