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.
It’s been two weeks since I built my worm farm. Initially I kept them in our shed, but as spring approaches I have since moved them outside. The evaporation is faster outside, so now I have to “water” the cardboard that covers the bedding every day. I’m feeding them much less than I anticipated. Naturally in the beginning I was worried that they would not have enough food; primarily because I did not know exactly how many worms I had having gotten some with castings and decaying vegetables and everything from another freecycler.
Having noticed that the food I was putting down didn’t disappear, I simply stopped feeding them every other day. Having not seen any worms for days I was beginning to worry a bit whether they had escaped or simply died until I started to poke around in the bedding and found them. I saw some little worms in there as well, so I suppose they are breeding. New castings are also being generated at a faster rate than initially, so I suppose they’re settled in.
They still can’t keep up with our discarded apple cores and banana peels, so I only feed them our “best waste”. Instead of burrying it completely, I usually just make a “half-hole”, put the food in there, and then cover it with fresh bedding made of shredded, soaked, and wringed newspaper to keep the fruit flies away.
It’s really very easy. However, if you don’t want to get involved in worm farming, what you can do is to put your kitchen waste (plant products only!) in a blender with some water and make a sludge and then pour that in the garden.
