Early Retirement Extreme Forums

... but I tend to find I get most of the real work done in very little time and therefore spend more time working on my own stuff. It seems whoever I replaced had nothing to do most of the time or was incredibly incompetent with their time management. I have optimised most of my role's responsibili...

About the new job possibility, one of the advantages of the ERE mindset (and accumulated wealth) is the freedom to try your hand at interesting, if ambitious, opportunities. It sounds like you have a choice between interesting and engaging work, but questionable/unknown leadership, vs your existing ...

Hmm, perhaps we can make a game out of your final years? Can you think of creative ways to quantify your earnings (and ways that you can share safely)? Examples: The next 2 months will give me a lifetime supply of my favorite bottle of <insert favorite drink category> This next month will let me out...

I’m thoroughly enjoying the journal, so I think I’ll try and contribute in a fairly contrarian manner. Here’s my thoughts... Right now you have a very good time-to-money exchange rate going on. It can totally make sense to perform this transaction to have money so that for the rest of your life, you...

I'd recommend checking out "Dual Momentum" as a gateway book. It won't be the "classic" text you're looking for, but it's a good introduction to swallowing the concept of momentum. It uses very simple techniques, stays away from anything complicated, etc. He has a few example por...

December was a weird month for me. I have been avoiding updating this as everything was in flux, but I think I should squeeze out a few updates. In December I “sold” my side enterprises, for some definitions of “sell”. This also made expenses very tricky to properly account for. As far as income, mu...

I love your four 30's. Let's call it the 430s plan. What would you like to seed with your 30S?

The downside is that having 25% in gold is pretty nuts. So is 25% in cash. Just curious as why you think this? I have no truly objective reason, it just feels nuts. Perhaps it flies so far in the face of the traditional view: equities grow, bonds hedge, gold/cash is for hoarders. I'm just still com...

This came up in a couple of threads, and has been bouncing around in my head begging me to write it down. Here’s my attempt at a hopefully unbiased overview of some of the different investing approaches I’m seeing. First, a tiny bit of background knowledge, caveats, and definitions. *Caveat: I’ll to...

December, 2014 I went through a lot these past two years, and it seems plausible to me that the stress has altered my brain in some way Yup! December, 2014 Another thing I've realized is that my memory is increasingly worse. I have a very difficult time remembering personal things and facts. Much w...

Oh, crap, state income tax deduction has to be itemized. Well, there goes the standard deduction.

What all do you itemize? State income tax would be the big one for me, as well as interest if I had a mortgage (I don't).

There seems to be a gap here that I'm missing. How did your self-actualization turn out? Weren't you wanting to go back to school and/or start a tutoring business? What happened to cause you to look at job offers?

Review: Rich Dad Poor Dad. While reading this book, I was continually amazed at all of the great content and great lessons the book was providing me. I kept thinking how I was going to refer all my friends to this book. It seemed like there was a lot of interesting lessons and advice coming out of i...

Wage income is just about the worst way to get income, from a tax-perspective. If you're taking a paycheck from someone else, there isn't much you can do to avoid paying taxes after 401k/IRA/HSA deductions (there are lots of other deductions and credits, but those involve you spending money first)....

Not to be confused with tax evasion. Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime to one's own advantage In retirement planning, there’s 3 sort of buckets that people fall in, which I’ll call: dormant, active, and extreme. Dormancy is the condition of not saving enough to retire. Active is fo...

I usually ask for a contribution to a tax-advantaged education account for myself, relatives, or offspring. That usually ends up with me getting more value *and* I don't get stuff that I don't need. Barring that, books.

Finally, a “normal” month! Income levels are more typical. For expenses, this is the first month some of my obligatory costs have settled down (they were highly variable previously). I didn’t give an overall breakdown of costs prior as things were in such flux. The fixed costs account for most of th...

I'm so happy to hear of your success! As far as the leftovers from the fun budget, I'd prefer to re-invest them and treat it as increasing the fun account annuity. Thus, spoonman can now spend $100.10 every month in perpetuity! It would be a little more math each month to do, but I'd get a kick out ...

Book review: Your Money or Your Life Pretty much everyone has read YMYL. If you haven’t, then read it as it’s the fore-runner to FI/ERE. I think I will give an almost pointless brief review here, pointless because everyone has reviewed it or already read it. But, I want to mention my take-aways from...

How much have you walked away from? Anyone break their golden handcuffs? Many jobs, especially if you’re good at it and work for a company/field that is desperately short of true talent, have employee retention policies. For example, there could be a significant cash or stock position to be paid out...