We all know that Mr. Money Mustache is fairly good at Not Buying Unnecessary Crap. But what about necessary things, not to mention services and investment options? Many people ask me in emails which companies I like, so I thought it would be useful to put them all into one page which I can update as needed. On this page, I list the stores and services that I actually DO use, just in case you want to check them out for yourself.

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Some of these companies happen to offer commissions for online referrals. They have the lowest expense ratio and the most respect for their customers. In fact, the company is legally structured as an investor-owned entity, meaning its responsibility is to YOU as opposed to an outside group of shareholders.

Read around all you like — the smartest investors will generally recommend Vanguard funds. Plus a very convenient smartphone or web based user interface which makes investing and learning about investing loads more fun.

Capital One is my primary bank account. They offer no-fee checking and savings accounts that also pay interest — and they consistently rank close to 1 in the interest rates they pay. They are also highly competitive mortgage originators. My favorite feature, however, is the ability to link the Capital One checking account to three other bank accounts so you can shuffle your money around electronically at no cost. Personal Capital is a financial tracking tool that I started using in mid It is similar to Mint, and it is also free to use.

But it has a greater focus on investment tracking and investment advice, and in fact the software sort of functions as an investment teacher. All of it is optional, and you can just keep using the software for free if you prefer.

The best thing about Mint is that it has a relatively kickass and intuitive interface that makes your financial tracking simple. The second best thing is that it is FREE. You Need a Budget YNAB is a simple to use but sophisticated under the hood bit of budgeting software that uses the principles of human habits and behavioral finance to make you more conscious and efficient in your spending.

Although I was born a weirdo and always favored saving over spending myself — sometimes to a fault, this software has built a fanatical following of happy users because it works perfectly for many people who have had compulsive spending problems in the past.

SoFi refinances student loans for well-employed graduates at lower rates. They do it fast tentative approval in minutes and funding within a reasonable number of days and even by smartphone.

But they lean towards only the safest borrowers, so not everyone will qualify. Like most financial companies, they have a referral program. And there is no origination fee for you — they make all their profits on the investor side of the platform — the big funds that are buying up the debt, even while SoFi remains your friendly point of contact throughout the loan. Check out their rates at www.

See full article here: Slick Technology Meets Your Student Loan or Mortgage. There are also an ever-growing number of credit cards that offer large signing bonuses and cash-back percentages on various categories of stuff — even without annual fees.

Thanks to a collaboration with a travel-hacking friend of mine, we now keep a pretty rigorously updated list of the best cards here: List of Rewards Credit Cards. For Mustachians or Sucka Consumers? After using Quickbooks for 15 years, I was excited to switch to this much more efficient alternative beginning in Instead of a year-end crunch in front of the desktop PC, I can now effortlessly keep up with transactions as they happen using only the nicely made Xero phone app!

Then simply hand off the end-of-year report to my accountant or your favorite tax software at the end of the year. From through , both Mrs. MM and I enjoyed using Republic Wireless for mobile phone service. For me, this has been a revolutionary perk during international travel, which I do for at least 2 months per year. With Google Fi, international texts are free, wifi calls are free, international cell network voice calls incur a small per-minute call, and data is the same price in Ecuador, Edmonton and Eugene Oregon — always 10 bucks a gig.

This one has been easy: I am a big Geico fan and have been for over ten years. No accidents or speeding tickets on the record.

What to Do About This Scary Stock Market

But the savings of Geico over competitors is even larger in situations with higher premiums. Plus, I can now catch up on emails during the trip.

It also allows me to avoid renting a car at my destination biking or public transport always comes first, of course — Uber fills in the cracks. For some people, Uber makes it feasible to ditch personal car ownership completely, which is the main reason they get a spot on this page. I have swapped out the house insurance several times in recent years. First I was with State Farm, but they raised the rates for no good reason one year.

I restored the old rate by switching to ASI, but they too jacked up their rates unexpectedly after a year. So I switched to Safeco, and so far rates have been stable. Bluehost has been good to us — Until March they hosted this rather busy blog it reached 2. They have automatic installs of wordpress and all kinds of other software such as the forum software we use all built in, so it takes less than five minutes to set up a relatively fancy blog. How to Start a Blog. The technical aspects of this blog are now managed by a freelance system administrator and WordPress expert named Kevin Clack.

He saved our multi-million-pageviews-per-month forum from doom by moving it to an advanced new host called Digital Ocean , in February If you are looking to start, maintain, or grow a blog or other technical enterprise, and need more technical skill on your side, this guy gets my ultimate recommendation. You can find him at clackconsulting. MMM is currently running on Thesis! Bloggers are always raving about Thesis Theme, so Mrs. MM decided to check it out. It is a very different type of theme though and does require some upfront learning, but Mrs.

