For many Americans, the idea of an early retirement is pure
fantasy — many surveys suggest that a good portion of us are convinced we’ll
never be able to retire at all. But what if retirement saving isn’t quite as
insurmountable an obstacle as you think?
The idea that retirement — even early retirement — is within
anyone’s grasp is a big part of the appeal of a popular personal-finance blog
called “Mr. Money Mustache,” written by a 39-year-old man named Pete, who lives
with his wife and 8-year-old son in Longmont, Colo. (The blog recently had
417,000 monthly unique visitors, and has had a total of 4 million unique
visitors since it launched in April 2011.)
Pete, who prefers not to divulge his last name to protect his
family’s privacy, retired when he was just 30. His wife retired with him, and
for the past nine years they’ve been stay-at-home parents. Their investment
income supports their lifestyle, but they also work when they want, on their
own terms.
One secret to their success? They live on very little for a
family of three: about $25,000 a year. They own a car, but mostly bike. Dining
out is an occasional luxury. And shopping for stuff? That’s best avoided. But
their philosophy goes beyond mere scrimping, says Mr. Money Mustache. It’s
about enjoying life with less.
MarketWatch asked Mr. Money Mustache about his philosophy on
spending, how he retired early, and his take on retirement planning. Our
Q&A is below. And if you’re wondering about the name?
“Mr. Money Mustache is meant to be a bit of a character — a
financial superhero,” Pete said. “He’s me, but a slightly bossier and more
opinionated version of me. I find that people gladly obey the commandments of
Mr. Money Mustache, even while they would scoff if plain old Pete, the former
software engineer, stepped up and started giving them advice.”
How old were you when you decided to try to retire early, and how
long did it take you to get to the point where you could retire?
It was a gradual process. I brought some frugal instincts along
with me from childhood, so I always tended to save a bit of money rather than
spending it all. My wife has been a pretty reasonable spender since the time we
met, as well. So I graduated from college in 1997, we eventually moved in
together, and, after several years of full-time work, some cash was starting to
build up in our investment accounts, and we wondered if there was something
useful we could do with it.
Sometime around 2002, we decided we wanted to be parents
eventually, and that it would be great if we could retire from our relatively
demanding careers in the tech industry before any babies came along. This
really increased our motivation to spend less and invest more, and we cranked
things up. At the end of 2005, our savings were sufficient to generate passive
income that we could theoretically live off forever, so we quit the regular
jobs and have been winging it ever since. And we now have an amazing
8-year-old-boy.
How did you decide how much money was enough to retire?
Based on a long-lasting hobby of reading books on stock
investing, I realized that you can generally count on your nest egg to deliver
a 4% return over most of a lifetime, with a good chance of it never running
out. In other words, you need about 25 times your annual spending to retire. So
we tracked our spending and our net worth, and when we hit the magic number we
declared ourselves “retired.”
Did you have a written retirement plan in place early on, or more
of a ballpark figure you were trying to save up?
We did most of the saving before we knew all that much about
early retirement. But once the picture became a bit clearer, we had a clearer
goal. For the last few years, the mantra was “$600,000 in investments, plus a
paid-off house.” This is enough to generate $24,000 of spending money, which
goes quite far if you have no rent or mortgage to pay.
How important is it for people to have a written retirement plan,
in your opinion?
It doesn’t matter to me if it’s written, verbal or mental. But I
do encourage people to open their minds to how real and possible an early
retirement can be. It isn’t a vague, fluffy concept like, “someday,” “never” or
“when I’m 65.” Retirement (or financial independence) simply means that you
have your living expenses covered by nonwork income. In the worst case, this
requires 25 to 30 times your annual spending, socked away into investments. If
you’re eligible for a pension or Social Security, it’s even easier.
Do you work with a financial planner or manage your finances on
your own?
I have always enjoyed managing my own finances. On the blog, I
maintain a good-natured battle with the financial-planning industry in general,
because they focus too much on retiring at a very old age with many millions in
savings — just so you can continue to spend $100,000 a year until you die. It
is much more efficient to get a handle on your materialism and spending so you
can live more happily on a fraction of that amount, which can shave 20 years or
more from the time you need to keep commuting in to that office.
How crucial is it, in your opinion, for people to have a monthly
or annual spending plan or budget?
