Exploration

The Mr. Money Mustache article I read was how to make money buy you happiness.  Mr Mustache talked about in the article that we don't really spend money to impress others or to improve our lives, we do it cause it maked us feel better about ourselves.  He also states that when we spend money, we're actually buying feelings, that we get from the product we buy.  A quote in this article that I liked was "The best way to get to the root of all this spending is to realize what we are all really trying to buy. In fact, it is the reason for every single action we take in our lives. It’s happiness."  I like this quote because it really answers the question we have on why we spend our money.  I think the part where Mr. Money Mustache did good on was when he talked about taking the option to not spend money and see how fufilling that could be.

Exploration 8: Get Rich With: Nature. Gabrielle

      Mr. Money Mustache writes this blog about how we can use nature as a way to save money. We all live these fancy lives with cars and phones, but we do not realize that we can use nature for free! Kids grow up with plastic toys when they can actually be outside being adventurous, playing with sticks and climbing trees. Teenagers and young adults drive around to places they need to go, but instead they can be walking or biking to places they need to go. Adults also use cars to get where they need to go but they can also go to biking as a way to get places as well as a good source of exercising. Mr. Money Mustache writes that many people do not realize how beautiful the outdoors are and what can be found out there. The outdoors are a good source for relaxation instead of paying to go to relaxing places. "It’s easy to forget about Nature when you lead a modern life. And when you forget about it, you slip into a pattern of spending your whole life trying to figure out what’s missing. Driving around, buying things, watching sports on TV, going out to entertainment establishments. Those things are all fun, just like our stuff. But most of the needs they fill are just replacing things that we were already getting for free, from Nature, for thousands of generations before they were invented". I really like this quote because it is 100% true. So many of us do sit and thing "what is missing from our lives?", and it really is nature that is missing. We take for granted what we have for free! We can go outside and entertain ourselves with a nice hike or long bike ride. 
      What Mr. Money Mustache is presenting to us is very doable and I absolutely love it. It is so easy for us to give up things like our cars and phones for just a little bit and try riding our bikes to where we need to go or getting away from our phones and going on a hike, enjoying what mother nature has given us. The only difficult thing is with places we need to go today, it would be hard to ride our bikes everywhere we had to go to. But by simply substituting our cars for our bikes to get to a simple place, we could save money as well as get relaxed and enjoy our surroundings. I think Mr. Money Mustache hit this blog right on the spot. We should all take a little bit of advice and get outside!

Exploration 8

     The article I choose to research is. "When Energy Saving Becomes an Emergency." This page is about how we all spend too much money on everyday things that are easily cut down by a different lifestyle. For instance this page talks about saving on transportation, electricity and heating. At the end of this page they talk about how you can change these problems. Some solutions to gasoline prices being high is biking where you need to go or another solution to electricity is by simply shutting off your lights when you are not in the room. In addition too he did some research in figuring out certain things like "Last year I ran some tests on an old fridge that a friend still had in operation. It was burning 110 kWh per month, or  $135 of electricity every year. For $300 he replaced it with a nearly-new fridge from Craigslist and I measured it again. This one used 62% less energy, saving him $83 per year, which is a spectacular 28% annual return on investment!" Mr. Money Mustache shows how something as simple as that is making your bill higher.

       I liked this post because of many different ways because it shows how much we really are spending on things that we do not realize. The thing I do not like about this post is some of the things he says you can do to fix your problems. I do not think biking everywhere is a doable thing. If there were to be bad weather and you needed to go to the store you are not going to be able to bike in bad weather conditions.

Exploration 8- Anne

Luxury is Just Another Weakness

My post discussed the fact that even though luxuries are nice, they are not worth the money that you spend on them and you should not let yourself get used to luxurious things.  He talks about how even if he was sitting in a luxurious house, eating expensive foods, and on an expensive computer, this is not something to be proud of.  He says, "This stuff isn’t anything to brag about. Although I am enjoying it at the moment, it is actually an indulgence of a weakness, and I had better watch myself, lest I start to depend on this sort of pampering all the time."

I agree with this post and I do think that it is very doable.  I think that most of what he was talking about are simply suggestions that everyone could follow and pay more attention to.  I thought that his suggestions were clever and made a lot of sense.

