Early Retirement ExtremeEarly Retirement ExtremeThe self-sufficient, environmentally friendly, frugal, and capitalistic fast track to financial independence and a simpler lifestyle. Articles
Cauliflower omelet - another sub-dollar meal.
2008-04-16 16:10:00 One cooked cauliflower for the elven kings under the sky, an equal volume of boiled potatoes for the dwarf lords, nine dashes of pepper for mortal men, doomed to die. One pan for the dark lord, also a lid, and enough eggs to rule them all and in darkness bind them together in the pan of Mordor - Served with ... More About: Dollar , Cauliflower , Meal
Why I won?t join the middle class
2008-04-15 16:12:00 Mrs Micah asked what’s wrong with being middle class focusing on not working enjoyable but not too stressful jobs and still having the time and money to live comfortably. Lazyman talked about the upper limit of trading time for money and made some comments about the poor choice of working overtime just to buy unsatisfying ... More About: Join , Middle , Class , Middle Class , Middle-Class
Let?s play some hockey (my guilty pleasure)
2008-04-14 16:16:00 I first got introduced to hockey in phys ed. in elementary school. Our teacher handed out these yellow plastic sticks and put two mylec goals at each end and let us have at it. I saw a similar spectacle a couple of years ago. This time the kids were wearing gloves and full head gear ... More About: Hockey , Play , Pleasure , Guilty
How I?m now getting books, CDs, and DVDs without paying for them
2008-04-12 16:08:00 One measure of financial independence is not to have to worry about having money to pay for goods. This is usually accomplished by having lots of money, but with the internet a second method is emerging. I’m talking about swap sites, freebie sites, etc. where computers match up people who then trade their stuff for ... More About: Books , Dvds
The major risks of buy and hold index investing
2008-04-11 16:17:00 I see stock markets falling in three, possibly more, stages. The first stage is the golden age of capitalism, where owners run and have a stake in their own company. In the second stage operations and stakeholdership is taken over by professionals, that is, CEOs, who own less than 1% of the company, and (institutional) fund ... More About: Investing , Index , Hold , Major
Making changes
2008-04-10 16:19:00 Changes that depend more on a lack of a particular attitude(*) than a lack of skills or opportunities, will generally progress through the following stages. (*) Health goals, diet goals, debt and savings goals generally fall within this category. Precontemplation. The person does not see a need for change although others often do see a problem. If ...
Cavalcade of Risk #49
2008-04-09 16:39:00 In reality, what happens happens. However, once an observer or an agent is introduced, the agent will try to model, mold, or change reality. Any modeling or molding of reality has known-knowns, known-unknows, unknown-knowns, and unknown-unknowns (Read more here). Known-knowns follow from certitude. Unknown-knowns follow from incompetence. Risk deals with uncertainty in the form of ...
Row, row, row your boat ? On the law of comparative advantage
2008-04-08 16:26:00 According to the economic law of comparative advantage two parties are economically better off if they both focus on their advantage and trade for everything else. For instance, if Adam can make 4 widgets/hour or 3 gadgets/hour while Bob can make 1 widget/hour but 2 gadgets/hour, Adam should focus solely on making widgets, while Bob ... More About: Boat
Tap water
2008-04-07 16:17:00 I’m blown away when a person is able to spend more than $20k a year on living expenses. But then I realize that they have little appreciation of the value of money [relative to what the money is spent on]. It’s treated like water and it slips through their fingers. Turn on a pressurized faucet ... More About: Water
Saturday Roundup - More book swapping
2008-04-05 16:24:00 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 ... More About: Roundup , Book , Saturday
Overtraining
2008-04-04 16:40:00 Not relying on a car (other than the occasional lift from DW), one of the things I have to worry about is overtraining(*) especially given that I’m not 20 anymore. The fact that I’m mostly moved by muscle power means that I have a rather real sense of how far I can go and how ...
