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.
Has anyone ever felt that or know what I’m talking about? Maybe one needs to have been studying for a while. I am talking about the period, usually about a week or so, right after an examination and right after a major cramming session which has suddenly been replaced by somewhat of a void.
Questions that appear are: Now what? All that work, and for what?
It takes a while to develop a new direction.
There is another examination related feeling. Lets assume that there are two exams and one depends on the other; you can’t start preparing for number two until number one is fully completed. There’s a similar feeling to the “examination anticlimax” during the time, say for a written exam, between the exam itself and getting the grade. You’d like to get started, but you just have to wait.
Of course these problems come about only when the exam or a similar defining event is seen as the end point — the beginning of the end rather than the end of the beginning to use Churchill’s words.
My PhD examination was a non-event. It was practically another seminar—at that point I had already done several. The reason was that it was merely the end of the beginning. Conversely, many other exams [taken just for credits] left a mental malaise.
The difference between the two outlooks is that one is goal oriented and the other is process oriented. If you are process oriented, starts and beginnings do not exist. I wonder if this problem is only experience by goal oriented types (or those who think they are)?
Originally posted 2010-07-30 09:32:06.
