Another Guy who Opted For Early Retirement

gibberade · Post by **gibberade** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 12:34 am

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/a ... ace_didnt/
This is cool.

Post by **jacob** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 12:55 am

Sounds like a strategy similar to possum living.

AlexOliver · Post by **AlexOliver** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 3:03 am

.,.This sounds *exactly* like possum living. The language: "rate race", not being able to produce soap or oil (Trent from TSD had a post not too long ago about how to make soap), no idealogue, "if you met me you'd never guess...", house paid off...
Are you sure this guy wasn't a troll?

gibberade · Post by **gibberade** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 3:48 am

I don't think he's a troll. I read most of the comments and there was no indication.
What is possum living and how does it differ from ERE?

AlexOliver · Post by **AlexOliver** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 4:05 am

I uploaded it for you: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B- ... y=CPjXy-wM
It was written in the 70s by a teenager, went out of print, the author was found, and the book was republished in 2010. Dolly and her dad lived in a house (paid off), raised their own food (vegetables + animals), and lived on less than $2000/year.
The subtitle is "How to live well without a job and (almost) no money."
Possum living differs from ERE because ERE focuses on accumulating assets to live off, while Dolly and her dad just did odd jobs (babysitting, dogwalking, etc)) to make their $2k, more of a earn-as-you-go thing.

gibberade · Post by **gibberade** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 4:17 am

Gotchya.

This would be possum living then.

He has $40,000 in savings, but tries not to dip into it. Spends $2,000 per year and makes that through odd jobs.

mwilliams92 · Post by **mwilliams92** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 5:55 am

i dont get this fear of investing. if he took the time to learn more about it, he wouldnt have to do odd jobs with just 10k more

starshard0 · Post by **starshard0** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 1:10 pm

I really enjoyed Possum Living, and I think some of the techniques could be combined with ERE to keep costs low. They're two different ways to achieve a similar goal in my opinion.

George the other one · Tue Nov 09, 2010 8:09 am

I definitely lean more towards Possum Living than ERE. I think my ideal situation would be to have a house paid off in a low-property-tax town ($300-500ish a year), have about 10k in savings (about a 3.5 year emergency fund) and show up for some type of minimum-wage job once a week or so. Also, if things work out I'll end up around some of the best walleye/northern fishing in the Midwest which would halve my food bill while dramatically increase the quality of my meals.

a.e.k · Post by **a.e.k** » Tue Nov 09, 2010 8:09 pm

Thanks for posting this. I found many of the comments really interesting to read. I wonder why this lifestyle attracts more men & (apparently) few women?

AlexOliver · Post by **AlexOliver** » Tue Nov 09, 2010 11:37 pm

@a.e.k. Has a poll been done? I'm female.
@George: I've never been able to find a minimum wage job that would allow for so few hours. They all seem to be between 20-39 hrs/wk.

a.e.k · Post by **a.e.k** » Wed Nov 10, 2010 6:38 pm

@AlexOliver

I don't think any polls have been done.

When I was reading the comments following that article -there was a section about finding a partner who would be okay with his lifestyle. The comments implied that this female will be a hippy and probably not shave. I just found the discussion strange but perhaps that is also because I'm female