Afford Anything - Mr. Money Mustache Talks About His Dating Life

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

#431: The title says it all. Paula Pant interviews Mr. Money Mustache about his dating life. We chat about why he wants to date inside the FIRE community (financial independence, retire early) – and whether he’s had any luck. We discuss the perils of navigating into the dating world after a divorce, which he did at age 43. And – AHEM – HE’S ON THE APPS. Well, specifically, he’s on one app. And it’s technically not an app, it’s a website. Whatever. HE’S ONLINE DATING, FOLKS. We talk about the difference between flirting in real life vs. online, and he talks about what he looks for in a dating profile. Our conversation also covers: What’s the point of dating someone inside the FIRE community, anyway? Do you really want to talk about money all day? (Hint: nope) Is he a serial monogamist? What should you do if one person is more interested in frugality, while the other is into investing? Personality, values, communication, chemistry … how can you find that ideal fit? How long does it take to figure out if you’re compatible? How quickly has he introduced his teenage son to his former (then-current) girlfriends? What advice does he share with his son about dating? Mr. Money Mustache is the pseudonym of Pete Adeney, one of the most prominent figures in the FIRE movement. He co-stars with Paula, Tiffany Aliche and Ross Mac in the 2022 Netflix documentary Get Smart with Money. Enjoy! For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode431 The Fire Dating app can be found at https://firedating.me Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So Mr. Money Mustache is on the show today, and he's talking about his dating life. That's pretty much all I need to say. This is the Afford Anything Podcast. You can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else. What's most important to you? And how do you make choices about your time, your energy, your attention? How do you allocate your limited resources accordingly?

That's what this podcast is here to try to solve. My name is Paula Pant. I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast. If you are familiar with the internet landscape of people who talk about personal finance and financial independence, you have probably come across Mr. Money Mustache. He is one of the most influential names in the financial independence space. Put it this way. The famous top 10 business podcaster Tim Ferriss once asked his audience, who they wanted to hear on the show, what guests they wanted.

And the number one most requested guest for the Tim Ferriss podcast was Mr. Money Mustache. He has millions of visitors to his website. He's been featured on every major media outlet. He was one of my co-stars on the Netflix documentary, Get Smart with Money. And today, he's going to talk to us about his dating life, as well as dating in the fire community, the financial independence retire early community. Should you date other money geeks? Yes or no?

Is financial responsibility something that you look for in a dating app profile? Are your index funds a topic of conversation on a first date? We're going to chat about all of that, including Pete's own story about wandering onto a website called firedating.m.e. which I am checking out right now. In fact, at the end of this episode, stay tuned for the end of the episode where I do a deep dive into like some of the onboarding questions.

Just trust me, you're going to want to hear this. All right, here he is. Pete Adeny, also known as Mr. Money Mastash. What's up, Pete? Why, hi, Paula. I didn't expect to be talking to you today. I know, right? Here we are.

Pete. For anyone who's listening who doesn't know you, most likely the newest people in this crowd, you go by the nickname, the character, Mr. Money Mustache. True or false? That is true. It has been true for a long time, dating back to 2011 or 12 or something when I started blogging about personal finance and early retirement and stuff. Cool.

We won't belabor it because if people want to learn more about all of that stuff, they could, there's a whole internet out there for it. But in like one or two sentences, can you briefly describe what is the philosophy division behind Mr. Money Mustache? Oh, yeah. It's sort of a no compromises way to live your life as thoroughly and in the most fun-filled way as possible. And some of that includes being better with money and wasting less of it, spending it more purposefully. And hopefully that means getting to save and invest a lot more, so then you become free earlier in life or maybe even free, more free immediately because you're not worried about money. So my story in particular was about retiring at 30, which was a long time ago.

But since then, I've written about so many other things, and I'm interested in, like, health and fitness and mental wellness and, you know, all kinds of different life skills and even building stuff. So I kind of write about everything nowadays. And so we're going to talk today about dating because you're back in the dating pool at this moment? Well, I don't want to be too detailed in public, but here's a thing. So I've long been a fan of this website that's called firedating.me, like firedating.m. Because in the world of people who are seeking financial independence and being better at money,

they often find that they go on to the regular dating apps and then they find people who are like just financial train wrecks like oh she was gorgeous but she had $200,000 of student loan debt and was still buying a new Mercedes the next day and like these people want to have a life you know if you if you partner up with somebody they want a life that is going to go somewhere

and not just be in terrible debt and poverty the whole time so fire people like to meet each other and the neat thing is that this goes along with not just money-saviness, but a lot of other life attributes. Like, they're generally pretty smart, creative, alternate thinking, original thinking people. To be honest, like a lot of nerds in the good way. You know, people who have, like, education, and they're into science and, you know, outdoorsy stuff, they like to meet each other. So the idea of making a website for these people to meet each other, it was a really great idea. And I'm going to pause you really quickly, because

you said fire people like to meet each other. And, oh, yeah. We haven't defined fire for anyone who's brand new to this. So fire, F-I-R-E, financial independence retire early, is the acronym Pete for really what you are thought of as writing about. Even though you say your blog is much bigger than just early retirement, you're best known for that early retirement piece. It's sort of the... Yeah, that's true. And I like it because it doesn't, even if you think of it as a money thing and it comes with a lot of other good life. style stuff as well. And if you look up the fire movement, you'll probably run across me in your

search results as well. So fair enough. Okay, so fire movement like to date each other. Go on. Yeah. So I was a fan of this website for a long time. And then fairly recently I found myself, let's just say more single than I expected. So I just thought, hmm, I should I should do things the right way and do this, get on this website that I've been curious about for so long. And so I created a profile and looked around and it looked really good and promising except for it's a little short on people. I think there's like 8,000 or 9,000 people who are members, but they're scattered around like U.S. and Canada and Western Europe because the creator, Victor, is in Europe. So it just means that the people you find aren't necessarily going to be in the same region as you. They might be like a couple