This really depends on your personality type. I’ve never had a
spending plan or a budget at any point in my own life. Instead, it was a simple
set of values to apply just before I make any purchase or commit to any
expense: “Is this the best possible use for this chunk of money, if my goal is
creating lifelong happiness for myself?”
Since I valued freedom and financial strength, this
automatically ruled out quite a few purchases. For example, as a young man I
was a major car enthusiast. But I didn’t run out to borrow money to buy an
Acura NSX, because I valued having that money for other things more than I
valued a fancy car. Nowadays I can finally afford a car like that without even
borrowing, but I am happy to discover that the desire has disappeared.
Some people might think so much cost-cutting is akin to living
like Scrooge and not having any fun. How would you respond to that?
If you tell yourself that is how it will be, then you will
create your own truth and life will not be fun. But if you understand the
fundamentals of what it means to be a happy person, you realize that buying
more stuff for yourself has no relationship at all to how happy you are. These
fundamentals include things like close relationships with other people, health,
rewarding work, a chance to be creative and help others.
Work on those things and you’ll start living a much better life
immediately, and soon wonder where the odd compulsion to own a yacht with a
submarine came from in your old self.
Surveys suggest there are a lot of people out there who are
worried about retiring, who don’t have enough money saved, who feel like they
may never retire. Can you offer people in that situation any words of advice in
terms of how to turn their situation around?
The quickest way to turn things around is to realize that you
are in much more control than you realize. The time to reach retirement depends
on only one thing: your savings rate as a percentage of your take-home pay. And
this depends entirely on how much you spend. So the moment you can learn to
live a less expensive life, suddenly the clouds clear up and the financial
picture brightens considerably.
What would you say to someone in his 50s or 60s who maybe doesn’t
have any credit-card debt, but is paying a mortgage and has about $100,000
saved for retirement? Is there any scenario where that person would be able to
retire in, say, his early 60s?
That’s not a great starting point, but the turnaround can be
incredibly fast once you realize where your money has been leaking out and
change your life so that you can save much more of your income. Ten to 15 years
is plenty of time for most people to go from zero to financial independence, so
with a $100,000 head start and the kids all out of the house, this 55-year-old
might be in a good place. Adding in Social Security income, the time to
retirement would be even faster.
Do you think that the rule of thumb of needing about 85% of
pre-retirement income in retirement is accurate, useful, dangerous, innocuous?
This is a good guideline for people who currently spend almost
everything they earn, and plan to continue that habit in retirement. But for
the rest of us, it is ridiculous!
A much more useful idea is to separate the idea of income from
that of spending. Your income is determined by what you do for a living. But
your spending should be decided based on your needs — the things and
experiences that truly make you happy. As an example, my family’s needs and
wants have always ended up adding to about $25,000 a year. So that’s how much
we spent, whether we were making $25,000 or $200,000.
So as soon as our retirement income safely exceeded $25,000 a
year, we were financially independent and we decided to retire.
I hate to get morbid, but the idea of how long one is going to
live is sort of a crucial piece to a retirement plan. How are you handling this
impossible-to-answer-yet-essential question? Are annuities and/or
long-term-care insurance part of your long-term financial plan?
If you plan your retirement right, your expected longevity might
actually have nothing to do with your planning. This is because the amount of
money required to fund a 30-year retirement is almost identical to the amount
to fund a person forever — an odd behavior of the equation for amortization of
a large sum of money.
I’m not into annuities or any type of insurance myself, although
those products do have value for some. Both of those ideas are based on
statistics and probabilities, and when you do the math you can actually be
safer handling things yourself. With a big enough collection of
income-producing assets (stocks, rental property, etc.), your savings will
easily outlive you, and probably be much larger by the time you die. This big
chunk of savings also allows you to pay for unexpected expenses without rocking
the boat too much — you have many years to adjust if you do hit a bump that
forces you to deplete part of it for something like a medical expense.
You have said in the past that it’s important to “make your
dollars work for you.” Does that mean the idea of an emergency savings account
at the bank is overrated? Should people be investing more of their savings in
the financial markets, via a taxable account, rather than using bank accounts?
Yeah, I’ve always questioned the idea of an emergency fund. It’s
a great tool for the financial beginner who lives from paycheck to paycheck,
and for whom a broken water heater would make the difference between making
ends meet and borrowing via a credit card. But once you get off the ground,
your credit card is a monthly buffer and your investment accounts are the
emergency fund.
