Early Retirement Extreme

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

Deodorant refurbishing

Published in June 7th, 2008

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I’ve been annoyed at having to throw out the last 5% of my (stick) deodorants that doesn’t come up no matter how much the dial on the bottom is turned. Now, I have a solution to that. Take an [...]

Row, row, row your boat — On the law of comparative advantage

Published in April 8th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in DIY, culture

7 Comments

According to the economic law of comparative advantage two parties are economically better off if they both focus on their advantage and trade for everything else. For instance, if Adam can make 4 widgets/hour or 3 gadgets/hour while Bob can make 1 widget/hour but 2 gadgets/hour, Adam should focus solely on making widgets, while Bob [...]

Living aboard

Published in April 3rd, 2008

Posted by Jacob in DIY, cost of living, culture, household, planning, rat race, standard of living

13 Comments

As mentioned in last Saturday’s roundup, I had some ideas regarding the future last week, specifically how to spend retirement and how to live. I’m the type that sees life itself as an adventure. I left my home country almost 10 years to go to grad school in another country. When I finished, I left [...]

Making socks last

Published in January 11th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in DIY, clothing, frugal, recycling, voluntary simplicity

3 Comments

Get identical socks. First of all, they are easier to pair up after doing the laundry. More importantly though, if one sock fails you don’t have to throw out the pair or wear mismatched socks like Pippi Longstockings. Simply pair it with another sock. I don’t think you have to be a mathematician to appreciate [...]

Get a push lawn mower

Published in December 31st, 2007

Posted by Jacob in DIY, anticonsumerism

4 Comments

Americans have a strange fascination with lawns. Even in the rolling hills of California, where grass is normally brown, people maintain luscious green lawns. The squarish plots of green in the middle of all the brown are some of the first suggestions of signs of intelligence (or lack thereof) when seen from space. An [...]

Making your own olive oil lamp

Published in December 15th, 2007

Posted by Jacob in DIY

7 Comments

One of the things I enjoy is doing things differently, better, more interestingly, and less expensively. Often this means making my own, finding another and usually a different way than heading down to the mall to pick up something lame in some boutique.
I like my wood stove not only for the heat it produces but [...]