JUDY WOODRUFF: Now a look at those who are
saving early and living frugally, in order to retire young. Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman,
has the story. It's part of our weekly series Making Sense,
which airs every Thursday. PAUL SOLMAN: Pete Adeney almost always leaves
his Longmont, Colorado, home on two wheels, instead of four. It's a lot cheaper. For seven years, Pete, AKA Mr. Money Mustache,
has been preaching parsimony on his popular blog. And he sure practices what he preaches. How much do you spend a year? PETE ADENEY, Mr. Money Mustache: We don't
budget, but it seems to always end up around $25,000 to $27,000 per year for the family
of three. PAUL SOLMAN: Plus health insurance in the
low 30s. Adeney and his followers, known as Mustachians,
are key players in the F.I.R.E., or FIRE, movement: Financial Independence Retire Early. And we do mean early. Adeney and his wife left their engineering
jobs in 2005. PETE ADENEY: So, we were 30 at the time. PAUL SOLMAN: Mark and Sina Ebersole no longer
have to work either. And how old are you? MARK EBERSOLE, Early Retiree: Thirty-seven. SINA EBERSOLE, Early Retiree: Thirty-five. PAUL SOLMAN: Michael and Ellen Robinson, both
38, stopped working full-time two years ago. MICHAEL ROBINSON, UncommonDream.com: I had
this concept that saving as much as we could as early as we could would allow compound
interest more time to do the work. PAUL SOLMAN: How do they all do it? Adeney saved 50 to 75 percent of his income
over nine years as an engineer. PETE ADENEY: We just did a little bit less
than most people of our income level, and that was enough to save it. The U.S. tradition is to spend pretty much
everything we earn. We only have like a 3 percent savings rate. You just don't do that, and you always have
a choice. PAUL SOLMAN: How much did you wind up saving? PETE ADENEY: Today, it would be about $1.1
million or a little bit less. That was what we decided was enough to live
on forever. PAUL SOLMAN: On his blog, Adeney espouses
the so-called 4 percent rule: If you salt away and invest in stocks 25 times your annual spending,
you can then withdraw 4 percent of your savings each year of retirement. But isn't the market risky? PETE ADENEY: Put the money in the broad economy
through index funds, where you own thousands of companies, very conservative, and it's
going to fluctuate just because the stock market fluctuates. But if you're just taking a small amount each
year, you don't care at all about that. Like, the stock market crashes, you're still
taking your little 4 percent. Your -- the stock market goes up, you're still
only taking 4 percent, so that averages out over time. PAUL SOLMAN: Don't spend money on things you
don't actually need, he says. And don't drive so much. PETE ADENEY: That's my biggest winning secret
to a wealthy life, is just get out of the car a little bit. Driving is way, way more expensive than what
most people think. Most people think about gasoline as the cost
of driving. Really, it's about five times higher than
that. So pretend gas is $15 a gallon. Then you're starting to get an estimate of
how expensive driving really is to you. PAUL SOLMAN: Due to depreciation, maintenance,
insurance. Adeney saves so much because he's also a do-it-yourselfer. Take his house. PETE ADENEY: The one that we live in now,
I built almost entirely from scratch. PAUL SOLMAN: So you put in your own plumbing? PETE ADENEY: Yes. PAUL SOLMAN: You did your own flooring? PETE ADENEY: Yes, that's part of a house. PAUL SOLMAN: You did your own electricity? PETE ADENEY: I would do my own heart surgery
if it was safe. (LAUGHTER) PAUL SOLMAN: Last year, Adeney renovated a
dilapidated building on Longmont's main street to create a co-working space for fellow Mustachians,
and added what he calls a tiny house conference room. PETE ADENEY: It was just $3,000 in materials,
partially from Craigslist, and then we get a dedicated office that's year-round, insulated. PAUL SOLMAN: On top of the tiny house, nourishment
that costs even less. PETE ADENEY: I'm not an apple expert, but
I just call these delicious free apples. PAUL SOLMAN: Delicious free. (LAUGHTER) PETE ADENEY: So, cheers. PAUL SOLMAN: Cheers. ELLEN ROBINSON, UncommonDream.com: One of
the ways we save money is by only shopping at thrift stores. PAUL SOLMAN: Adeney has acolytes aplenty;
38-year-old retired teacher Ellen Robinson's trick? Don't buy new anything. ELLEN ROBINSON: This is from the loft, and
you can buy that for closer to $8, instead of buying it for $50. PAUL SOLMAN: As for the furniture in the home
Ellen shares with husband Michael and their two young children? ELLEN ROBINSON: Pretty much all hand-me-downs. The couch was a hand-me-down from my grandparents. These pieces of furniture right here were
hand-me-downs from when the office that Michael worked in had to downsize. The lamp, a friend from my work gave that
to me. PAUL SOLMAN: The coffee table? ELLEN ROBINSON: This is something I bought
at a resale shop. PAUL SOLMAN: By now, it will not surprise
you that the family car is also secondhand. ELLEN ROBINSON: We bought this 2007 Prius
used for $8,000 about four years ago. And it's pushing about 195,000 miles, but
it still works just fine for our family. PAUL SOLMAN: One common feature of the fire
movement, credit cards used strategically. ELLEN ROBINSON: So, we get 6 percent on groceries
if we use this card, so 6 percent back, 3 percent on gas, and 3 percent on department
stores. PAUL SOLMAN: Michael, a former salesman who
still enjoys putting in one to two days a week as a consultant, says the family could
spend less than the $44,500 they spent last year. MICHAEL ROBINSON: There's some cushion in
our budget. We're not down to the bone right now, by any