states over or whatever. If you're lucky, there'll be some in your town, but there might be two. So I was thinking, I'm going to try to promote this more. And the other thing, and this leads to me getting in touch with Paula. So I was like, there's also twice as many men as there are women on the platform. So where is a place where there might be lots of single women who are looking for these eligible, smart, well-off bachelors. And then, of course, since the blogger's audience often, or the podcaster, the audience often reflects the personality of the person. I thought, hey, maybe Paula is in touch with such people. So that let, so you were like, afford anything. The, uh, the single, the lady singles night of

podcasting. Yeah. I had hopes that way too. And to be honest, I had made a mistake because last time I mentioned fire dating.m. It was a couple of years ago. And I was just promoting it, not because I was on it. I just wanted to help it out. But I did it on Twitter and the Twitter account, especially mine is like really a dude fest. It's like lots of tech workers on there. And, So anyone who's going to sign up there probably has about a two-thirds or more a chance of being a man. So anyway, we're going to try it differently. And next time I promote it, I'll do it on Instagram where my account is far more balanced. And then I thought I'd message Paula and I got in touch with you tonight.

And then you're like, well, let's just record something right now that talks about this. So that's what led to this highly impromptu, funny cameo on Ford Anything. Yeah, exactly. Carpe Diem, right? First of all, let's just establish you have any vested financial interest in this? No, in fact, I think the site is entirely free and the guy is just doing it at least for now on a volunteer basis, which is amazing of him. I think he deserves some donations and I'm probably going to try to support the site myself

if that'll get him to work on it more. But yeah, definitely nothing, no vested interest other than, you know, if somebody happens to find my profile, then maybe I'll benefit in that way. Okay, so why I'm going to challenge the premise now, why should fire people or people who are interested in personal finance, why should they date one another? Well, certainly no rule that says that. I have just found that it usually works pretty well. Like the people get along extra well, they have a lot in common besides just money. And out of my own experience, you know, I've been unmarried. for now about five years and just met a lot of people in random situations and like the ones I connect to more likely just happen to be more in the fire community, whether it's at events that I host at my own co-working space or things that I attend or just random things online. And then you compare that

to just random conversations you might have in the grocery store or at a restaurant or a bar or whatever. There's just so much more interesting people and so much more alignment. What makes a person interesting? Well, to me, I like people who are interested in human nature, you know, like maybe the study of human beings as a, so, for example, people who listen to a lot of podcasts and read books on, you know, relationships and getting better at whatever. So I'd say like students of life are interesting. Lifelong learning. Okay. Yeah.

And people who have a really, you know, wicked and bizarre sense of humor, like a bit of a sharper wit than you might find in other places. Some people that make me laugh and might even find some of my jokes funny occasionally. Those are the properties that I find in the fire community more often than in the regular world. It's like muggles and wizards. You make the comparison between the fire community versus the default world, but you could also make the comparison between the fire community versus other niche communities that are centered around some type of personal development or self-improvement, such as, I don't know, perhaps a niche community of people who love to read

or a niche community of people who are really into physics, you know, just recreationally. You know, like, recreational physics, right? Or geometry. Yeah. I would join a recreational physics dating up, too. That sounds great. common interests are probably the common theme right and it's there's maybe nothing for me there's magic to fire people because that's a common interest of lifestyle although the funny part of it's not

really money right like i never talk about money with pretty much anybody it's just that there's an implied attitude about life values that seems to go along with it like hey let's go to the hiking trails instead of the shopping mall for example and that just leads to more fun life in general So yeah, if people are not into this kind of stuff, then maybe a different community would work for them, but I'm certainly into this kind of stuff. So you have often referred to your platform and your community as a cult. It strikes me that within a cult, cults encourage its members to marry one another. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, inside of any cult, there's shared insignia, there's shared land.

language and vocabulary that only other members understand. There is the encouragement, if not the outright rule, that its members should intermarry with one another. So by virtue of creating or promoting fire dating, are we not pushing more towards becoming a cult? Well, only in the good way, right? Because this is people finding their own true happiness. Now, where I thought you were going with that question is that there's a tradition of cult leaders to encourage all of the women in the cult to, let's just say, gather around the leader. And if you said that, I would say, no, I don't want to be accused of that. And if I was going for that, then you'd right, you'd be right. I'd be guilty of trying to form the wrong kind of cult.

That's what, that hadn't occurred to me, but I'm glad you were. brought that up. Yeah. So for the record, I am only looking for one person. One partner would be fine. Thank you very much. So at the time that you got, now that the conversation is turned on to you, we'll keep the spotlight there for a moment. At the time that you got divorced from your wife, which was around five years ago, your financial information was very public. You know, you had posted online about your income, your entire income history, your net worth, the value of your asset. And so from the moment that you reintered the dating pool post-divorce, you were completely financially naked for anyone with an internet connection to stumble upon. Did that impact your dating experience?

Well, it wasn't really, so first of all, I did share some stuff, but I was a little more private than other bloggers on other things. Like, for example, I was transparent with annual spending and like past income related to like how we saved for early retirement, like as my former wife and I as software engineers and whatever and workers. And then I didn't really, I mean, I didn't really share too much on income or net worth. Not that those are any particular, you know, impressive number even nowadays. But, uh, I, I, still for some reason I'm a little bit more private than others. And maybe it's just out of fear.

