Early Retirement Extreme

Financial independence, frugality, self-sufficiency, ecology, capitalism, and voluntary simplicity

Who needs a college degree anyway?

Published in July 14th, 2008

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I think that in many cases a college degree is a waste of money! I do believe that university educations should only be for a select few. In particular I do not believe that sending everybody to college will [...]

Retire Early: The Importance of Getting Out of Debt

Published in June 24th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in debt, financial independence, motivation, planning

4 Comments

This is a guest post from Miranda Marquit. Miranda Marquit is freelance writer and personal finance blogger. She also edits information on debt consolidation for DestroyDebt.com.

My husband and I have discussed retiring by the time we’re 50, and one of the major requirements that always comes up is how we want to be completely debt [...]

Dear unborn grandchildren

Published in May 18th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in debt, economy

3 Comments

Thank you for the generous $1200 stimulus package gift we just received from you. You know, traditionally it’s been the obligation one generation to help the next generation along. Parents help out their children, even their unborn children, by saving a little start up money so that the next generation has enough to start out [...]

Now you can have a 7 year car loan. Outrageous!!

Published in February 16th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in budgeting, consumerism, debt, economy, sub-prime

4 Comments

In an effort to sell cars to debt laden consumers Toyota is now offering 84 month car loans(*). The immediate effect is to lower the monthly payments. In the long run this could have two effects.
The first long term effect is an increase in the price of new cars (relative to inventory) just like lower [...]

5 ways to help get a prosper loan funded

Published in February 7th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in debt, investments, money, personal finance

3 Comments

As someone who has lent out over $12,000 over the past 1.5 years here is what I prefer to see in a loan request before I bid.

Be accountable! The original idea with peer to peer lending was that a group of people (like a knitting club) would get together and hold each other accountable. Needless [...]

Cash flow diagrams for the poor, the middle class, and the investor class

Published in January 26th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in assets, compound interest, debt, expenses, financial independence, financial security, investments, money, personal finance

16 Comments

Being poor or unable to get credit 100% of the expenses must be covered with wage income. Schematically the cash flow looks like this

Thus you put your time into your work which gives you a wage income that is used to pay for stuff that goes back to you.People with a credit score can go [...]

Stranger in a strange land

Published in January 12th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in consumerism, debt, financial independence, job, mortgage, personal finance, rat race, standard of living

22 Comments

Get a student loan. Get a college education. Get a mortgage and become a home owner. Have a career. Put 15% of your income in a 401k/IRA for 35 years. Plan to retire at 60… any of this sound familiar?
That’s because it is the standard recipe for a “successful” life in middle class America. It [...]