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.
Update: In 2011 eHow decided to buy out their writers. At the time, I had been consistently making $10/month from my articles. The buy out offer was $22 to transfer ownership of the articles I had written. Feeling somewhat insulted, I refused and kept my articles. This shows that not owning your revenue platform is a serious liability. I recommend only writing articles for upfront payment or if monetized through advertising or similar deals that you own the website.
I only wrote a couple of eHow articles in October, but earnings were still up.
Here is the income so far
- August: $5.55 (only about 10 days)
- September: $12.10
- October: $16.88
About $7-8 was from a single day, so reasonable earnings are about $10/month for my current “portfolio”. This is equivalent to buying a high-yield position for about $1200 which is not bad for the effort. Alternatively, if the $10 can be considered secure in the long term, the money stream is worth about $3000 in present dollars.
Originally posted 2009-11-01 05:01:54.