Like, I don't want someone to be like, well, that person has more money than me. So I'm going to try to sue them. And it's also just kind of irrelevant, you know, my situation versus others. Because my whole point is it shouldn't matter how wealthy you are. What matters is your spending. And your spending should hopefully be detached from your income and your wealth because you should really be purposeful about your spending. just because you're double in wealth doesn't mean you have to spend more money.

I mean, you can if it aligns with something that's really going to make your life better. But a lot of people just spend more just because they do have it. And that's, in my opinion, thoughtless spending that kind of leads to a lifelong treadmill. But I'll draw attention to a fact that is publicly very well known. So there was an article in The New Yorker that was published in 2014. You like how I have this off the top of my head. Yeah, it was like 2016 or something. I remember that, yeah, and this Nick guy had pried out this random fact that my website

had made $400,000 in that past year because of this bonnans are related to house refinancing and like commissions on from us, you know, a financial company. And he's like, oh, I'm just going to put that in the article. And I was like, no, please don't put that in the article in it did anyway. So that's been all over like so many artists and it's in the Wikipedia page about everything now too. And so anyway, yes, it's true that I made $400,000 that one year and a lot less in subsequent years. But it's, yeah, even so, that's kind of irrelevant. And I don't mind that people know that I have some money.

Like, that's fine. And if they see that I'm being responsible with the money, then that's like a good example that I'm hoping to set, including for my own almost grown up son now. When people come to fire, they often come perhaps with an interest in money, but with different philosophies or approaches. So some people might be more frugality oriented while others are more interested in investing. Do you think that that could create some strife? Like almost like, you know, when the vegetarians and the pescatarians are fighting each other, because there can sometimes be more strife between closely aligned members of a community than there would be.

be between people who are like disparately far apart, the vegetarian and the pescatarian, and more likely to fight with one another than the vegetarian and the carnivore? Yeah, I mean, I don't really see that happen. And I do host a lot of events and talks and things like that where the different fire type people get together and talk. So I suppose it could happen. But you know, that sounds like more like a Reddit thing, you know, like the type of people who use Reddit and comment on all day and they get into these super-competers.

crazy in the weeds detail fights. In reality, at least the people who are getting out of their house and coming to the things that I see, they're not really interested in so much, you know, they definitely don't fight about these things. And they might ask each other for advice, like really basic stuff. Like, hey, do you guys use this one brokerage or the other? Like, which one is better for this purpose that I need? And then people are like, yeah, yeah, I have this idea. Here's what I've found. So lots of helping out, very little arguing. And that works for me because I get really, really bored when people start arguing about technical details of anything in person. In person, it's time for joy and conversation and sharing, but not for arguing.

In fact, I kind of left an event recently where someone did get into a little bit too much details on stock market stuff. And I'm like, oh, we're in a coffee shop, man. This is not. I didn't get up early to come to a coffee shop and just hear these details about like index fund fees and stuff like that. Oh, yeah, I hate that too. I start to wander away anytime somebody tries to talk to me about real estate ever, you know, in person. Like, I mean, at a party, you know, like if I'm there for the purpose of teaching it, that's different. But if we're at a party, no, no way.

Yeah, right. And this is in a circle with like 20 people all having to listen to this conversation. And when it comes down to those details, I prefer to handle it one on one. Like if someone sits down on my kitchen table and they're like telling me the exact difference between these two techies. financial things. Then I'll get out the piece of paper and the pen and we can cover it really quickly and we won't be boring anybody else. Right. Exactly. So how long were you married? A long time. So I think 15 years of actual marriage and then we were together for quite a few years before even getting married. So that was like a lot of my young adult life. How old are you

right now? I'm 48. 48. So you were 43. when you started dating again? Yeah, approximately. Sure. Yeah, and you would spend the bulk of your 20s and 30s and the first third of your 40s, more or less than the same relationship. Yeah, yeah, and that was really good.

In fact, I didn't even realize how nice and peaceful that relationship was until I experienced some other situations later. It's nice to see both sides of it. So tell me about your first experience back in the dating, dating world. Like, first, when you and your former wife first split, were you ready to start dating right away or did you want some time solo? I didn't really want time solo, specifically. And so for me, it was main, it's just been like long-term relationships since then, like fairly long-term. And not really, I'd never tried a dating app until just recently. It was always

just people I meet organically and, you know, it naturally develops into a relationship and lasts a fairly long time. So I'm kind of a slow mover, not a player. And so that's why the dating apps always kind of intimidated me. But you never know. It's like it seems fun to experience something at least once just to see what it's like. Would you consider yourself a serial monogamist? Well, I mean, I guess that's kind of the definition, right, is long-term relationships that are more than one in your life. So sure, although that's not really not necessarily my goal. I am kind of, I don't want to scare, be scary to a new person, but I am kind of a settler downer if the thing is right. So I don't mind, you know, a relationship becoming like a lifetime partnership in the long

run. But I would have high standards for that to happen. So that's why it hasn't happened yet. What are your standards? Well, I just mean like in terms of, having life values align but also having personalities that align so that you don't fight a lot. You know, I really don't like conflict and, you know, people who are like kind of aggressively trying to be mean or whatever else. So it needs to be kind of, I don't know. I mean, I'm kind of inexperienced, to be honest, like for a person my age, it's hard to know exactly how to describe what works. You mentioned two elements, values and personality. I know personality, as you just said, can be a little harder to describe.

What about values? What shared values do you look for? Yeah. Well, there's some of the obvious ones, like having a healthy lifestyle is really important. So it would be hard to be with somebody who had abusive habits for too long, like alcoholism or somebody who just didn't like to be in shape and exercise. you know, someone is like an indoor person, it's just for me that it could be fun for a while, but it just in the long run that's going to lead to problems because I want to do stuff outside and I want someone who likes being healthy with me and we're not going to be young forever. So people who are who like exercising and staying fit are going to have much, much better second half of their lives. And I want to be on the good side of that, that divide of people.

