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.
Carpooling has been suggested as a solution to alleviate increasing gas prices. The problem is that finding someone to carpool with is a difficult task requiring much research into whether the driver is dependable, etc. Except for major cities it is even to time-consuming/costly to get a cab. Thus today it is highly convenient to own your own car.
A much better system would be if all car owners had an easy way of turning into part time cabbies. If people could expect a large fraction of drivers to be willing to take one for a ride at a price, this would significantly reduce the individual need for private cars. In general this would be a more efficient economic system as [unemployed] car owners would derive an income and car-non owners would save on car ownership.
It might surprise you to learn that such a system once existed. The semi-cabs were called jitneys (jitney=slang for nickel) where the expectation was that a ride cost a nickel. They were killed off by government subsidizing streetcars. Later the streetcars were bought out by the big automakers and the need for private car ownership was created.
Originally posted 2008-06-09 18:47:46.
