The noted penny-pinching guru dubbed Mr. Money Mustache announced on New Year’s Eve that he and his wife have divorced, writing in a blog post that they only spent $265 on the entire process. “Even in the most carefully run and financially independent of lives, there will be some wrenching twists and turns,” Peter Adeney, a former software engineer who retired at 30 and began a blog about his financial habits, wrote in a post titled “The Economics of Divorce.” “If you haven’t already heard through the rumor mill, the former Mrs. Money Mustache and I are no longer married,” he added. “Although we had been drifting this way for a while, the formal change of our status is still less than a year old, so it’s still a topic that deserves some quiet respect.” Adeney—who, his now-ex told The New Yorker, squeezes his limes with a woodworker’s vise to get extra juice and mixes his peanut butter with a power drill to save money—told readers that the divorce was “about the most amicable separation that one could hope for.” He then returned to his role as a guru of the FIRE movement—financial independence, retire early—advising devotees to avoid hiring expensive lawyers to navigate divorce proceedings. “The former Mrs. MM and I (mostly under her guidance!) worked through the do-it-yourself paperwork and paid a $265 fee to the county court for the divorce,” he wrote.
