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.
After about a month I hit the soft ceiling as expected. From now on it is going to be a slow grind of building muscle as all the neural gains have been maxed out.
I can currently do 8L+8R snatches with 24kg/53lbs eight times in 8 minutes. This leaves me with a break of about 15-20 seconds in between sets and it is pretty tough. It is also pretty close to my old power-capacity.
The weak point for the challenge is clearly my left hand grip. I have therefore been switching up the program by lifting heavier bells. Consequently, I can also do 8R and 8L snatches with the 32kg/71lbs KB, which is a personal record. Just one set though. I can also do 4 straight military presses with my right arm. That’s not a record for me though. I used to be able to do 5. The fun thing about this is that I am reminded how fun it is to be strong again. With the all around cross training I had almost forgotten. It is much easier to throw boxes and other heavy items around now.
In other news, I have been thinking of doing a self-supported marathon, that is, strap on a camel bak, fill up the 70oz capacity, add a couple water bottles in the main pack, and pick a time and day that is not too warm. Why not? The goal would be to finish faster than the Oprah-time(*). Actually, I’m just going to pick some out and back distance which around 26 miles and make up for any short fall by running around the block a couple of times, so the timing may not be exact.
(*) Yes, it’s a widely used benchmark. The time to beat is 4:29:20. To compare the marathon distance can be walked in about 7 hours.
Originally posted 2009-08-10 14:48:53.