So I have no savings account at all, and keep just a few
thousand dollars in the checking account. If a huge unexpected expense ever
came up that was greater than my income, I would put it on the credit card
along with all other monthly spending. Then just sell some shares of an index
fund and transfer that back to the bank before the credit-card automatic
payment happened at the end of the month. And I’ve still never had to run a
credit-card balance in my life.
The great part is that if your spending is much lower than your
income, these emergencies become very rare, because there is always a surplus,
which you have to sweep away into investments each month. So if the water
heater dies, you buy a new one and just invest a little bit less that month.
To what degree would you say rental income was key to your ability
to retire early?
A small degree — I haven’t had the most brilliant landlord
career so far, so my results have been only average. But rental properties
chosen wisely can return much more than stocks, which could really speed up a
savvy person’s retirement program. In my own case, I probably saved only about
one year of work by using rental houses along with stocks.
Would you say it’s better to use extra savings to pay down one’s
mortgage, or to invest in the financial markets?
For people in a high tax bracket, 401(k) plans in low-fee index
funds win this battle pretty easily, especially if there is an employer match.
For investment in taxable nonretirement accounts, it all depends on the
interest rate (and if you’re pretty well-versed in investing, the stock
market’s valuation or P/E 10 ratio).
Right now, with stocks expensive and interest rates very low, it’s
probably a somewhat uninspiring tie, in my opinion, and you could do either.
But if mortgage interest rates were 6% or more, I’d start getting more excited
about paying off a house.
For people with other debts, like student loans, car loans or
credit-card debt, at higher rates, I’d prioritize debt payoff even more.
It sounds as though a lot of your success has to do with cutting
costs. But I know that some of my readers are really tired of hearing the “cut
out the lattes” idea. What would you say to those readers?
For most people, cutting costs is by far the most powerful way
to increase wealth. This is because it is easy to burn off almost any amount of
money — just ask the 78% of NFL players that have financial problems shortly
after turning off the cash fire hose of a pro sports career. It is also
possible to cut almost any budget in half, leaving the happy latte cutter
saving 50% or more of her income.
But the key to making this work is not cutting out treats — it’s
eliminating your desire for those treats in the first place. Driving my 2005
Scion hatchback would be a chore if I had a desire for a 2014 BMW. But since
this little Scion is more than enough car for all of my wants (and I usually
ride a bike anyway), I am actually winning and living a happier life even while
saving $20,000 a year in depreciation and other costs. The handy part of all
this is that anyone can eliminate the desire for any of the expensive luxuries
currently dominating most of our spending.
Do you have any sorts of items you love to buy and won’t give up?
That’s a tricky question, because our lifestyle does include
quite a few luxuries that are fun to have around. I enjoy nice coffee at
breakfast and wine many nights at dinner, and the food we eat is very high-end
these days. And we live in a pretty fancy house full of nice stuff and take a
lot of trips. While I enjoy all of these things, I also make fun of myself for
living such a decadent lifestyle, as a reminder that none of these things are
essential components of happiness. I would give them up in a heartbeat if we
couldn’t afford them — for example if we were in debt or if they compromised
our ability to live a free life. But since life is an adventure and there is no
need to seek perfection, we dabble in all of the normal treats of American
life.
You write a lot about doing things oneself — including being your
own handyman. What would you say to people who feel they aren’t good at fixing
things and aren’t confident enough to work on their own homes? Is home
maintenance going to be a budget killer for them?
You get better at what you do. I think that every homeowner,
with possible exceptions for very busy CEOs and rock stars, should be able to
take care of a house and can easily learn how to do it. Outsourcing these basic
chores is expensive and fussy — it often takes more time to find and supervise
a contractor than it takes to do the job yourself.
The key is starting with the assumption that everything is easy,
because it is. Then you just grab a book from the library and watch a few
YouTube videos on the topic, and dive in. You can also attend the free
workshops at Home Depot and ask for help from
the handy people within your network of friends. People generally love to help
others, and I spend a lot of my own free time giving free home-renovation
advice and help to my own friends when they ask for it.
When it comes to spending, what about travel to foreign lands? A
no-no because of the steep expense?
Travel can be as expensive or as inexpensive as you choose to
make it. We do quite a bit of it these days, spending every summer in Canada
and a good part of last winter in Hawaii, with other trips to quite a few other
countries in recent years as well. But if you live like a local once you get
there, going for the slow and authentic experience rather than flashy hotels
and bungee jumping every day, it costs a lot less. One of my favorite trips was
a winter driving trip from Colorado down to the Gulf Coast, where we brought
along a tent and a kayak and hung out on as many beaches and waterways as we
could find in the tropical belt of Texas for a month.
