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.

Every so often, I get the objection that ERE means that one has to live like a student.

I don’t understand what was so bad about living like a student and why this objection is so common. Am I really in the minority because I liked living like a student?

Each weekday my (undergraduate) student life had 4 hours of lectures (which interested me), 2 hours of homework (which I could have done without), I knew all my neighbors and we often hung out, we had a weekly game night and parties once a month. Sometimes we had movie nights and sometimes we had a spontaneous soccer match or a trip to the beach. We often cooked dinner together. There was little worrying about anything financial. I remember this time as one of the best in my life.

Conversely, when I’ve talked to people who have “grown up”, they mostly talk about bills, how their job sucks, how their colleagues or boss suck, and how tired they always are. They miss getting together with other people every other night (nobody seems to have the time), their last party was the annual company dinner, nothing happens spontaneously (when did anyone last arrange a soccer match with the people on your street?) and everything must be given 3 weeks notice so people can coordinate their scheduling. Outings are no longer free road trips to Canada or the haunted house, but must involve either a Raiders game, a cruise vacation, etc.

Some probably enjoy their non-student life, but I hear these complaints too often.

I liked living like a student and in many ways, I still try to. The only difference is that today I’m maybe a little wiser, my stuff is a little better, I’ve eliminated homework, and I got money in the bank for a change. In fact, my main lament is that many of my friends have turned into the people described in the paragraph above.

I wonder what other experiences people have had that make working life seem so great and student life seem so horrible.

Originally posted 2011-10-28 14:27:30.