If you're new here, this blog will give you the tools to become financially independent in 5 years on a median salary. The wiki page gives a good summary of the principles of the strategy. The key to success is to run your personal finances much like a business, thinking about assets and inventory and focusing on efficiency and value for money. Not just any business but a business that's flexible, agile, and adaptable. Conversely most consumers run their personal finances like an inflexible money-losing anti-business always in danger of losing their jobs.
Here's almost a thousand online journals from people, who are following the ERE strategy tailored to their particular situation (age, children, location, education, goals, ...). Increasing their savings from the usual 5-15% of their income to tens of thousands of dollars each year or typically 40-80% of their income, many accumulate six-figure net-worths within a few years.
Since everybody's situation is different (age, education, location, children, goals, ...) I suggest only spending a brief moment on this blog, which can be thought of as my personal journal, before looking for the crowd's wisdom for your particular situation in the forum journals.
If you enjoy the blog, also consider the book which is much better organized and more complete. You can read the first chapter for free, listen to the preamble, or see the reviews (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,Z). Subscribe to the blog via email or RSS. Get updates on the facebook page, join the forums, and look for tactics on the ERE wiki. Here's a list of all the ERE blog posts.
When financial independence is a priority, it is very helpful to develop an idea of how much money one needs to support a particular expense. Consider a daily $1 cup of coffee. That is $360 a year. With the canonical 4% withdrawal rate, one would need to save and invest $360/0.04 = $9000 to support the $1 cup of coffee/day lifestyle.
Why pay that much when you can make a better coffee yourself?
What about food expenses? These can range from less than $50/month per person to more than $500/month per person.
Required savings for $50/month:
$50/month = $600/year food expenses. This needs $600/0.04 = $15000 in savings. Whereas $500/month = $6000/year needs $150000 in savings. That’s a lot!
Aiming for the lower figure of $15000 is doable in a foreseeable number of years. After saving $15000 one NEVER needs to worry about food again. One is financially independent of the food expenses.
My suggestion is to tackle recurrent expenses in this way one by one. How much does it take to become financially independent of food, housing, clothing, transport, health costs, internet, movies, cable, …
This results in a set of smaller goals to work towards. It will also create a certain discipline. More importantly, it will make one reevaluate whether the expense is really worth it. For instance, is a daily cup of $4 coffee really something one would want to save $36000 to support or is a 25c homemade cup of coffee good enough?
A 25c/day coffee addiction costs a mere $900 for a lifetime “subscription”.
Originally posted 2007-12-05 00:47:00.