Why did you start your blog?
It was a 50/50 mix of inspiration and exasperation. My wife and
I retired from real work at the end of 2005, but all of our friends and peers
kept working around us. As their careers blossomed and earnings grew, I kept
hearing these complaints about money being tight and retirement being an
impossibility. But looking at their lifestyles, I could see exactly where the
money was leaking out unproductively — even while they seemed to be missing it.
So I decided to start the blog and share the ideas with the world, rather than
annoying friends with unrequested financial advice.
对
于很多美国人来说，提前退休的想法纯粹是痴心梦想——不少调查显示，我们当中很大一部分人深信我们永远也退不了休。但假如退休储蓄金并不像你想象的那样是一个难以逾越的障碍的话，又会是什么样的情形呢？
人人都可以实现退休，甚至提前退休，这个想法是倍受追捧的个人理财博客“钱胡子先生”(Mr. Money Mustache)的主要魅力所在。博客作者是一名名叫皮特(Pete)的39岁男子，他和他妻子及八岁的儿子一起住在科罗拉多州的朗蒙特(Longmont, Colo.)。（该博客最近的月独立访客数量达到了41.7万人，而自2011年4月发表博客以来独立访客总数已达到400万。）
Mr. Money Mustac
想提前退休吗？“钱胡子先生”说，是时候重新制定支出计划了。
为保护家庭隐私而不想透露姓氏的皮特刚满30岁就退休了。他的妻子是与他一道退休的。在过去的九年时间里，他们一直在家做全职父母。他们的投资收益提供了生活保障，但是他们想工作的时候也去上班，一切全由他们自己做主。
他们成功做到这一点有何秘诀吗？他们的生活费用对于一个三口之家来说十分拮据：一年大约25,000美元（约合人民币152,696元）。他们有一辆汽车，但多数时候骑自行车。外出就餐是偶尔的奢侈之举。购物呢？这也最好避免。但钱胡子先生说，他们的理念不仅仅是精打细算，这是一种用更少的花销享受生活的哲学。
《市场观察》(MarketWatch)专栏向钱胡子先生询问了他的消费理念、他是如何提前退休的以及他在退休规划上的见解。下面是我们之间的问与答。你是否对钱胡子这个名字感到好奇呢？
“钱胡子先生这个名字意在树立一个有点与众不同的人物形象——一名理财上的超级英雄，”皮特说，“钱胡子先生就是我，但却是一个更爱发号施令、更固执己见的我。我发现人们很乐意遵从钱胡子先生的指令，而如果是其貌不扬的老皮特（一名前软件工程师）走上前来开始给他们提供建议时，他们肯定会奚落他。”
你决定提前退休的时候年龄有多大？你花了多长时间来实现你可以退休的条件？
那是一个渐进的过程。我从小就有勤俭节约的本能，因此我总是倾向于存点钱而不是把钱花光。我妻子从我们相遇时开始也一直是一个非常理性的消费者。因此在我1997年大学毕业后，我们最终搬到了一起。做了几年的全职工作之后，我们的投资账户里开始积累了一些资金，我们就想，我们是否可以用这些钱来做点有用的事情。
2002年左右，我们最终决定想要为人父母，而如果我们能在孩子降生之前就从我们那要求相对较高的技术行业退休的话，那简直太好了。这种想法确实增加了我们减少支出、增加投资的动机，于是我们着手行动起来。到2005年底的时候，我们攒下来的钱产生的被动收益从理论上讲足以永远维持我们的生计了，因此我们辞去了正式的工作，自那以后就随性而为。现在我们的儿子不可思议地都已八岁了。
