More than ever it appears discussion is attempted to be brought down by either calling the person that disagrees a “hater” or else just plain mean as the the image employed here suggests. There was an article on Zero Hedge discussing this very topic and how the Bernie Madoff’s and Elizabeth Holmes of the world count on using this very tactic to prevent any light being shed on their methods. Without a willingness to meaningfully discuss specifics and methods used and results obtained, the internet filler of platitudes for having the foresight to ask for raises and bonuses as a means to early retirement gets posted as sound financial advice.
There are financial questions I have with the couple and the “image” they portray in the article and in their blog in regards to the numbers they portray.
1) In their discussion of taxes paid they do not list social security or medicare taxes, did they pay that in their saving years? The balances for Mint are presented in a manner as if they were audited statements from PWC and any questions of how this was done is an improper inquiry by lessors that the savers do not have time to detail.
2) They list as paying no income taxes as their goal in retirement and state how they are going to turn 80K in ROTH IRA money into tax free withdrawals by 20K per year, though they can only use “original” contributions. Their own supplied savings records suggest that 50-60% of all their savings is from investing gains which would only leave 35-40K to withdraw from this or less than 2 years, so there seems a disconnect there. Or perhaps they just got lucky and the whole 80K is their contributions as this was the only account that didn’t soar in the past 3 years and so they will have enough for the next 4 years (how great is that the numbers just work out for the 4 years they needed) when the rollovers begin in the fifth year.
3) They show no dividend income despite having 500K in aftertax money. How are they avoiding that? Dividend income in VTI would be 10K per year and would either undercut the ROTH IRA conversion or make them pay taxes. I didn’t read a whole lot of their articles so perhaps they discussed this elsewhere.
4) They do not show any blog income, Airbnb income or rental income in their projections for managing their finances to the dollar in order to obtain maximum health care paid by the government when they hold income under 31.4K which they declare as the holy grail of retirement health care. Figuring 10K annually for their blog, which is likely light, and rentals from their house this makes the tax assumptions needed a nice article to post and I assume just like their mentor MMM the blog is actually just a “persona” to allow them to show how it “could” be done not actually done. I assume myself that the 400K annually that MMM makes does effect his health care costs and as they are obviously just running with a redo of MMM the same is happening here. Really it doesn’t matter at all other than to invalidate the very methods they claim to be able to use to finance their retirement. Saying blog income and rentals help pay the extra fees for health care is not as clickable as zero taxes and free health care.
5) Finance magazines need articles and clever titles to get eyeballs and bloggers are happy to supply a summary of their blog to drive the traffic they need and bloggers will defend other bloggers in order to get the cross pollination necessary to continue this internet sport of financial clicks. This is how the celebrity game everywhere is played not only on blogging but from politics to sports as well as financial bloggers. Pre internet these people were referred to as “free-lance writers” and could make a decent living writing out of their homes. See Jack Nicholson in “As Good as It Gets” an apt movie title for the lifestyle desired and provided for these and many other young couples.
I do not care at all what these bloggers do, they are free to do whatever they want, I don’t read blogs of this type because the articles are so soft and devoid of any actual financial help or truthful presentation I cannot rely on anything therefore of what is posted in the blog.
The entire point of the original posting of this article appears to be to comment on the comments in the article. I guess just coming down to Haters versus Baiters, I must admit I did not read a single one, do people really go through comments on blogs? People posting inaccurate or obnoxious comments in reference to a blog has absolutely no value in determining if the blog itself is of any value or not. I did not read the blog at first because of the description: "The article is decent... nothing amazing... the COMMENTS are gold” . But when I saw this had gotten to 17 pages thought I would look at the blog and it is what I thought an MMM clone.