Right, so healthy habits is a value. Would you say that crugality or a wise stewardship of money is a value? Or is that a consequence? Yeah, I'd say it's a value because you can choose either way. And you don't have to be too extreme, of course. I would find it a little uncomfortable if someone had no concept of efficiency and economizing as kind of a virtue. And like, for example, let's say it's time to buy a car.

and my partner is saying, yeah, I'm trying to decide between, like, you know, the Toyota, whatever, like some new car, for example, a Tesla or whatever, and versus a giant monster truck just because they like trucks or the Chevrolet suburban or whatever, like huge. You know, I like people who think and try not to try to get just what they need to do the job, whether it's a car or whatever else, and just try to consider like the big picture. really enjoy. I think I do get turned on, I guess, by frugality, people who don't like to waste. You know, actually, I was at a party once, and this girl, like, I had poured myself a glass of water. And then she's like, oh, don't you want this nice bubbly water that we're making with the, you know, with like limes and lemons in it? And I'm like, yeah, well, I just poured a glass of water. And she's like, oh, that's okay. And she walked over, took my glass of water and distributed it to the plants in her apartment. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I like how she's didn't just dump it down the sink. Like, that's a thoughtful person. So little things like that,

for some reason, I just feel more attracted to a person like that. Why? What does that tell you about that person? Yeah, it's way deeper than I thought we were going to go in here. I like it. I think it tells me that they are a thinker and they consider their actions and they try to, you know, I don't want to use the word optimized because that sounds too like hard-nosed. but they just try to get the most out of everything and be wise about things. And that will also apply to, you know, how they might plan a trip or how they might decide to host a dinner party. And I just, I get, I'm very attracted to people who use their brains a lot and really think about stuff and don't just do it thoughtfully, thoughtlessly. I think that's probably what it really boils down to.

And someone who understands a lot of different fields, you know, someone who can choose. a good car or a good, whatever it is that they're shopping for. If they do it based on understanding the stuff they're buying instead of just like, oh, I just saw this on an ad or I just grabbed the first thing that I saw in the Costco or whatever. I admire that in a person. I really like smart people. You've been dating for five years. How many long-term relationships have you had in that time?

There are two that I know of. That information is classified. I definitely can't go on the podcast. All right. Okay. Well, then you're not going to like my next question. Where did they go wrong? Why did they go wrong? Well, it can't be too specific just in case anyone hears this, but I think it's just, it's back to the alignment of life values and what you want to do with the rest of your life. and are you interested in taking care of yourself and doing healthy stuff together in a way that's sustainable? It's probably the main thing. I mean, there's also things like communication.

Like, if you just cannot communicate together, even if you love each other and want the same things, then that can be a challenge too. Like if people just literally can't get concepts from one brain to the other, that's like I actually can't happen, which is weird. So I'm still learning. Don't ask me for relationship advice,

but I'm definitely excited to learn as quickly as possible. I'm hearing compatibility and alignment, which on the surface sound to be the same, but they're subtly different. You know, compatibility, connection, communication, and then alignment of that. Compatibility of personality, alignment of values, connection, communication, chemistry.

Yeah. Yeah, and chemistry is important too. Like, if you just feel like I'm not able to laugh with this person or my jokes are all falling flat, that has happened in the past too. And it's, you know, it's really hard to recover from that too because you just always feel a little bit awkward about around the person after maybe the initial spark might wear off. And then suddenly, you're like, we can't really, you know, the conversations are very, They're nothing about toast and like the weather, but there's nothing like really happening besides that.

Right. What has surprised you the most about being back in the dating pool? I think mainly is how exciting it is. Like I get very interested in a person and it kind of affects my whole life. I love how energetic that makes me feel and, you know, motivated to do a lot of stuff, like plans. travel or whatever else. So it's like a really nice life boost overall. And of course, if you're, if you're going through a breakup, then it's the opposite situation. But I try to focus on the good parts and try to find ways to feel those feelings more often because I realize, hey, this is

coming out of my own brain, my own body. And it's nice. So it made me realize also I should work with my friendships, you know, my non-romantic friendships more to be more connected with people and get these good feelings too. Because I have tended to sink into being a loner a little bit too much because my house is this incredibly cozy nest with everything I want in it, like all my tools, all best food and everything else. And it can be a little bit tempting to just stay here and just like nest a little bit too much. Yeah. And including in a relationship, that's what sometimes happens and you think that it's exactly what you want

but really being too comfortable is not a great thing overall because it kind of shuts down the exploration part of your body or your mind shuts down your exploration habit and we need the more adventure and the more hardship a little bit to remain more vital. So I think the opportunity for the dating world makes me more vital and that's what I realized

I've been missing a little bit over the last few years. Right. How long does it take to discover whether or not your partner has that same sense of adventure, that same commitment to a healthy lifestyle, the alignment that we are just discussing. How long does it take to really discover that? I think if you're smart, which I'm not always smart, but you could figure that out pretty soon, like within the first couple weeks of spending time with a person. and then the more blinded you are by like just like the thrill of it all or like sexiness you can definitely fool yourself and think ignore certain red flags and like wiser people will see it earlier and I'm going to try to be more wise in the future too so it shouldn't take that long right unless somebody is on their best behavior for you and then they change later in which case you're not going to find out until they go off the good behavior right

This is great. You're just making these all up totally on the fly, right? Yeah, totally. This is awesome. No wonder you're famous for being the person with the best interview questions. Thank you. I learned a lot this year about interviewing. It's not all coming out at this moment, but it's a skill that I constantly work on. Yeah, and I guess the subject of romance and stuff is a pretty natural one too because everybody has their own opinions on it already. Yeah, exactly. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. The holidays are right around the corner, and if you're hosting, you're going to need to get prepared.

