"If I Woke Up Broke" short review - Chris Phillips

     Mr. Money Mustache wrote a blog on July 10, 2013 about what he would do if, one day, he woke up entirely broke. He specified being "broke" as one day losing "all [his] bank accounts, investments, 401ks, mortgage-free houses and other assets." He said that he also would lose his blog, since that was his main form of income as of the writing of the article. In the blog article, Mr. Money Mustache details his plan for how he would start to rebuild his life after having nothing. This included him and his wife taking full time jobs, moving to a less expensive area of town, and buying a $5000 car as soon as he could. While I can admire that he has the smarts to get back on his own feet, I can't say that I agree with the message of the article. Thousands of readers of Mr. Money Mustache read his blog in order to gain some sort of financial living perspective on their own lives, and this article is obviously aimed at these readers. I think his advice as a general rule is flawed for a couple reasons.

      One of his ideas is for both him and his wife to take full time jobs immediately. This could work out for them, but across the country, not a large percentage of people can easily just "pick up" full time jobs within a reasonable time frame. He says that he would "re-open [his] general contracting business" which would earn him about $80,000 per year. I don't know how many readers of this article own any kind business to re-open, but my guess is that the number is a low one. He says that his wife would also take a full-time job making $60k in finance. Okay, even for readers who are married and could possible get a dual income- how is there any guarantee that the job market is open? And even if it is- who would hire someone with no experience? What about someone who hasn't worked in the field for years? This part of the plan is plainly useless to the average reader. 

     The second part of the plan is to move to a less expensive area of town. I don't know how someone without any money is supposed to pay for a move, which can cost in the thousands to have done professionally. If the reader chooses to move themselves, they will have to rent a truck and spend several days to do it. These days would be precious in a time like this, because every day you aren't making money is a day you're losing it.

     One of his last tidbits of advice is to get a car as soon as you can. In his example, he spends $5000 on a used car from the year 2000. This could work in the short term for him. However, earlier in the article he says that the reader can substitute their own hypothetical financial income for his. This makes the examples more approachable and he clues in that the reader should adapt his examples to ones that would be realistic for them. However, in the case of the reader making around $25,000 per year, this piece of advice is actually a bad one. Buying a cheap car that is in your own price range at $25,000 per year is going to end up hurting you much more than helping you. Buying a piece of junk car for cheap will almost always lose you money for a few reasons. If it breaks down, (which it probably will soon,) you have to pay to get it fixed. If anything is defective on it, (break lights, headlights, speedometer, seatbelt, etc.,) you will have to pay the ticket that you get after getting pulled over. Lastly, if you find that you are done with the car and need to sell it, you will almost certainly need to sell it at a lower price than you bought it just in order to be rid of it. 

Link: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/10/if-i-woke-up-broke/

     A website that I find very educational for learning the basics of certain web-based programming languages is codecademy.com. It is a very user friendly and effective method of learning. You can take beginner courses for six different languages: Ruby, PHP, HTML, JavaScript, Python, and jQuery. These languages are meant to be used for web development, which is a hobby that almost anyone can get in to nowadays. Knowledge of these languages will enable you to build your own interactive websites with userbases and functional, integrated programs.
     I use this website whenever I want to review old knowledge of JS or learn the basics of a new language.