MM seems to be enjoying it. MM has worked with Elegant themes at her old part-time job. Treehouse is a company that creates high-efficiency learning courses in high-demand subjects. And it is all about breaking up the old notion that education should be expensive, exclusive, and formal, and replacing it with the idea that the Internet has made information and communication virtually free. And it is information and communication with other people, rather than lifelong research tenures and ivy-covered stone blocks, that are the foundation of allowing people to learn things and produce value.

EDX a collaboration between Harvard and MIT: Big-name courses, made available for free — with options to pay a discounted fee to receive actual course credits. Money Mustache has been learning Spanish and brushing up on her French using Duolingo. They currently offer free and amazingly useful courses in Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian.

Money Mustache and Mrs. MM enjoy creating projects in Scratch. It is a free programming language for kids and a really fun way to learn to create your own interactive story and games. MM give it a thumbs up! Our local library offers free online courses. Find out what your library offers.

Interview with a CEO: Ridiculous Student Loans vs. The Future of Education. It is much better than Safeway in many ways, especially organic food. Is a Costco Membership Worth the Cost? My last two bikes, as well as my last 8 years worth of various parts like tubes, tires, and lights, have been from Nashbar. This store is great. While I still recommend checking Craigslist whenever you need to buy a bike, if the scene in your area looks bleak you should feel good about buying a new bike somewhere like this, because the prices are great during the sales.

I buy everything from furnaces to underwear at Amazon, because the efficiency of it cannot be beat. If you use the little box below to start your Amazon search it will benefit MMM and friends, and many thanks for that.

RockyMtnNeighbor October 16, , Another good source for cheap electronic-related things is Monoprice. We buy all our speaker cables and ethernet cables from here too, along with the matching plugs, coverplates and such for figurative pennies compared to the standard big-box stores. Adam February 27, , 9: I also bought a wall mount for my TV there and it has done a perfect job holding my TV, at a fraction of the cost! In fact, a friend of mine used to own a multi-monitor display company where they would build systems for people who use several display units in their work, and they ordered many of the items they needed from Monoprice because they prices are so awesome.

Julian November 5, , 7: Full disclosure MMM, are any of these recommendations paid? They all make sense but so many of them seem so random that it feels like maybe the company just paid for a spot on the page.

Money Mustache November 6, , 7: Thanks Julian, first comment since we enabled comments on this page 3 years into it! I hope there are many more to come. No, recommendations are not for sale on this page. Or in some cases, a reader has introduced me to something better what I knew about already. The page could probably use some reorganization though, as these have been piling up here for all this time.

Do you have any readers in South America? But, Even though me and my wife live fairly frugal we have amassed large savings cant find a good place to invest our money. Lending Club and the likes dont work for non us residents without ssn. What do you suggest for the rest of us? Is there a blog you know that deals with south americans mustachians? Mark December 8, , 6: There are difficulties with non-U.

Residents investing in the US. Essentially you open yourself up to a double taxation situation in which you are taxed on the income of your US investments in the US and in your native country.

There is a treaty with South Africa on this matter but I am afraid I do not know the details. If you had passive US investments and it is an open question how you would actively manage US investments from there— but in the days of the internet who knows? Finally someone thinks about foreigners!!! I too live in South America! Though MANY of the MMM precepts apply, soooo many things seem, well… out of reach LIKE A GOOD LIBRARY!!!!

I hate to complain, but perhaps some articles could contemplate this that not all of us are US residents? Amy November 29, , 6: I just received my Moto G from Republic Wireless, which I had never even heard of until I read your blog. The phone and service, so far, are just as good as any.

Just signed up for the capital checking and saving. Once I saw the MMM endorsement of capital I went for it. Toshi November 30, , An even cheaper fax option for occasional users is FaxZero. WD December 1, , 1: I tend to find better deals for many products on Google Express https: They go to the store for you and do not charge a markup as far as I can tell. You can get 3 months for free with a trial membership, and then 10 a month or 90 a year beyond that to get free shipping. You can also pay 5 per trip on shipping instead of a membership if you want.

James December 23, , 4: Ryan December 28, , 9: MMM, thank you for sharing your helpful financial advice. KeepMoneySmellingMothy January 11, , 9: I was wondering the same thing. I have about 8 trades a month. Anyone know of a better deal? Hussain January 2, , 7: For free unlimited incoming faxes to email I like: Joe January 5, , 8: It is a simple search engine that finds the cheapest books in the world. It even will compare shipping costs if you give it a list, and will direct you to combination purchases at various sites.

GetRichBrothers January 5, , 9: For Canadian banking services, Tangerine. Joshua Hall January 22, , 9: Money Mustache January 23, , 9: Yeah, I tried FreedomPop for a number of years, but had to remove them from this list of recommendations because they have what I believe to be an evil cancellation policy: There is no way to cancel your account via their webpage. They make you call a telephone number, which I found led to ridiculous wait times I called on 3 different days and each time had to give up after 25 minutes on hold.

I contacted their management and suggested they immediately add online cancellation as an option. The guy responded that they have no plans for that at this time, but they were planning to add more telephone support staff instead. Tom January 24, , I wanted to let you know of a health costs sharing group called Altrua. The deductibles are low, My wife and I pay The only catch, it is for healthy people only, who take good care of themselves, exercise, etc, which is probably most of the MMM community.