你们是如何确定要多少钱才足以退休的？
由于有阅读股票投资方面书籍的长期爱好，我意识到一般说来，你可以指望你的储蓄金在人生的大部分时间里产生4%的回报，这样它很可能是永远花不完的。换句话说，若要退休，你需要的资金大约是你年度开支的25倍。因此，我们对我们的花销和我们的资产 值进行了跟踪记录，当我们达到了那个神奇的数字时，我们就宣布自己“退休了”。
你们最早是制定了书面的退休计划呢还是只粗略估计了一下要努力积攒的资金数量？
大部分的钱是在我们弄明白提前退休那些事情之前攒下来的，但是一旦情况变得稍微明朗了一点，我们就有了更明确的目标。在过去的几年里，退休的愿景是“拥有60万美元（约合人民币363万元）的投资，加上一套已偿清贷款的房子”。这就足以产生24,000美元（约合人民币145,250元）的花销费用了，如果你没有房租或按揭贷款需要支付的话，这笔钱可以支撑很长时间。
在你看来，人们制定书面退休计划的重要性有多大？
退休计划是书面的、口头的还是心中的在我看来并不重要，但我的确要鼓励大家开放思想，看到提前退休是一件现实而且可能的事情。它不是一个类似“某一天”、“永不可能”或“等我65岁的时候”这样的模糊、空洞的概念。退休（或者说经济独立）的意思不外乎是说你的生活费用由非工作收入负担。在最差的情况下，要求的资金是你年度开销的25到30倍，这笔资金要用于投资。如果你有资格获得养老金或社会保障金，事情就更容易。
你是和理财规划师一块儿合作还是自己独立管理财务？
我一直都喜欢自己独立管理财务。在博客上，我和整个理财行业在进行着一场善意的角逐，因为他们过度注重在很老的年纪拥有了数以百万计的积蓄之后退休——正因为如此，你可以到去世为止每年花费10万美元（约合人民币60.5万元）。效率高得多的做法是你自己能够掌控你的物欲追求及花销，这样你能够以那笔资金的很少一部分数量更快乐地生活，那可以减少你当通勤一族到单位上班的时间20年，或者更长时间。
在你看来，制定月度或年度开支计划或预算对大家有多重要？
这其实取决于你的个性类型。我在自己的人生中任何时候都没有制定过开支计划或预算。相反，我在进行任何采购或花钱之前只是运用了一套简单的价值观念：“如果我的目的是为自己创造终身的幸福，这笔钱在此是物尽其用了吗？”
由于我看重自由和经济实力，这就自动排除了相当多的购物行为。比如，作为一名年轻人，我曾是一个资深车迷。但我没有跑去借钱买讴歌(Acura) NSX，因为相对于一辆豪车，我觉得把那笔钱留作别的用途更有价值。如今，我终于可以不用借钱就能买得起那辆车了，但我很高兴地发现我买车的欲望已经荡然无存。
有些人也许会认为，这样大量地削减开支无异于像斯克鲁奇(Scrooge, 狄更斯小说《圣诞颂歌》里的守财奴——译注)一样生活，没有任何乐趣。对此你做何感想？
如果你告诉自己那就是生活将来的样子，那么你就会真的变成那样，生活也不会有乐趣。但如果你弄明白了做一个快乐的人意味着哪些基本的元素时，你就会意识到为自己买更多的东西与你有多么快乐根本没有一点关系。这些基本的元素包括与他人的亲密关系、健康、有回报的工作、有发挥创造力及帮助他人的机会等。
在这些东西上下功夫，你就会立即开始过质量好得多的生活。很快，你会感到纳闷，那种想要拥有一艘潜水游艇的奇怪冲动来自你旧有自我中的什么地方。
调查显示，有很多人担心退休的事情，他们没有攒下足够的钱，感觉自己可能永远也退不了休。对那种处境中的人，你能就如何扭转他们的境况提供一点建议吗？
扭转局面的最快办法是要意识到你能掌控的东西比你想象的多很多。实现退休的时间只取决于一样东西：储蓄率在你的实得工资中所占的百分比，而这又完全取决于你的开支。因此，就在你学会过一种不那么奢华的生活的时候，突然之间云开雾散，你的理财前景就变得相当光明了。
对于一名或许没有任何信用卡债务、但还在偿还按揭贷款并拥有10万美元左右退休储蓄金的五六十岁的人，你会对他说点什么？有没有什么方案可以让这个人在他60岁出头的时候能够退休？
