If you're new here, this blog will give you the tools to become financially independent in 5 years. Here is how I did it and here is how I currently do it. The method is robust and replicable (no need to win the lottery, start a blogging business, or win at real estate), but not easy; much in the same way that a diet results in weight loss but is hard to follow persistently unless you set your mind to it. The key is to save 75%+ of your net income and invest it in income producing assets (bonds and dividend stocks). There is a "21 day" step-by-step plan for how to get to 75% in the left side bar. I try not to be too trite, so if I cover a topic, you will probably not see it again for a very long time, thus you may want to read the older posts here and here. Also, check out my answers to frequently asked questions and while you're at it, don't forget to subscribe to the blog via google or RSS.

Yeah, hey what wait, isn’t it the other way around? As regular readers will know I have a manical obsession with turning things on their head and making fun of them (just ask our dog), but there is some truth to this.

Consider the regular idea of making small sacrifices now to get big differences later. Usually the concept of saving small monthly amounts and compounding the interest (a pf blogger favorite) is brought out as an example. However, the small changes may easily be lost in the noise of daily operations. One week of saving $2 a day are eliminated by an extra expenditure on Sunday because the money was there.

Conversely, current big sacrifices are very visible and can not be ignored. And later on they will still cause small ripples. For instance, today I bought another 50 shares of GE stock (I got it close to the 4 year low price) which over the next year will pay $62 in dividends and so and on so forth, hopefully. Not a lot compared to the bigger splash of around $1400, but every three months from now on there will be a small difference from the dividend pay out.