Early Retirement Extreme

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

Dear Graduate, do you want to retire in five years?

Published in June 17th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in financial independence, personal finance, standard of living

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Dear Graduate,
By now you should have obtained a degree. While this shows you have no particular useful skills, except for a few notable professions, it will make you employable in the corporate world. You now have a choice to [...]

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 [...]

Why it is so hard for Americans to be healthy and not spend money

Published in March 12th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in consumerism, culture, standard of living

9 Comments

The American health care system is broken. The reason is not that employer group plans makes insurance more expensive for those who don’t have an employer. No, the reason that the American health care system is broken is because Americans universally tend to believe that

Technology can solve all problems.
If you spend enough, you can get [...]

A typical weekday of my life - spring 2008

Published in March 10th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in blogging, fitness, household, job, standard of living

10 Comments

Recently Trent at The Simple Dollar posted his schedule. I think it’s quite interesting to see what goes on behind the curtains because even when everybody mostly live in the same types of houses, drive the same kinds of cars, buy the same stuff and have jobs, we are all quite different when it [...]

The Early Retirement Path

Published in March 3rd, 2008

Posted by Jacob in financial independence, frugal, household, standard of living

6 Comments

In this guest post Tim from Canadian Dream: Free at 45 shares his path to early retirement at 45. If you like to read more about the road to early retirement you can subscribe to his RSS Feed here.
I like to think of myself as fairly ordinary. To outsiders I seem to [...]

Programmers, ultra-marathons, and voluntary simplicity

Published in February 22nd, 2008

Posted by Jacob in motivation, rat race, standard of living, voluntary simplicity

11 Comments

I just rediscovered the simple living network thanks to a blog by Fred Ecks(*). As far as I have been able to understand he decided to quit his job as a programmer at age 35 and adopt a simple lifestyle. He now spends time renovating a sail boat and doing ultra-marathons.
Sounds eerily familiar. Here’s [...]

No need to save millions - here’s a quicker way to financial independence

Published in February 18th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in budgeting, cost of living, financial independence, standard of living

22 Comments

With a name like early retirement (extreme) I get a lot of inquires about how many millions one needs to become financially independent. A brief search in the personal finance blogging world reveals several bloggers that are aiming for the millions. Not this guy.
The idea that you need to be a millionaire is predicated on [...]

How to downsize your kitchen

Published in January 31st, 2008

Posted by Jacob in cooking, ecological footprint, household, standard of living

3 Comments

Step one: Figure out what you need
When I was single, I eventually figured out exactly what I needed (see my minimalist kitchen post for details) to cook my food). Since getting married it is clear that those needs have changed. Without an inventory analysis (*) it is impossible to know what needed and what is [...]

How to be happy in the long run

Published in January 30th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in financial security, household, investments, job, motivation, personal finance, standard of living

18 Comments

The following is a list of the things I’ve learned during my first 30 years about how to live a good life.
Take it for what it’s worth.
1) Decide what your priorities are
Your main priorities are your health, food, shelter, and who/if you marry in that order.
Your other priorities are your children, your friends and your [...]

If I retire with a million dollars how well can I live?

Published in January 22nd, 2008

Posted by Jacob in assets, budgeting, cost of living, financial security, personal finance, standard of living

5 Comments

Financial planners universally use a rule of thumb that you can deduct about 4% of your retirement account annually without compromising your principal(*). With a retirement account of $1,000,000 you can therefore spend $40,000 a year.
As for how well you can live on $40,000 a year that is another question entirely.
If you live in New [...]

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