MMM's point is that, if you live well within your means and can save 50% of your income (however you choose to define that, but most people do after-tax), you can "retire" after a short number of years. "Retirement" is very much however you want to define it, but the core is that you don't have to work for money anymore, since your previous investments can take care of your lower-than-average expenses. Lots and lots of people are financially independent (don't have to work for money) and still work a normal job because they like it.
MMM promotes freedom, in the sense that you can change some small aspects of your lifestyle and in a short amount of time free yourself of the requirement to sell your time.
Which they define as no morgage. No car loans. No TV. "Fuck cleanliness". "Luxury is a weakness". Fix your own car. Don't use AC in Phoenix (?!).
> your previous investments can take care of your lower-than-average expenses
How can, to use MMM's numbers, 17 years of living on 50% income somehow support 50-70 years of living on that other 50%? His answer? Drop your spending by another 50-75%, and hope you can get 7% returns on your investment[0].
Even MMM isn't doing that. He's living currently on about 25k a year, which is a over 25% of his starting income, and certainly more than the 4% he advocates above (unless he was putting away $125,000 a year for those 5 years, in addition to paying off his $400,000 morgage). If he can't live by his own advice without selling his house, selling his family heirlooms[1], how does he expect others to do it?
> MMM promotes freedom
Freedom from what? Enjoying your working years? Personally, I spent many, many years living on less than $25,000 a year. It sucked, it's certainly not the life I want to "retire to".
[0]http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-need... [1]http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/08/22/how_to_sell_silver...
Something is wrong with your math there (unless I am misunderstanding you). $25k is not more than 4% of his total savings. (In other words, he has more than $625,000 in his investment portfolio).
He exceeds his own advice, because to him it is not deprivation.
But I don't think he actually saved the full $800k; he probably had quite a bit less than that, but with the power of exponential growth, looked at his statements one day and had $800k. It sounds like he also makes a bit of money doing odd jobs throughout the year, too, and since the $800k was more than enough for them to live off of in the first place, it's grown quite a bit since they retired. I doubt he's put any actual numbers out there, but he's hinted at the fact that he's got several million dollars in his investment portfolio now.
He talks about exponential growth a lot. The problem is, people don't really grasp the concept. For example, if you save $5 extra per week (instead of buying that Starbucks coffee on Friday, for instance), it doesn't really sound like a lot. But if you invest that $5 (MMM suggests index funds, which are pretty low-risk/low-growth -- so we'll use 6% annual growth here) you actually end up with about $3600 at the end of 10 years. Sure, this isn't a lot, and most of the growth occurs near the end of the time period, but it's $1000 more than it would be just sticking it in a savings account. MMM advocates a whole bunch of these little changes in your lifestyle, which add up over time.
While he does take it to the extreme, he states often that he's not telling people they need to do what he does.
The argument against work is that it's soul-sucking and meaningless. Well, you don't have to accept that. There's plenty of things you can do to make work fit into your life, rather than make your life fit into your work.
I have to do something with my time, so I might as well get paid handsomely for it.
There's actually an interesting component to that. Likely since you first started working you've never actually been in a situation where you don't need to sell your time in order to pay your expenses. I sure haven't.
But I've read a lot of stories from people who are currently in that situation, and the feeling of having to do something with your time and be constantly productive apparently fades over time. Not because they're bored, but because they're fulfilled by different things. Like, suddenly the household chores are fulfilling instead of burdensome.
Also, from what I've read very few people on the FIRE path waste time clipping coupons or pinching pennies. The whole point is to optimize lifetime overall happiness by strategically optimizing your spending and investments, monetarily and otherwise.
Actually that's not true. When I was 28 years old, I quit my job, "retired" and traveled. It got old quick. I missed the challenges of solving engineering problems, the comradarie I have with coworkers, and the shared sense of purpose you get with work. I also realized that the one thing I could spend hours and hours doing in one setting was writing code. So I rejoined the "ratrace" and decided that I wouldn't be so consumed about "retiring."
Instead I subscribe to the "don't wait till you retire" to do the things you want to do. I want to travel, so I travel.
I live my life the way I want to. That includes working for a paycheck.