那个状况不是一个很好的起点，可是一旦你意识到自己的钱是在哪些地方漏 掉了，并改变你的生活，好把更多的收入积攒下来，转变会以不可思议的速度发生。对多数人来说，从零积蓄到实现经济独立，10到15年时间很充裕。因此，由于起步就有10万美元的优势，加上所有子女都离家单过，这位已年届55岁的人也许具备很好的退休条件。把社会保障金收入计算在内的话，退休的时间甚至会来得更快。
你认为退休生活需要的资金大约是退休前收入的85%这条经验法则是准确的、有用的、危险的还是无害的？
这条法则对那些现在要花光差不多所有收入并打算在退休后延续这种习惯的人来说是一条很好的指导原则，但对于我们其他人来说，这样的法则荒唐可笑。
一种实用得多的观念是把收入这个概念和支出分开。你的收入是由你的谋生手段决定的，但你的支出应该是根据你的需求——真正让你感到快乐的事物和经历——来决定的。例如，我家一年的需求最终加起来总是在25,000美元左右。因此，那就是我们开支的数目，不管我们挣了25,000美元还是20万美元。
所以，一旦我们一年的退休收入稳定地超过25,000美元，我们在经济上就独立了，于是我们决定退休。
我不想有任何病态的想法，但一个人可以活多长时间在某种程度上对于退休计划来说是至关重要的一点。你是如何处理这个无法回答却又十分重要的问题的？养老年金及/或长期护理保险是你们的长期理财计划当中的一部分吗？
如果你的退休计划制定得当，你的预期寿命可能实际上与你的计划没有任何关系。这是因为，30年退休生活所需的资金数量几乎相当于整个余生所需的数量——对大笔钱进行分期偿付产生的奇怪的行为等式。
我自己没有加入养老年金计划及任何形式的保险，虽然那些产品对有些人的确有价值。那些想法都是以统计数字和概率为依据的，而当你好好算一算就知道，你自己处理事情实际上更安全一些。手里有足够大的一堆可以创收的资产（证券、用于出租的物业等等），你的积蓄可用的时间会轻而易举地超过你的寿命，说不定到你去世的时候还大大增加了。这一大笔积蓄还可以让你在不怎么影响现状的情况下支付预料之外的开支——如果你真的遇到了医疗费用这样的麻烦，迫使你消耗了部分积蓄，你可以有很多年时间进行调整。
你过去曾经说过，“让你的钱为你工作”这一点很重要。这是不是说在银行开立应急储蓄账户的想法被人用得过度了？人们是不是应该通过应税账户而不是使用银行账户把更多的积蓄投资到金融市场？
是的，我一直对建立应急基金的想法表示质疑。应急基金对那些初涉金融市场的月光族、那些热水器坏了就会入不敷出、必须靠信用卡借钱度日的人来说是一个非常不错的工具。但是一旦你的经济状况有了起色，你的信用卡就成了一个月度的缓冲工具，你的投资账户就是你的应急基金。
因此，我根本没有储蓄账户，支票账户上只有几千美元的活期存款。如果产生的一大笔意外开支超过了我的收入，我会把它与所有其它每月开支一起用信用卡支付，然后卖掉一支指数基金的部分份额，赶在月末信用卡自动还款之前将钱转回给银行。我一生中还从来没有发生过必须超信用额度花钱的情况。
这样好处在于，如果你的支出远远低于你的收入，这些应急花费就会变得少之又少，因为钱总是有盈余，每个月你都必须清理这些盈余，将其拿去投资。所以，如果热水器坏了，你就去买一台新的，当月只不过少做点投资而已。
你觉得从何种程度上说，住房出租收入是你能够提前退休的关键？
程度很小——到目前为止，我还没有拥有最辉煌的房东生涯，因此我的租房收入只达到了中等水平。不过优选出来的出租物业带来的回报可能远高于股票，这就可以真正让头脑精明的人加速实现退休计划。就我自己的个案而言，我利用出租住房和炒股省出来的工作时间大约只有一年。
你是否认为利用额外的储蓄来偿还按揭贷款或在金融市场进行投资是更好的做法？
对于纳税等级高的人来说，利用401(k)退休福利计划投资费用低的指数基金就可以轻松打赢此仗，尤其是在雇主还要缴纳相应份额的情况下。对于在应纳税的非退休计划账户中进行投资的问题，那完全取决于利率（以及你是否对投资、股市的估值或周期调整市盈率格外精通）。
