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.
More and more books are coming out all the time (we’re in a publishing bubble!) and it would be interesting to see which books, if any, you (readers) would recommend for someone who is looking for
- Financial independence
- Alternative living/voluntary simplicity
- Early retirement
I realize there is a ton of other subjects from generic how to start a retirement account to how to get out of debt. You can list those in the comments too if you have a really good argument for why the rest of us should be interested.
If you want a longer list of my recommendations, check out my list of financial freedom books and my second list of books.
Instachallenge: Grab a plastic grocery bag (kudos if you successfully eliminated plastic/paper grocery bags from your life) and head into your closet (those with walk-in closets can read this literally, others can read it figuratively) and fill it with clothes you haven’t worn in a year. Put this clothes in the bag and donate it to someone who can make better use of it than you did.
I just did it myself.
The whole exercise will take less than 5 minutes, yet I predict less than 20% will consider it and less than 20% of the 20% (that is, 4% of the total) will actually do it. Do you think I am right?
Originally posted 2010-06-28 15:00:08.
