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.
Please rank accordingly, like, type 5,6,2,3,4,1 in the comments or something like that. That way I can run some statistics.
- Specific how to – articles, like fixing my bicycle, recipes, etc.
- General how to – articles that specifies different ways of doing things like owning less stuff.
- Motivational rants, e.g. “This is how great your life could be”, “It’s not that hard to change”, .etc.
- Demotivational rants, e.g. “This is how much consumer life sucks, you just didn’t realize it”.
- Anecdotes, like … when I was your age, I lived in a box and ate rocks, …
- Personal stuff, like what I ate for breakfast and what else I do in my life.
- Models, philosophy, and strategy, that is, big picture posts, typically quite academic in nature. I notice that these do not get very many comments.
- Me interviewing other people.
- Other people interviewing me, like this.
In terms of advertising, I would also like to know how many of you are really interested in advertising links to debt relief, payday loans, credit cards, etc. or posts about paying off debt, etc. My guess is close to 0%?
On a side note, if anyone is doing the 30 day makeover (or similar) and writes well, I would love to feature you regularly on ERE in posts about your progress. Perhaps every 3-6 weeks or so, whenever anything significant happens. I think this would helpful to a lot of people. If you can “commit”, then write to jacob shift-2 earlyretirementextreme full-stop com.
Originally posted 2009-07-02 12:39:14.