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That's your commercial payments of Fifth Third Better. How old is your turn? He is 17, turned 17 just a couple months ago. Is he dating anyone? Oh, that might be classified too. Let's just say I wish him the best in that endeavor, and I'm trying to be the cool dad to support him getting out there and having in-person friendships and relationships as much as possible.

What advice do you give him? First of all, does he ask for your advice, or do you... I assume whether he asks or not, you must tell him something. Yeah, doesn't ask for advice too much on interpersonal stuff. Of course, like many parents, I wish that happened more. And of course, I also don't want to push too much out because kids don't want to have that age. They don't want to have a lot of preaching. So I just try to, you know, show by example and mention a few things in conversation.

And I think the main thing is just I always try to help him broaden. his life experiences because teenagers are often in front of the computer a lot these days and they build their social lives around that too. So my goal is to bring a little bit of like 1980s back into his lifestyle from before the computer era and go out and get dirty and do stuff in real life and I hope that there'll be more friends coming into his life that do the same thing. You said every now and again you sprinkle a few things into conversations. What are some examples of those things? Yeah, like talking about how people meet each other for relationships, like, you know, how it might happen or what it's, and then we'll talk about health and fitness stuff too.

And I'll talk about my history of what it was like in high school, for example, related to friendships and how I met my first girlfriend and all these things, like just stories from the similar age that are. hopefully not to preachy, but just to show what different teenager lifestyles can be like. And I actually bust out some pictures sometimes too, because I have pictures from my own life at that age. I was into photography, even though it was film cameras at the time, and some of those pictures have managed to survive in a folder on one of my computers from the olden days. So I brought them into the present, and it's fun to share those too. You said that you want him to broaden his experiences. Why? What's the benefit of broader experiences?

I think that's part of being a human being, right? I mean, if your experience is entirely just being in your room, using your computer, and socializing entirely through, you know, chat programs and phone call type programs, that's not really a complete human life. Like you're not going to get all these things that are fundamental. mentally part of what makes us complete humans like happiness and you know a lot of even our physical and mental development only happens when you get outside like literally outside in nature and have experiences of other humans and even animals and plants like your brain needs

that stuff in order to develop because it's part of our ecosystem so human relationships nature exercise even like breathing in dust and pollen and germs and other things that your your immune system gets needs to learn how to deal with like that's that's all part of being a real human being and it's possible to skip all that these days if you're if you're too comfortable on the internet so it's actually a little bit scary it's like a drug yeah those of us who grew up before the internet I think do have an advantage because we got so much of our our life has happened before there was any other choice. So we were forced to do all this stuff. And of course, the world is even nicer. And that stuff is even nicer today. But you're just not necessarily going to do

it, especially if you're homeschooled, like my son has chosen to do his high school career from unschooling slash homeschooling. And that really cut down on his interaction with the outside world, too. So we just got to make up for it in other ways. What are some of the primary ways that you do that? Well, we have a daily walk program. That's the most important thing. So, like, every day, right after lunch, we just put on our shoes and go out, and we live on a nice natural area. You know, there's like a creek and a forest, and it just goes for miles behind where we live, where I live.

So that's usually the starting point of our walks. And then there's a lot of animals and birds and everything. And we'll just walk and talk for an hour each day. And that's the main thing. And it's good to know that at least that's there. Like even if there's no other things scheduled or no other friends coming over or whatever, that's been really, really great. That's a tradition through his whole life pretty much since he was born.

We've done that. And then I try to bring a lot of friends over the house to my adult friends. So that at least, first of all, because I love having friends over, but secondly, for him to see all the chaos and the yelling and laughing and cooking and cooking and other stuff that us adults do, dance parties, music nights, playing instruments badly in the living room. Like all that stuff, I think, is a good example for him so he can see, oh, yeah, this is human socializing. How long do you wait, if at all, before you introduce him to your girlfriends?

I think that's a good thing to do. So I think it would really depend on who's comfortable with what, but I would think, as long as As soon as you're sure that it's a real thing and that person is not just going to disappear after a couple weeks, then I would be comfortable with it. I'm not one of those parents who tries to hide the situation. Yeah. But at the same time, I'm not, like, since we have the luxury of a co-parenting situation where our son spends half the time at my house and half the time of him is mom's house, I have like every second week completely off anyway so I can travel or I can have people stay here. So that makes it so I can kind of split the two activities somewhat, which is nice. And I wouldn't have anybody just totally move in at this stage in his life. You know, like I wouldn't be like, oh, this relationship is going well.

Let's just move in together in this house and then we're all sharing it with my son. If I was much younger in life, like if I had a two and three year old or whatever, that would seem more appropriate if you're on a long-term relationship. But as it is, he's almost grown up. anyway. So you might as well just, especially like, you know, I'm not even going to meet somebody until whenever. So he's going to be 18 before you even get to the point where you'd be considering moving in with someone. So that's kind of good. On the topic of it's going to take a while to find someone and then get to the point where they would even be ready to move in, have you had any luck with dating in the fire community so far, fire dating? Well, the fire community

that's like my history of the last five years. That's a yes, no problem. As for the app, firedating.ebate, definitely not, you know, pretty mixed results so far. I have not even heard back from anybody. Wait, do they know your Mr. Money mustache? I don't know, but I only clicked the request button twice, and that was like very recently. So I'll have to let you know if anything happens. Oh, my goodness.