Living aboard
2008-04-03 16:32:00 As mentioned in last Saturday’s roundup, I had some ideas regarding the future last week, specifically how to spend retirement and how to live. I’m the type that sees life itself as an adventure. I left my home country almost 10 years to go to grad school in another country. When I finished, I left ... More About: Living
My favorite writings of March 2008
2008-04-02 16:08:00 I just saw a comment on another site that ERExtreme is really a minimalist blog claiming to be a personal finance blog. This is probably true. I have not been writing much about personal finance, since for me it is mostly a solved problem. Live in a consumer culture where salaries are high, but defy ... More About: Writings , March , Favorite , March 2008 , 2008
A salary veils economic reality
2008-04-01 16:38:00 I just sent my first invoice as a freelancer. It turns out that I have covered all my cost-of-living expenses (and then some) for March by working just a few hours every other day. What an amazing proof of concept. Being paid an hourly rate and being able to work whenever (when there is work available) ... More About: Reality , Economic , Salary
Make your own refried beans
2008-03-31 16:27:00 Here’s how to make refried beans (unit cost: negligible) First you get a 20lbs bag of pinto beans for free at freecycle.org Second, you take a large bowl and soak the some beans in water all day. Third, you cook them in a pressure cooker. An ordinary pot works as well, but it takes 3 times ... More About: Beans , Make
Marriage
2008-03-30 16:20:00 XGF sent this funny youtube movie. I’ll have to ask DW for comments. Me, I have no comments More About: Marriage
Saturday Roundup - 500 subscribers in 4 months
2008-03-29 15:34:00 According to feedburner, there are now more than 500 people who regularly read my staggering thoughts of genius what I write. I don’t know exactly how feedburner counts, but in the past few days the subscriber number has really taken off adding over 100 new subscribers in a week. I don’t know why, because I’m ... More About: Roundup , Saturday , Months
A modest prediction for the next 20 years
2008-03-28 15:11:00 Predicting the future always provides an excellent opportunity to make a fool out of oneself. One is almost destined to be wrong on some part or the other. If nothing else, the timing might be off, or the details may not be exactly right. I have noted that whereas pre-1980 predictions mostly envisioned the future as ... More About: Modest , Years
Minimalist inspirations
2008-03-27 15:17:00 I find great utility in being a minimalist. Having less stuff makes it easier to maintain, move, and store. This frees both precious time and money, which can be used to reach a higher standard of living(*) Forsooth, I can not rationalize the tendency to accumulate stuff for the sake off stuff at the expense ...
How to do original research
2008-03-26 15:20:00 I have a confession to make. I write a personal finance blog, but I rarely read other personal finance blogs. There is a reason for that. Here is the reason. I find that once anyone get actively involved in any community, they will start to (subconsciously) adopt the thinking modes of the community almost like ... More About: Research , Original
Spring Holiday
2008-03-25 15:07:00 I had today (Monday) off. Last week I noticed that Monday was marked as “spring holiday” on the calendar. It took me a few moments to figure out that this probably meant Easter. Ah, the separation of church and state when taken to the point of confusion. Thus today was spent much like I imagine retirement ... More About: Holiday , Spring
Big on methods, poor on fundamentals.
2008-03-24 15:37:00 There is an abundant swath of personal finance tools, 10 step programs, weight loss programs, etc. that are all intended to fix our problems. This country is HUGE on methods but poor on fundamentals. To beat obesity, you’ve got to consume less and burn more. There is no alternative. And to do that, you’ve ... More About: Methods , Poor
Saturday Roundup - A safety moment (with taxes)!
2008-03-22 17:20:00 Today we’re going to one of the tax companies to get our state taxes done. Hopefully they will give us a discount since I already did the federal return myself. In 2007 we were apart time resident of two states. The tax consequences of that can be described in one word: PAIN! Mostly the problem ... More About: Safety , Taxes , Roundup , Saturday , Moment
The real reason it is so easy/hard to get ahead
2008-03-20 15:20:00 DW and I were talking about how personal finance can be easy in theory and hard in practice. I think the reason is that theory, like language, occurs in two steps. Passive and active. Understanding and speaking. Passively, yes, sure we understand that we should spend less than we earn, that we should save money. ... More About: Hard , Reason , Real , Easy , Ahead
Choosing a retirement plan for extremely early retirement
2008-03-19 15:26:00 Consumers are widely recommended to contribute around 15% of their paycheck to a retirement plan. The question whether to pick a ROTH IRA or a traditional IRA does not have a definite answer. For instance, it depends on whether one’s future [retirement] income is expected to in a higher tax bracket (ROTH) or a lower ... More About: Retirement , Early , Early retirement , Plan
The value of hobbies
2008-03-18 15:13:00 Coming from the mindset of an earlier post about passion, I am speaking of the values that optimizes the successful triad of health, wealth, and wisdom (all part of financial independence) rather than more typical choice of comfortable or exciting escapism (all part of the rat race?) which to me suggests a lack of fulfillment ... More About: Hobbies
The ones we don?t know we don?t know or why specialization is the biggest p
2008-03-17 15:12:00 Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are “known knowns”; there are things we know we know. We also know there are “known unknowns”; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also “unknown unknowns” ? ...
Saturday Roundup - Interview edition
2008-03-15 16:48:00 This week I got interviewed by KimC over at frugalhacks.com. If you want to know some more details about the motivations for this site and my background head on over and read the interview. Moving on … paperbackswap.com is really working for me. I already got two books waiting for me that I would otherwise ... More About: Roundup , Interview , Saturday , Edition
Prosper taxes for debt sales and bankruptices
2008-03-14 15:02:00 I just did my tax returns for my prosper loans and here’s how I did it. It has been very difficult, nay, impossible to find complete instructions online other than the in principle complete but to me useless suggestion to “consult a tax professional”(*). It does not make a lot of sense to me ... More About: Taxes , Sales , Prosper , Debt
Getting rid of books
More articles from this author:2008-03-13 15:25:00 I have a problem with books. My problem is that I like to read books that are typically hard to get at your local library. I also like to occasionally be able to quickly reference something I read, because I usually remember where I read something (down to the location on the page), but I ... More About: Books 1, 2, 3, 4 |
|
 |
|
 |
