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.
Paperbackswap.com has turned out to be great for “upgrading” my personal library. I list books I haven’t read for a year and which I can not really imagine reading again. Since books are swapped one-to-one it has turned out to be less great for getting rid of books (and I have a lot of books to get rid of) unless one desires to build up a stash of “credits”.
Certain other books of mine will fetch a hefty sum; I’m thinking of some of the graduate level textbooks that I have never read, but which I bought in case I might read them or in case they went out of print (you can never check these out of the library since it’s always sitting in some guy’s office). The one’s I have never opened are going as well.
Then there’s DW’s giant comic collection (X-men and others) which takes up a LOT of space. We have yet to find a buyer. Maybe J.D. at Get Rich Slowly would be interested – I hear he has a comic book fetish 🙂
This week’s carnivals:
