The Frugal Beard

Hello and welcome to The Frugal Beard! I am a person who has recently smelled the sweet aroma of frugality, financial independence and the (very real) dream of early retirement and have found it quite pleasant. I am not an extremest in any fashion and actually quite new to the whole way of thinking. Everything I've done and plan to do, is within the capacity of every normal human being without being labeled as extreme in any way. Honestly. I am just a normal guy with a beard.

What I plan on sharing here is a rare glimpse into a real live person's mindset and finances. As a public employee, my paycheck is public knowledge and posted online for all to see. I am not shy or worried about offending anyone with my salary. I have found that because of the social stigma and taboo of talking about money (especially details of your own!) that a lot of us have no idea what's going on except what marketing and advertising is feeding us ("BUY, FINANCE, CREDIT"). We have an illusion of what we should be doing with our money and because we can't talk to each other about it many ideas on how to live well within our means and succeed financially is not shared or worse, it's only shared by people who are trying to make money off of us.

We should have no problem talking to our friends about how we are affording our lives, what we are doing to make it better and sharing our successes in the world of finance without bragging or instilling jealousy. I make more than some, and others make more than me. It does not mean we are not facing the same challenges and that someone who makes less cannot offer important advice on how I can manage my money or myself better.

There are people making $250,000+ a year and are broke and there are people who make $40,000-$60,000 a year who are going to retire millionaires before their 40th birthday. Your salary is not nearly as important as what you are doing with it.

And that's where this blog comes in. I want to open communication and discussion about what myself and others are doing with our money to come out ahead. I want to show that, yes, some things may be difficult to change in our daily lives, but I'm not doing anything that is impossible or, looking back, all that difficult at all! But we have to be willing to share our successes and failures and have open and honest discussion about it.

I hope you'll join the ride. It's going to be fun.

- The Frugal Beard