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.
You can buy all sorts of rust removal formulas, many of which are toxic, and also cost money. However, there’s a much better method to removing rust and it involves using kitchen utensils only.
To remove rust using kitchen(*) utensils, you need
- Aluminium(**) foil.
- Oil. I think any oil will do, say, canola oil, although I must admit I cheated and used some bicycle oil, since I was cleaning a headset and didn’t feel like cooking it afterwards.
(*) If you do not know where or what the kitchen is, it is the room where your wife cooks your food. Sorry, I couldn’t resist 😀
(**) That’s “aluminum” for those of you who still measure distances in terms of your feet.
Now crumble the Al into a ball and put some oil on the rust spot. Then use the ball to scour it off. The speed at which this works is one of the few things that justifies the word “awesome”. Then use a rag to wipe it clean.
Here’s a picture of a saddle I cleaned: left vs right.
Now, it will be impossible to remove pits and if the rust is so bad it’s flaking, there’s an easier method using garage tools and some high school chemistry. This will be covered in a future post.
Originally posted 2009-08-21 00:02:12.