I mean, because you're so legendary in the community. It's shocking to think that anyone would know that you were Mr. Money Mustache and not reply when you like slide into their DMs. Well, I know. I was, I'm not flattering myself as being like the most desirable man, even in the fire community. But what I thought would happen is at least they'd be like, ha ha, that's so funny that you're on here. Like, cool. And then, you know, and not like, even if it's not like I want to date you or whatever. So, and that's kind of how I've been approaching it to you. I know it's kind of embarrassing.

it's like that's like the teacher going to a party with all the students and I'm the teacher. I'm like, hey guys, what are you doing here? So I'm approaching it with pretty lightheartedly to you and I'm not like, I, you know, this person is the perfect, you know, like I just trying to be friendly. So I clicked a couple requests and sent a couple friendly things and haven't heard back yet. So it's a mystery. Like I don't know if they're seeing it and being like, oh, that guy's gross. or if it just takes a while for people to get back,

because I know that on the dating apps, especially with a ratio like this, the ladies normally get dozens of requests per day, right? So you're just going to be like binging those or skimming them quickly and who knows. So yeah, it's quite a fun and interesting adventure for me, and it's definitely helping me keep my ego in check because it is not like I'm getting some kind of special advantage

or special treatment. and that's probably how it should be. Wait, so firedating.m.m. I just learned about it, like, when you texted me about it, so I haven't looked at it really well yet. Did they have photos? Yeah. And the funny part is, I mean, it's a very rudimentary website, right? So it's a little harder to use the normal.

You can't just flip through people's photos as easily as you can. And it's also set up to be a bit more minimalist. Like you can only send out three requests per day. You can't just, like, swipe right equivalent on a million profiles, like a lot of people. do on dating apps because the guy, Victor, wants it to be, people to be considerate and think of, you know,

think carefully before they, before you just reload a bunch of new profiles. So he deliberately slows it down, which I think is all right. So there are photos. There's an option to blur your photos, which a lot of people do by default. And to me, that's not very cool.

Like, I think it's a little bit, if you're going to put yourself out there on a dating app, you should be willing to have at least some of your pictures being seen by other people because I mean how shy do you want to be it's a public thing to meet somebody

Yeah so and then of course Some people don't even put pictures at all But you can filter like only show people Who have put their pictures And I think that's a good filter Because I don't want somebody who is like Extremely cautious and shy I want someone who's a little bit bold

Because I'm kind of a bold person And we're not really going to get along If you're not even going to show me your picture So yeah You can put pictures of, thank goodness. And most people, there's enough people on there with pictures that you can get a sense of who you're looking for. Interesting. Okay, cool. I know you have to go. My follow-up is going to be, do you think putting pictures makes it too look-centric? Well, I don't know if I might just be like a traditional slash animal type person, but I think looks are really important. It's not that the person has to be super dropped out gorgeous, but there's definitely a yes and a no situation.

And sometimes you can't even explain what it is that makes a person like a friend's own material or potential date material. But pictures are extremely important. And it would be such a waste of time to send out requests and then go meet somebody and then not even see them until you've invested all this time. Because for everybody, there's a certain percentage. and from looking through your pictures, if you're like, that's my type and that's not my type. And it's really important that you can filter that out in advance. Yeah. Yeah.

And then you read the profile and then do they sound smart? And then you send them a message and then do they respond? And, you know, is there some like nice banter already going on? And between all those things, I think you can certainly figure out if it's worthwhile going out and meeting in person. Yeah. Yeah. The banter is where it's that. Yeah. That's when you know.

Right. And there's far too little banter in the world. And I think this dating app has the potential for that because it is like a lot more wordy, bookish people. Even if they're also good looking, you really want to be able to exchange some nice words with them first. On normal dating sites, I hear people saying like, oh, I don't even waste my time with the messaging because it's just so dumb. Like, I'm not going to know until I meet them. I'm like, are you kidding? Like writing is hot.

And people who don't write are not hot. So to me, that's awesome. Like, it would make a huge difference. And then I would feel that connection when I met them in person, too, because we would have the backstory of what we exchanged in writing. So big time, please use the messaging feature if you're going to go on fire dating. Awesome. Well, thank you for spending this time with us, Pete. And good luck on your dating escapades to come.

Thanks. Hopefully this episode does not age poorly because. I really just checked it out briefly. You know, I've only been on there like one day, and it might be the last day. So any future people who are spying on me about listening to this, please don't hold me. Don't get me in trouble. I'm looking at it right now, and the whole value process, find a financially responsible partner, you know, exclamation point. Right.

That part's a little weird. I mean, you have to know the backstory because anyone who came across this website from scratch, you'd be like, that's weird. And there's like really detailed questions that you don't have to answer. Like what's your withdrawal rate and what's your percentage of the way to fire are you? My goodness, I'm going to create an account just so I can look at the photos. That's going to be the outro for this episode. Yeah, please do.

Please do. That'd be awesome. And so, I mean, Victor, I know I had a lot of great ideas when he made this. But I do think, at least from my perspective, focusing on those details is kind of irrelevant. Like just going on the fact that it's called fire dating is good enough for me. And I don't look at anybody's money numbers. I don't care about them. I care more about what they've written about themselves.

And, of course, are the photos good? Awesome. All right. Well, I can't wait to see what these questions are. Now I'm really excited. Yeah. And once you got your profile, I want you to try to find me. And then you can critique my profile.

Oh, my God. Yeah. I am so doing that. That's going to be, yeah, that's going to, that'll be some sort of bonus content here where I just go after your profile and tell you everything you're doing wrong. Yeah, you should do that. Do it on like Insta or something. Oh, okay, create account. I'm creating an account right now. That password is too common. You're too common. All right. Awesome. We'll have fun, Pete. I'll talk to you. later. Thanks. You too. Thank you for this super fun night. Okay, so I am signing up for fire dating. By the way, thanks, Pete. I'm signing up right now for firedating.m.E. All right. The first question. The goal of the test is to make sure there are no spammers on the site. As long as you know what fire is, you're welcome to join. Question number one. What does the E stand for in fire? Okay. Well, that's, that's,

This is your cheat sheet guide to signing up for the dating app. E stands for early. All right. Question number two. Oh, my goodness. Look at this. This is a quiz. All right.

