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.
Interesting (or maybe I should say awesome, as in “that was an awesome hotdog”) weekend so far. Yesterday, DW and I went geocaching for the first time. We went strictly by GPS coordinates (no maps) resulting in comments like “It’s 800 meter behind that hill. How do we get over there?”. DW found our first geocache, a well camouflaged film canister. Good thing I talked her into it, otherwise I would never have found it. I was quite surprised to find there are at least a dozen hidden geocaches within one mile of my home. Makes for some fun family fun.
Today was the first time we went to help out with a test-cutting session. As you may know (from the comments, I don’t think I have discussed it in a post), DW and I practice shinkendo. It is the martial art that studies the katana and the ways of the samurai. You can see a nice demonstration of what shinkendo is about on this youtube video. The test-cutting starts about 5 minutes in. The target are tatami mats which have roughly the same consistency as an arm while the thicker ones are roughly equivalent to a leg. As you can see it does not take much strength to cut an arm off. Although we’re not at the level where we are ready to cut yet, we did get to handle or hold a couple of sharp swords, really carefully, so no arms or legs were lost.
As you may have noticed, there is a new button at the top for donations. Some have asked me whether it was possible to donate to this blog. It isn’t, but now it is possible to donate to the other (similar) project I’m working on which would really help us out. You can read more about it on that page.
Have a nice weekend!