means. PAUL SOLMAN: Do you feel at all deprived? ELLEN ROBINSON: No, I do not feel deprived. Do you feel deprived? MICHAEL ROBINSON: No, we don't. ELLEN ROBINSON: I am not above the temptation. If I walk into the mall, I am just as drawn
to all those things as anybody else. But I just have a dialogue in my head about
the decision to very intentionally not, buy those things, and also just very intentionally
not going to the mall. PAUL SOLMAN: Restaurant visits are rare. Instead, the retired Robinsons spend their
ample free time cooking and eating at home with their kids. But wait a second. Aren't there many Americans who simply don't
earn enough to save anything, let alone the amounts Pete Adeney promotes? PETE ADENEY: I'm sure there are, but I also
would say that almost everybody can do better. And the lower your income level, the greater
the benefit is of figuring out where your money is going. So the median income is $60,000 or whatever
in the U.S. for a household. And what's the bestselling vehicle? A $30,000-plus F-150 pickup truck. That's the problem. We all scale everything up just a bit more
than we can afford. PAUL SOLMAN: But clearly not everyone can
do what Adeney has done. Even in retirement, he has earned enough from
his blog that he doesn't need to stick to his $25,000-a-year budget. But he does, because, he argues, cutting consumption
isn't just about cost-saving. PETE ADENEY: I would say it's immoral to drive
like a six-wheel diesel pickup truck, compared to riding a bike or just picking the most
practical car for whatever your needs are. PAUL SOLMAN: Immoral because it's polluting
the atmosphere? PETE ADENEY: Yes, it's because of your effect
on other people and other living things. So, like, you're going to consume a lot more
metal and a lot more fossil fuels just to carry your tiny self around. PAUL SOLMAN: Adeney does have followers who
can't afford to stash away at Mustachian levels. Michelle Jackson turned out for a pop-up business
school held at Mr. Mustache's co-working space to learn how to earn more, so she could save
more and retire early-ish. MICHELLE JACKSON, MichelleIsMoneyHungry.com:
There are many people who would like to attain that, but maybe they have to pay off debt
first in order to get to the point to invest and focus on those kinds of things. PAUL SOLMAN: How much do you owe right now? MICHELLE JACKSON: The amount that I'm focused
on now, minus the students loans, is about $11,000. PAUL SOLMAN: And even for debt-free higher
earners like Mark and Sina Ebersole, becoming financially independent began as a heavy lift. SINA EBERSOLE: It was pretty hard at the beginning
for me, paring it down, and saving, saving, saving, saving. That was a very foreign concept for me. PAUL SOLMAN: Did you like it? SINA EBERSOLE: No. It felt a little bit like, are we wasting
away our good years? PAUL SOLMAN: Ten years later, the former dance
instructor is grateful that she and Mark, an engineer, work only when they want to. SINA EBERSOLE: We're working on opening a
ballroom dance hall. MARK EBERSOLE: It's kind of like a dance -- ballroom
dance studio, but more social-focused. PAUL SOLMAN: Ellen Robinson relishes the reward
of scrimping that drives the FIRE men and women seeking financial independence. ELLEN ROBINSON: So, it's not necessarily about
not working, but it's the freedom that comes with not having to work. Right now, my kids are 4 and 2, and I'm home
with them all day everyday, and not worrying about whether or not we can buy our groceries. PAUL SOLMAN: As for Mr. Money Mustache himself: PETE ADENEY: The goal is just to live a happy
existence and maybe leave the world better than when you started. So I have done small businesses like carpentry,
and a lot of dad work has been my biggest occupation, a bit of writing, some music. So, I still have, if I'm lucky, another 55
years of retirement to go. And I will let you know how that turns out. PAUL SOLMAN: And for as long as I can, I will
be all ears. This is economics correspondent Paul Solman
at Mr. Money Mustache headquarters in Longmont, Colorado.
I hope more people have a chance to learn of FIRE/FI in general as they grow up. I can honestly say I didn't know/hear much of anything about it until I was already in my mid 30s. I can't guarantee young me would have done it any different but I wish I had even known it was an option.
Somehow nobody mentioned yet that this is Mr. Money Mustache. Been following this guy for almost 10 years. He doesn't post much these days, but the early posts are a great read.
Can't watch the video at the moment but from the description I think it's the investments that did it, not the penny-pinching. But not everyone can invest so much that they can retire that early.
To all the haters, retiring early isn't a right, it's a privilege - the reason this video exists is because it's uncommon. Yes, to retire early you need to become educated and/or work hard, earn some money, and not spend it all. If your life circumstances make one of those steps impossible (not just difficult, but impossible) for you, you could still take lessons from the other parts of their plan. Maybe this blind "I can't do that so no one should produce a video about how it's possible for other people" mentality might be one of things keeping you in the position you're in.
Take some of that money and buy a bike helmet please!
They all had really good jobs with high salaries, are SINKs or DINKs, and are smart people who made really good investments. And then they decided to downsize and realized they could do that.
Ok, they didn't retired. They have other business streams.
How did he do it? He just saved most of his 80k a year job and lived like people where that's all they have.
Now if you don't make engineer money fuck you just save half of your measly scraps
Most people can't save 75% of their income. Rent alone is more than 25% of my income.