Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Apologies for making those assumptions! The idea that you can be stretched too thin while simultaneously living at maximum fulfillment makes me think differently, appreciate that mental 180; maybe I've been thinking about fulfillment 'wrong' for quite some time. Whichever way you land, sounds like i...

Hey sodatrain, thanks for that, sometimes it's odd to find your own voice in such a bustling community so your words mean a lot. \\ One other way to think about admiration is how we admire our hero's.. but it's best done only if we've learned a bit about them ;) Nietzsche was a real smartypants but ...

Totally agree @suo, leverage is key. I'm speaking for the perspective of someone who would want to keep my staff member while simultaneously being (potentially) frustrated at it's cost(s). Cal Newport is a bit of a productivity junky but his book "So good they cant ignore you" seems like a...

To your point, many folks definitely get mired in the process of working toward FIRE without cultivating a life worth retiring to (MMM, fatFIRE, etc don't really emphasize this, surprisingly). That's a big part of why ERE is so appealing, imo: it aims to move the needle on both work and "life&q...

And to your point, ertyu, how do I pick and choose when to "buy the subscription" vs "own the thing and deal with the hassle"? How do I make sure that thing doesn't own me (via the negative experience of ongoing maintenance)? Can I do it while meeting the needs of modernity, as J...

In the interest of not polluting other journals, I'll keep my spite to my own journal: For a forum supposedly about life involving other stuff than work, it really does seem like talking about work is a major pastime here. What happened to just putting in your hours and then going home to have fun?...

Confessions of an ERE Hoarder: Storage, Maintenance and Organization ....This is what addiction does to us. We add something to the system, which initially brings it to a higher state or relieves an internal tension. Over time this thing moves from positive to necessary. Necessary things require ma...

Agree w @mathiverse, @delay, speaking from personal experience: having folks decide they are making a change is understandable, but as the operator, it's a big problem. The cost to change/replace staff is very high, so anyone leaning on a business to accommodate their requests needs to understand wh...

My first hydroponic greens experiment ended up yielding 2.6lbs of fresh, beautiful produce. Major success. Kratky Lettuce Experiment #2 : Harvest #1 April 17th https://i.imgur.com/5kkGZpQ.jpeg I noticed some yellowing of the leaves a week in, checked pH and found it was a bit high (7), so you can se...

Everyone's comments are spot on re picking which fund vs picking your general portfolio allocation, so to add something new: One cool thing these virtually identical indexes enable is tax loss harvesting your losses while maintaining the same underlying portfolio of assets. Let's say you lose $5000 ...

Macro: I really like Peter Attia's thought process about thinking backward from your "Last Decade". How do you want your last decade to look? Who are you with, what do you do, how are you limited? One must be realistic; we're not dreaming, we're planning. From that decade, one plans backwa...

One way ERExWLs are graded is through books associated with each level (https://wiki.earlyretirementextreme.com/wiki/ERE_Wheaton_Levels#Suggested_Sources). I'd be curious to know if you thought slotting books into your framework would work, and if so, what books you'd pick. Asking for a friend ;) I ...

Bumping this thread for creative first date ideas bc I have recently become single. IME, showing competence is really attractive, as is interest and a variety of skills/knowledge. Based on your interview w Axel, sounds like music fills up a big core of that in your life. So possible date idea: let'...

A diet takes a lot of discipline and fails in the long run, fasting takes little effort and has a good chance at succes. I'm always interested in hearing more weight loss experiences. It's a long term problem for me :) Totally and ultimately what will work best is what we can individually stick wit...

April Money Stuff My annual expenses were front loaded this year -- property taxes, car insurance, paying my accountant (there are some things I don't want to learn -- filling out my 1040, schedule K / D, etc, sparks negative joy). As such, April looked significantly leaner than Q1 averages. -$4287...

Interesting, I'd be curious to learn more about your theory here, research, empirical findings, etc. \\ I definitely agree about our culture hurting us re food although I think our culture / food companies are optimizing product palatability to the human body (junk food is engineered / optimized to ...

Congrats on the job promotion! You sound like a beast at the gym and modest about it (a great combo). Spanish is awesome! Immersion will fast-track your learning so to that end, reproduction at home is where I'd aim. Pimsleur language courses are pretty amazing. My local library has the audiobooks a...

Welcome! I really enjoyed your point in your welcome to post about "doubling the utility of every dollar" instead of doubling your income. What a succinct way to summarize what a lot of folks here are doing. And eventually, it seems to me, that focus on doubling utility transitions from do...

Yeah, I like that argument, though it is difficult to wrap your mind around. You can capture patterns and store the patterns instead of the data, like a ZIP file contains a bigger file. But when the data would have to contain the ZIP file and the instructions, it becomes a real mindbender. Interest...

Wondering if you're read any pushback on the 4% or 3% rule. Specifically: https://www.madfientist.com/discretionary-withdrawal-strategy/ For folks with a serious nestegg like yourself, this strategy becomes possible specifically because discretionary spending eats up a large amount of ongoing spendi...