现在，在股价高企、利率极低的情况下，我认为这两种投资方式可能有点难分高下，令人丧气，你选择任何一种方式投资都行。但如果按揭贷款利率达到了6%或更高的水平，我还清住房贷款的情绪就会变得越来越高。
对于身背学生贷款、汽车贷款或信用卡债务等其它债务的人，在利率升高时， 我更会优先考虑偿清债务。
听起来你的成功好像很多都与削减开支有关系，但我知道我的读者中有些人其实很厌烦听到这种“砍掉拿铁咖啡”的想法。对那部分读者你想说些什么？
对于大多数人来说，削减开支绝对是增加财富的最强方式。这是因为钱再多，要将其挥霍殆尽也是轻而易举的事情——只需去问问78%的美国全国橄榄球联盟(NFL)运动员，他们在关闭了职业运动生涯这个挥金如土的水龙头之后不久就遇到经济问题。几乎所有的预算也都可以做到削减一半，让砍掉了拿铁的那位幸福之人省出50%、甚至更多的收入。
但是做到这一点的关键不是减去奢华的享乐——首先要消除你贪图奢华享乐的欲望。如果我渴求一辆2014款的宝马汽车(BMW)，开着我那辆2005款的两厢赛恩(Scion)就会是一件令人心烦的事。但由于这辆小赛恩大大满足了我之所需（我反正通常是骑自行车的），我实际上达到了目的，过上了更快乐的生活，与此同时，我甚至在货币贬值和有其它开销的情况下一年还攒了两万美元的积蓄。这一切之中很容易办到的就是任何人都可以摒弃对任何昂贵奢侈品的追求，它们目前占了我们大部分的支出。
有什么东西是你喜欢购买而不会放弃的？
这是一个很难回答的问题，因为我们的生活中的确包含了相当数量的奢侈品，有了它们生活才有乐趣。我早餐时喜欢喝美味的咖啡，晚餐时经常喜欢喝葡萄酒，我们最近吃的都是非常高端的食品。我们住的漂亮房子里到处都是好东西，我们还经常去旅行。就在我享受这些东西时，我还嘲笑自己过着如此奢靡的生活，以此提醒自己这些东西没有一样是幸福的必然要素。如果我经济上无力承受，我会立马放弃它们——比如，假如我们背上了债务，或者假如它们危及到了我们过自由生活的能力。但既然生活是一种冒险，而且没有必要追求完美，我们索性涉猎一下美国生活中所有那些正常的奢侈享乐。
你写了很多关于自力更生的东西——包括自己充当勤杂工。对于那些觉得自己不擅长修修补补又没有足够信心整修自家房屋的人，你有何建议？家居维修对他们来讲会是预算杀手吗？
事情都是越做越好的。以我之见，可能除了忙碌至极的首席执行长(CEO)们和摇滚歌星之外，每一位房主应该能够照料好房子，并且可以轻松学会如何去做。把这些基本的家务包给他人去做又贵又不能令人满意——找到并监督一位承包人所花的时间经常比自己干活花的时间还多。
关键是一开始就要假想事事都很容易，因为实际就是如此。然后你只需从图书馆找来一本书，在YouTube上看几段相关话题的视频，接着开始动手。你也可以参加家得宝(Home Depot)公司的免费讨论，在你的朋友关系网中向那些心灵手巧的人求助。人通常都是喜欢帮助别人的。我的朋友向我求助时，我花费了很多自己的空闲时间给他们提供免费的家装建议和帮助。
说到花费，到外国旅行怎么样？就因为花费太高而直接否定吗？
旅行的花费根据你的选择可贵可便宜。最近我们做了不少旅行，每年都在加拿大度夏，去年冬天很长时间都是在夏威夷(Hawaii)过的，近几年还到过其它好几个国家。但如果你到那儿之后像当地人一样生活，追求慢节奏的真实体验而不是每天住豪华酒店、玩蹦极运动，花费会少很多。我最喜欢的旅行之一是在一个冬天从科罗拉多开车南下到墨西哥湾沿岸(the Gulf Coast)，我们带了一顶帐篷和一只皮艇到那儿，在德克萨斯的热带地区我们发现的海滩和水域悠游了整整一个月。
你为何要开博客？
开博客一半原因是出于灵感，一半原因是出于气恼。我和我妻子2005年底从现实的工作中退休，但是我们周围所有的朋友和同龄人都在工作。随着他们的事业成功和收入增长，我不断听到这些关于资金紧张、退休无望的抱怨。可是瞧瞧他们的生活的方式，我能够看到钱到底都是在什么地方漏 掉的——甚至在他们似乎都没注意到的时候。因此我决定开这个博客，把我的想法拿来与世界分享，不是用非请自来的理财建议来搅扰朋友。
Andrea Coombes
