Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Jason makes me laugh out loud. I'm aligned with sclass again, but I think that guys like us find joy in wrenching that others see as terrible work and suffering. It's another version of Renaissance man. I always chuckle to myself when I hear the complaint that computers and technology in cars are ba...

I truly appreciate the different points of view. Sometimes I feel like the dumbest kid in the advanced placement class, but sometimes I can offer my unique perspective. That intellectual challenge has kept me interested in this forum. Especially when I come across something that I think that I may b...

There is no working man's "badge of honor". My whole life, I have known people who were/are jealous of me. Snapshot examples are all that I can offer to make a point. Capitalism is an excellent contributor to ERE. I've told so many stories and attempted relatable examples to illustrate the...

@7wb5- that reminds me of a job that I had one summer between college years. I was employed at HP building calculators on an assembly line. My first day was at the battery spring and overlay station. It was torturous, those first eight hours. But I wasn't the only one suffering. There was another gu...

Time. Efficiency. Productivity. In a hyper competitive economy, these are very important metrics. Capitalism, fathered by Adam Smith is the best system to contribute to the wealth of nations. Without a successful system, early retirement would remain the dream that's just out of reach. Having achiev...

Some very good points to ponder here. Being a one man show on a productive farm allows me to relate some practical points. Times have changed. The availability and price of labor can influence outsourcing vs insourcing. I personally don't have much choice but to do it myself. There are some things t...

Eight is enough.

8x annual salary. 8% SWD.

8 friends. 8 children.

8 hours a day of servitude.

8 inches of annual rainfall.

8 spatulas.

8 hobbies.

Add to the list of past failures: pure democracy. The simple fact is that people without skin in a game are not going to ponder the ramifications of their decision. So long as we subsidize and any other method of disconnecting the association of cause and effect, we can expect failure. I am always s...

@JP thanks for the recommended book. Another guilty pleasure! But I am somewhat proud that my book shelf is bigger than my television...

Motivated by fear, I have spent a lifetime trying to understand people. My selfish motivation has been to avoid the pitfalls that others fall into. One major pitfall is consumerism. Consumerism is all too common in American society. It is viewed in positive terms and credited with driving the econom...

Ah yes! The good old individual affidavit vs the scientific case study? For the choice few cognitive enough at age fifteen to ask themselves the op question, maybe it should be given serious contemplation. For the vast majority: "stay in school." You'll never really know what you didn't le...

Two quick grain drill stories: Years ago, I asked a neighbor to borrow his grain drill to plant thirty acres. It was in sad shape but functional. He'd literally duct taped the seed boxes and used cardboard with duct tape on a couple of the bigger holes. I thought it would be nice to fix it properly....

In our farm community, there is unofficial network of friends and neighbors. Some are good contributors and borrowers and some are not. I've made mental notes of who has what and try to be a better contributor by purchasing a few specialty tools. That has given me some balance of the give and take. ...

Years ago, my son had spent four days in a hospital. I had a literal 1 1/2 inch thick stack of numerous bills to work through. My mother was doing medical coding at the time and I asked for her help. There were numerous "errors" that were hidden in the codes. They double charged and charge...

@michael- It's funny how childhood memories of our grandparents can stick with us. I also remember frequent visits to my grandfather, only he was frequently in a hospital. He had a myriad of problems - most of which were within his control, but due to their typical seventh grade education level, wer...

It's so easy to see so many things wrong with our health care system that it's hard to accept how it is and focus on what to do about it. Bottom line? HDLP. Protect against the catastrophic events and live healthy so you can keep the odds in your favor of never having to use it. There is enough pass...

I love it when someone is brave enough to stretch the boundaries. That is the theme of ere. A bloated system is ripe with corruption. Usually in the name of "helping children" or "feeding the poor". After all, nobody can challenge that nobility? The big picture here is the dichot...

I was going to make the go used suggestion, but then I remembered a couple of experiences that changed my mind. The most noteworthy was the set of four like new tires that I scored at a farm auction for very little money to fit my pickup. They were great for a few hundred miles, then one of the fron...

There's a fine line between niche and fad. But traditional business motto is to stay out of the center. I like the space in the middle of those targets. If you make exactly what everyone makes, then you have maximum competition. If you make a radical unique product, then you are prone to fad drop ou...

The one man show is sometimes difficult. And dangerous. I have a buddy, like me that does it alone. He recently lost his dad and it is impacting him now how much his dad pitching in a little here and there really added up. Sometimes I see the comraderie that the migrant workers have working in the f...