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.
I want to bring your attention to this excellent list of books compiled by Charles Hugh Smith, who also writes OfTwoMinds and Survival+ (see this post). Many of these books also form the foundation of my own thinking about the future [and the past and the present].
It also includes the ERE book as shown here in the “ERE library” which is modeled on the Jefferson library. Yes, he had book cases much like this—I built it using [most of] the instructions from Roy Underhill.
Actually I just wanted to show off the book case I just finished making. It is my first foray into dovetails and this case took about 8 hours to make all combined including squaring off the boards with a block plane and chiseling out the pins and dovetails.
Total cost of materials for the case: $5 or so. And it’ll last for decades unlike disposable nail and pressed board furniture. Whether it deserves to live that long is another matter.
PS: It’s actually intended as a CD case which is why the pins are on the wrong boards for a book case. The plan was to miter the corners like the originals, but I had a hard time with the 3D thinking as it was. Next iteration will include mitered corners [and hopefully tighter dovetails].
Originally posted 2011-04-26 19:03:38.
