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.
If you use a browser and you are addicted to more than a handful of blogs, then you are probably familiar with the routine of continuously checking the websites to look for updates. I used to do that too until I discovered the beautiful efficiency of RSS readers. You can read more about RSS here. An RSS reader will regularly check all your subscriptions for updates. If there is an update it will even download the content(*) so you never have to use your browser.
There are several RSS stand alone readers. Some browsers also have built in RSS readers. You can even use google to read an RSS feed. I believe that you can also use google to search for websites using keywords, but I digress. To subscribe to this blog go to the upper right corner of the page and click on whatever option looks most appealing. You can even subscribe via email.
(*) For some inexplicable reason some sites only provide a partial feed e.g. the first 200 words or maybe not even that. My guess is that the site owner expects people to go online read the post with their browser instead. I think this is highly inconvenient, so if a blog only has a partial feed, I cancel my subscription and rarely return (why bother when it is so much easier to read other blogs via RSS?). There is in fact only one blog where I make an exception and that is Daily Speculations because it is simply too full of insights to ignore even it it is annoying to have to click through.
Originally posted 2008-12-11 16:22:16.