  

                          

Exploration 8: Haters Gonna Hate- Jake McCluskey

I really enjoyed and encourage you guys to read this article. Mr. Money Mustache was featured on Wall Street Journal and any who he goes on to talk about how he read the negative comments on his articles on WSJ's comments. Mr. Money mustache says how he never reads the negative comments as he talked about in one of his earlier articles Low Information Diet. Mr. Money says how he hates complainers and how we a genetically engineered to complain because that is what the peasants did back in the day. The peasants would complain about the rulers saying how they could do better and this would help to give the peasant a little more respect among the other peasants because of his bravery to talk about the king behind his back. But now-a-day Mr. Money says how we cant do that our be around people who do that because 

"They are a complete waste of time, because the complainer is renewing his mental focus on his own problems, even while he wastes the time of the unfortunate listener who is stuck hearing the complaints. We could all take a great leap forward in life by simply instituting an “No Fucking Complaints about ANYTHING – EVER” rule, rephrasing them as honest questions and plans of action to fix the underlying problems instead." 

I chose this for my direct quote because in this paragraph/ quote you really see how much Mr. Money hates people complain and how unimportant their complaints are to him. I liked this blog so much because of how "do-able" it is to live out what he is preaching. All he asks the reader to do is to not complain which is a pretty easy and very rewarding thing to do. I also did some extra research and I found that people who complain or talk about other people tend to have self-esteem issues and are also depressed that’s why they are complaining because they think it would make them feel better when it actually does the opposite. I think what he is saying in this post is a great idea and everyone should live life with no complaints. I very much enjoyed reading this article and I hope you guys read it and enjoy it as much as I did! Cya 1110.03 have a great summer!!

In my picture the man is blocking out whatever it is the woman is complaining about.

A Lifetime of Riches - Is it as simple as a Few Habits ? Chloe's last Exploration

The blog i read was about the habits we form that cause us to make choices like spending money, using our cars more then needed etc. The blog talks about how we form our habits and and the end of the blog it talks about how we can start to make an effort in changing out habits. He said that "As it turns out, habits are little chunks of auto-pilot behavior that get burned right into your neurology - permanently. Once you develop a habit, you can never truly erase the program, even if you manage to deactivate it." So this was something that definitely freaked me out that all the bad habits i have formed like going to the mall, getting fast food when i don't want to make the food i have at home or driving around randomly will always be habits that i will want to continue to carry out. To give us a picture of the cycle of the habit he posted this picture 

We basically start the habit and continue it mindlessly without even knowing until the habit is completed. I really liked this blog because i think that it could help me or anyone think more consciously about the habits that we do and maybe in the middle of doing them we could stop ourselves. I think his ways of fixing your habits at the end of the article are definitely doable it will just require some work but i think its something everyone should consider doing. 

Aziz Hamid Last Exploration Assignemnt

How (and How Not) to Buy a House

     I read the article How (and How Not) to Buy a House by Mr. Money Mustache.  Basically the title of this article tell you what it is mainly about, it about different ways of how to and how not to buy a house.  Buying a house is not an easy task to do. For an average person buying a house is probably the biggest purchase he or she will make.  When buying a house, a person can have huge success or failure depending on the skills you have. Mr. Money Mustache talks about different things to keep in mind to successfully buy a house. He talks about having a calm and rational mindset. This is very important when buying a house. He talks about location. Before buying a house you need to keep in mind  of location. Location can play a major role in being close to work, school, library, grocery stores  and much more. He also talks about rent vs. buy. He tells us if we have the opportunity to buy a house we should because renting is just wasting your money. When you buy a house you are building equity. He talks about buying a fixer upper over a fancy luxury house because it cost a lot less to renovate a house. Also you should ignore the small details and pay attention to the big details. Lastly you should take your time when buying a house. Do not be in a rush. There are frequent random events, like a bank dumping a foreclosure at $100,000 below market value or an estate sale with an out-of-town realtor setting the price way too low.

     A quote I really like is “I am not buying a flowery pillowcase of emotions or a future of warm memories. I am conducting a business transaction to purchase a piece of land and an assembled collection of construction materials.” One of the most important skill to have is the right mindset when buying a house. This quote tells us that when buying a house you are a business person looking to conduct some business. This mindset is essential to get the results you want. 

     I really liked this blog. I learned a lot about buying a house.  I liked all the advice Mr. Money Mustache talks about when buying a house. I did not dislike anything about the blog. I do think this is doable.  Any person can have the power to take these advice and use it in their lives. It is a very good idea. Someday I will have to buy a house for my family and I want to be be successful in buying a house.