Question two. How many percents of one's savings and they use an apostrophe in ones. It is not one is contraction. There's no apostrophe. This is not a grammar profile. Okay. Sorry. I will contain myself.

All right. Question number two. How many percents of one? One's savings can one withdraw each year, and each year is capitalized, for 30 years with low risk of running out of money, also known as the quotation marks, question mark, percentage, simple, rule. Okay. Oh, my goodness, I'm losing it.

All right. Wow. This is the most fun I think I've ever had recording a podcast outro. Okay. What they're asking is what percent of your savings can you withdraw each year for 30 years and have a low likelihood of running out of money, also known as the blank percent rule. All right. And so that is the 4 percent rule.

See, again, this is your cheat sheet. Okay, so I've just typed in the number four. I don't know if I was supposed to do numeral four or F-O-U-R or 4 percent with a percent written as a word or percent written as a symbol. I mean, heck, let's see what they have programmed their system for. All right. Question number three, what does the second M stand for in M&M? Are you serious?

The guy that we just interviewed is literally a sign-up question for this dating app. Okay, this dating app with like 8,000 or 9,000 people. So the second M stands for money. Oh, the case is ignored. All right, cool. So could be capital or lower. case. All right. Submit. Ooh. Wait a second. But if I hadn't submitted, there was a different option. Okay, so I submitted it and it went through. But there's a different option that says,

let me answer open questions instead. Oh, it takes me to the same page. Wow. So that whole thing was I guess I shouldn't say that publicly, but just between you and me, that whole thing was unnecessary. Okay. Update mandatory fields. I am female, male, non-binary. All right. So I'm going to select female. And, oh, this is cool. I can state that I am either precisely blank years old or I can give a range. Ooh, 35 to 39. That's my range.

Oh, located in. Oh, wow. So the first thing they want you to do is select a country, but you're able to select country unknown or country fireland. Which I suppose probably means you're a digital nomad. But I am not, so I'm going to select United States. And then New York City. New York City.

That their salsa's made in New York City. Okay. New, wait. Naples, Noshua, Nashville, and Netherlands, New Boston, New Orleans, New Orleans, New Haven, New Paul. There we go. All right. Save. Oh, am I looking for, I mean, I may as well select, yes.

Sure. And then now I'm selecting my future romantic partner. Wow, the presets for age, aged zero to 127. 127 is a very specific maximum preset. I mean, I was going to say 126, but I'm willing to, willing to age up. All right. Age zero to 127.

Let's go with that. Having children, yes, no, didn't specify. All of those are pre-checked, so I'll just keep checking all of those. Wanting more children, yes, no, maybe didn't specify. They're all pre-checked, so I'll just keep it with that. Oh, look at that. Now I can, with at least one photo in their profile. Oh, and then there's a checkmark, and they may have much less filled in profile than mine.

Cool. Sure. Why not? Oh, and friends. Same. Okay. No, I'm going to demand at least one photo in profile and friends in the same. You can choose same state, same country, or same universe. So I'm going to select friends in the same universe, but I'm going to select romantic partner in the same state. All right, save. Oh, wow, I can type in a pseudonym. I suppose it's not much of a pseudonym if I announce it on a podcast that 50,000 people are listening to. But that's okay. I'll call myself Azra. Azra. Azra. All height 5-1. All long-time listeners know that. What is my current relationship? I'm going to leave that one blank. That's as, Pete says, that's classified. Ooh, love. Okay, now we've gotten to the section of fire numbers.

Fire progress as a percentage. What percentage of your fire target have you already saved? And then you can give a percentage. Wow. Okay, well, just for fun, I'm going to type in 69%. Safe withdrawal rate, 69%. Okay. Actually, that'll probably break the system. Oh, 6.9%. What percentage of your stash do you plan to withdraw once fire. There we go. Six point nine percent. Savings rate. What percentage of your income do you save every year? You know exactly what I'm going to type in. I'll give you one guess. What kind of fire do you want, lean or fat? Oh, there's a drop-down menu. Lean fire, regular fire or fat fire. Ooh. Oh, you know, I officially really like this website. Okay, from that question alone, I am now an official, unofficial, self-appointed endorser of this website

that I only just heard about an hour ago. Do you drink alcohol and your options that are yes, no or no information? I will select no information. Oh, reason. Why do you look for a partner? That's a great interview question. There's so many questions of what do you look for? for in a partner, but I've never heard it phrased as, why do you look for a partner?

To not die alone. There we go. What do you value in your partner? A great ass. Can I say that? I can't say that on the radio, can I? All right. You know what?

I'm just, I'm not going to say it in the app. I probably can say that on the radio. I think it's probably fine. What do you value in your partner? Their respiratory system because it keeps them alive. Hey, I'm not doing recreational physics here, guys, because it... Oh, you know what? Actually, that's going to be my answer.

Their ability to practice recreational geometry. Okay, what do you value in friendships? Um, I don't know, goofiness. There we go. Do you have children? No. Do you want children? Uh, yes.

More details. Okay, uh, the humankind. There we go. Oh, religion. And this is not a drop-down. It's, um, it's like a whole essay field. Your views on religion. Wow.

I'll leave that one blank for now. That's a really good question. Side project or occupation. Where does your time go into filling out dating app profiles? There we go. Where does your time go into filling out dating app profiles? Education. What did you learn and why?