I highly recommend it. An older, more established group is Medishare. Unfortunately you have to have a certain religious belief system to join. Altrua, according to my understanding, was formed to circumvent this requirement, requiring only that the member be willing to care for their neighbors.

Tom February 2, , 7: I followed up on your tip about home owners insurance throught GEICO ASI. I already have cars on GEICO, but calle dthem about transferring over my home coverage.

They informed me that ASI is no longer affiliated with GEICO. Are you still with ASI? Would you still recommend? Money Mustache February 3, , 4: Hey Jim, you might try Safeco — I used them for the last year of my other house and it was a very good experience. I will update this page. Jim February 5, , Thanks for providing the updated home insurance info. So far, Safeco is providing the best quotes for me as well. Your zip is providing a nice discount for you!

How to make Money in the Stock Market

Money Mustache February 5, , 3: Kyle February 5, , Jackie February 11, , 9: I should have gone with T-mobile in the first place and at least they would have paid for my termination fee with Verizon.

Money Mustache February 12, , 6: Any other Internet providers available? This blog has referred many thousands of people to RW and the vast majority of feedback is positive. Still works perfectly for me. Hey Jackie, You may reach out to their support team and see if they can help with the problems, otherwise they do have a day return policy and you can easily cancel and get a refund if you are unhappy with the service.

HSmith February 28, , More recommendations for the mustachians north of the 49th parallel? I will start with my own experience. I live in great Vancouver area.

Very expensive region to live, so we have to be extra frugal. Cell phones — Speakout. I use the prepaid. I like it because it gives you control of the budget. The money you put in is good for a whole year and can roll over to the next year if you add any amount on top of it. Land phone — I use italk BB. Internet— If you want TV with internet, in Vancouver area if you can get Novus it is nice.

If not, Tech Savvy has better price and better download upload speed. TV— no winner to me yet. And I am not ready to cut the cable yet. Enjoy a good hockey game and food channel.

How About that Stock Market!?

Josh Bennett March 12, , My wife and I have been reading your website for a few months now and we are saving and enjoying the information! Money Mustache March 12, , 1: Hey Josh — tricky question as it is a fragmented market different offerings in every city. The best I can suggest is to look carefully at all options in your area, take advantage of introductory offers, negotiate them back down once the rate rises, and keep your eye out for new entrants in the market.

Calstache March 21, , USAA has the best customer service and great rates for all types of insurance. You would need to be connected to someone in the military for some of their services. Capital One bought my mortgage for a condo. When trying to sell the condo, I was extremely disappointed with their trustworthiness, fed up with their customer service and all-around mad at them. Ashlee April 3, , 8: I know that you recommend investing in mutual funds and index funds, but I recently learned from my accountant that US citizens living overseas are not allowed to invest in mutual funds.

I just wondered if you have a recommendation for a good backup strategy? Rod Hoadley April 9, , I really love reading all your posts. I think it is the most refreshing stuff I read. I have been doing all the things you blog about for most of my life and thought I was a little strange. Reading your blogs just gives me more confidence that I am doing the right things.

I hope to meet you at a retreat one of these days soon. Eric April 14, , 1: Juan Denvah April 28, , 9: Question from a follow Coloradan. Since this also covers me when I am biking or so I am told I am loathe to get rid of this particular coverage, though research this for the truth mostly shows personal injury lawyer sites out to scare up customers.

While I generally follow Mustachian principles on insurance i. This is important as CO apparently has relatively high rates of people not buying insurance. I am wondering 1. Take a look around. For more casual sampling, have a look at this complete list of all posts since the beginning of time. Go ahead and click on any titles that intrigue you, and I hope to see you around here more often. You are using an outdated browser. Upgrade your browser today or install Google Chrome Frame to better experience this site.

Start Here About Random MMM Recommends Forum MMM Classics. Fancy Magazine Classic Blog. Capital One Capital One is my primary bank account. Personal Capital, Mint, YNAB Personal Capital is a financial tracking tool that I started using in mid Student Loan and Mortgage Refinancing: List of Rewards Credit Cards Related Article: Xero After using Quickbooks for 15 years, I was excited to switch to this much more efficient alternative beginning in Republic Wireless, and other Mobile Network Virtual Operators Republic Wireless — click for the full scoop.

Big thumbs up for Monoprice. This is another good resource for free faxing: Hey MMM I followed up on your tip about home owners insurance throught GEICO ASI.

MMM, did you take Sharebuilder off your recommend list or did i miss something. MMM, What do you recommend for internet providers in the U.

Do you avoid using the financial companies that acted terribly in the last 10 years? MM, I really love reading all your posts. Check out TaxACT as a cheaper alternative to TurboTax. Home Blog About Start Here Forum MMM Recommends MMM Classics Media Contact As Featured In….

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