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.
This is a wee bit more than I expected when I hit the publish button on the last day of September, 2010. According to memory, I would have been disappointed if it had only sold 30 copies (given the work that went into it), whereas 100 would have been good enough.
Since 2500 was a bit of a mile stone for me, the list price has been lowered to $14.95. We’ll see what the distributors do with that.
You can read about what I have to say about the book and by clicking on one of the following numbers or letters 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O, you can read the reviews of others. (D and M are my two favorite reviews.)
Amazon makes it possible to read the first chapter for free, which admittedly does not really include any strategies for saving tons of money—for that you’d have to go to chapter 6. To read the first chapter, you have to click on the button in the right sidebar under “Kindle Edition” which says something like “read the first chapter” in tiny print. You don’t need a kindle gadget to do this, but you may have to download their free app.
Alternatively, you can get the book from the library or if your local library doesn’t have it, attempt to get it from them.
There’s also the 50+ long waiting list to join at paperbackswap.