Lifelong. And the Y is for its own sake. I believe that is called edification. How did you discover fire in the prehistoric era? Humans discovered fire. Ideal day once fire. I, hmm. Ideal day once fire.

I kind of would like the phrasing of ideal day one fire, but, you know, I'm not. You look at me copy editing this thing. I go. Hobbies. I think you meant to say Calvin and Hobbs and misspelled it. All right, pay for despite fire. Usually one cut spendings when trying to reach fire. Is there any expense you could potentially cut, meaning it's not life critical, but you don't for some reason because it makes your life better or is a part of your identity? All right. So essentially, what are your luxuries? What are your indulgences. Warm socks.

All right. Asset, wow, asset allocation. Asset allocation is on here. Steve, can we get a ding, ding, ding, ding. Wow, and they've got like a bunch of sub-questions. How do you invest? How risk-averse are you? How much is in bonds?

And how much is in Bitcoin? Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. This is the first dating app I've ever signed up for that has asked me for the percentage of my portfolio in bonds. What's your bond allocation? My bond allocation is James Bond. How much is in Bitcoin or how much was in Bitcoin?

And my risk aversion is limited to a fear of heights. And no, that is not a fear of. of a bull market, top. Although I realize it could be interpreted that way. All right, what languages do I speak? None well, but I guess English, if I really had to choose. Favorite quote. Life's pretty simple if you just relax.

Some guy said it in a play once. I don't remember the name of the play or the name of the character, so I realize that's not helpful at all. about me everything that didn't fit into other fields I love fields Mrs. Fields cookies frolicking through fields the movie Field of Dreams

which I haven't seen but I assume is good see lots of other fields okay save wow all right now I can upload a photo Oh, look at this. There's data. As of now, there are 4,350 users, which is 51.92% with at least one photo.

Overall, there are 8,938 photos. This is impressive. Ooh. And, like Pete was saying, by default, your photos are blurred. but there's a checkbox and you can enable the option to always show the original unblurred photo. And again, data, 1,871 users, 22.23%, always show their unblurred photos. Okay, well, I will click the box, upload. All right.

And then save? Is that what I do? And then there's a... What do I do once I've uploaded it? It is uploaded. Now what? Then there's omit and go to intro. But I've already...

Hmm. User unsure of what to do in next step. Tech support. Help. Okay, I guess I'll just omit and go to intro? Sure. Okay. I didn't know what else to click.

All right. Hey, my name is. is, oh, so then, I'm going to this, so now I'm in the intro. The intro says, hey, my name is Victor, and I'm the developer of this site. It's my hobby, and occasionally it feels like this. Oh, I bet we're going to get a jiff. Oh, it's not a jiff. It's a YouTube video. Oh, it's got an ad. I'm not sticking around for that. All right. My goal is to, ah, oh, that's so sweet. My goal is to decrease the amount of loneliness in the fire community. Oh, Victor, thank you. Oh.

So to achieve this, I'm helping to meet others and build meaningful connections. If you know how I could do a better job, please tell me. Yeah, the user interface on the photo upload site. Once I've uploaded the photo, I don't know what to click on or where to go. I'm kind of stuck on the page, Victor. But otherwise, wow, cool. Okay, let's jump to this stuff. Oh, wow.

Okay, so everyone can see at most 12 new profiles per day, because this is a mindful communications site, and I don't want you to. to scroll through profiles forever and always doubt, what if the next person's even better? Oh, I love this. Okay, you only see profiles that satisfy your requirements and whose requirements you satisfy. That's why it's important to fill in your profile. Oh, I don't think anyone's going to like my answers. All right.

The profiles in your queue are prioritized by their activity, distance from you, how many fields they've filled in, whether they have a photo. More details on ranking are here. Ooh, let's see more details on ranking. Oh, wow. 35% when was the last time they visited the website. 25% distance between them and current user. 20% how many optional fields they filled in.

10% do they have a photo. 10% desired relationship type specificity boost. Wow. This is super cool. Oh my goodness. I love this. Okay, go to main page. Hey.

Wow. All right. So now I'm in my account, and I can see that I am looking for a male romantic partner between 0 to 127 years old, located in the same state. Search for new matches. Okay, hit the search button. Wow. So, okay, for the sake of protecting the innocent, I will not read aloud any of their usernames, but. A lot of dudes in Brooklyn.

That seems to be the personal finance hotspot around here. All right, one in Long Island, a few that are ambiguously in New York, New York. I assume that means Manhattan. I'm seeing one in Buffalo. One in Queens. Yeah, and the rest are all in Brooklyn. All right. Well, there you have it.

I have officially filled out a profile on firedating.m.e. And if you are looking for a financially responsible love life, feel free to do the same. It's free. Neither myself nor Mr. Money Mustache have any financial stake in this. But hey, if fiscal responsibility sounds sexy and you're looking for someone between zero to 127 years old, you know where to go. All right. This is the Afford Anything podcast.

My name is Paula Pan. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. episode, if you did, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. Do three things for us, pretty please. Number one, pick up your phone, I know what's next to you, if it's not already in your hand, go to the URL of afford anything.com slash show notes and drop your email address. Because that's how you get the show notes for these episodes. And they're amazing. I promise you, amazing. Okay. So that's number one. Number two, since the phone's already in your hand,

open your favorite podcast playing app and hit the follow button. That way you'll be following this podcast, and you'll spot all of our amazing new episodes as soon as they come out. And finally, while you're in that app, please leave us a review.

I also forgot to mention the most important part, share this with a friend or a family member, or a neighbor or a colleague, or your veterinarian or your contractor or your accountant. Tell your dry cleaner because that's how the fire spreads. Thank you again for being part of this community. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast.

And I will catch you in the next episode.