Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I strongly agree with what ffj said a little up-thread It comes down to what part you can control and not focus on the things that don't matter. Whether she earns her paycheck or not is irrelevant, also her personal life. I can assure you everybody is aware of her horrible behavior but don't care en...

Farm shop: I just bought a week's worth of meat to cook at home. I know the breed, where it was raised and what it ate, and it cost less than supermarket meat which in turn is an order of magnitude cheaper than a restaurant meal. I find that being discriminating about what you eat, and also some for...

In my language study (not English, obviously) I use audiobooks together with the printed text. First I listen to a segment of audiobook, length 5 – 10 minutes Next I listen again, while following the text, and mark anything I don’t completely understand*. I follow up everything marked, checking as a...

Average people like myself aren't smart enough, ambitious enough, eccentric enough, strong enough, innovative enough, not lazy enough or have enough to go about it another way. It's funny how these things work, because I thought I was saying the polar opposite: that you (and me) are just as good in...

Deduction 10 Why can't they be expert? You seem to think the professionals can. I don't think the professionals can either. I think there are no experts. The professional just have more information, but they don't seem to do much better than average, so in my view information does not translate int...

Some quibbles ... (you asked ;) ) .... Inflation matters when you purchase goods, so if your nut is small and/or you produce most of your own needs, inflation won't affect your financial situation if your nest egg is large enough relative to your nut. A prolonged period of hyperinflation will have ...

Axiom 2+3: Each trade has a buyer and a seller with different motivations. (Trivial corollary: If they had the exact same motivation, the trade wouldn't happen.) I disagree with this statement. Both sides can have exactly the same motivation , but different opinions . Yes, some people go into the m...

the douchebag with the shiny Rolex driving his sports car on the fees you've been paying him You have put your finger on another thing that bothers me about the whole 'investment advice professional' business. "If you, Mr professional advisor, are so good at making money in the market, why are...

Question: Is the universe of investments limited to stocks and stock equivalents? No. In my view it certainly includes cash, bonds, commodities, derivatives, bullion, and property, with the condition that if you actively manage your property, by selecting tenants, and setting rents, etc you are a c...

Thanks for the responses, Jacob, and for the book recommendation. Feel free to correct my mistakes and misunderstandings. What do they say? "On the internet, no-one knows you're [str]a dog[/str] being eviscerated". 1. With regard to inflation, I remember the inflation in Britain during the...

I am posting this in the hope of getting some feedback on my facts and logic, and alternative assumptions other people make. The TL:DR version 1. Diversify in terms of companies, industries, countries, investments and intermediaries in order to spread risk and reduce the impact of bad luck. 2. Once ...

I have done, when a company seemed particularly well-managed, and inside the industry sometimes this is clear. Of course it's easier to a company that is badly-managed, and there are more of that kind, but such investments would only be a small part of my portfolio. In general, I go with the Lincoln...

Hej! I too live in a Big City (by Swedish standards) on the Wet Coast of Sweden. I love the quality of life just as I hate the high taxes and wasteful government. I noticed when I came here that Swedes mind their own business but I regard that as a big plus. My experience is that if you ask for help...

my quarter acre suburban hell Can I ask what it is about your suburban situation that makes you call it hell? If you nail down a specific issue, you can work on a plan to solve it, otherwise, probably not. Other advice would be to embrace the family situation, they are not their mother's kids, they...

It seems to me there is a fundamental asymmetry between to-do and not-do lists, in the way that the hunter has to kill one deer out of many, from time to time (To-Do), whereas the shepherd has to keep all the wolves out of the flock all the time (To-Don't). MyTo-Don'ts included several more-or-less ...

"Going from man-to-man to zone defense is tough" Indeed. When the number of children exceeds the number of parents the game is very different. I used to joke that we always had one more child than was easy to handle: one child, new clueless parents; two children required parents to learn t...

"to expect the used car market to go to 0 (or close) for traditional cars in the near future " Did anyone else see this as an opportunity? If in 2020 you can sell your 15 year old car for 0 dollars and buy a two-year old car with 10+ years left in it for close to 0 dollars that has to be g...

Scott: I agree with you about sometime spending money to save time or to improve its value to you. It is time which is the ultimate scarce resource, so we should try to use it all wisely, and sometimes this will cost money. If you can earn money doing something that you don't dislike and use it to p...

Annually: Net financial assets Daily: In the morning a to-do list, to focus attention At night a have-done list, to congratulate self on accomplishments Regarding strength, during each training session: Weight, sets and reps, plus a note of whether it is time to increase the weight, for each exerci...

When I had a deadly dull job (production line), I used to amuse myself by calculating how much I had earnt in the last hour, minute, second...You could maybe calculate how much nearer you got to FI during the last week, day, hour, whatever. The point is, the job is a means to an end for you, not an ...