What is your FIRE number? Your expected FIRE expenses?

[Did]

nothing against the guy - people change and good luck to them. their old work can still be motivating. but it doesn't mean you need to keep listening. ferris is another example. i connect more with his 28 year old views. but he's now worth 10s of millions and wears a suit while promoting productivity at work seminars and various gadgets via affiliate links. good gig if you can get it.

[steveo73]

I can't stand Ferris. I still reckon MMM is freaken great. He lives larger than what I do but with 3 kids there is no way that I'm going to be dumpster diving.

The 400k per year income from a frugality site is funny though isn't it. I listened to a podcast the other day that was completed on a moustache camp. I explained it to my wife and she couldn't get it. Why if they are trying to save do they spend money on a camp. Personally I don't think it's that bad but my wife is becoming more introverted and she is frugal so that doesn't appeal to her.

[Did]

I do like Jacobs answer to the query as to what gadgets (international camps?) you should buy to save money.

A: wrong question dude !

(or something like that)

[BRUTE]

what brute doesn't get about Ferriss, and to a smaller degree MMM... if they're really so rich/FI, why do they keep commercializing everything? of course Ferriss is a way worse offender in this regard..

supposedly he's worth 10s of millions. so why does he add 10 fucking minutes of ads to his podcasts? why does he still do all the scammy newsletter affiliate shit? hasn't he bought his intellectual freedom and dignity back? how much does he need? MMM isn't quite as scammy, but all the affiliate stuff is still BS. brute made the mistake of believing MMM's recommendation once (that phone service) and it was just a terrible product, that he was obviously only promoting because of affiliate cash. brute will never believe any of MMM's recommendations ever again.

maybe it's not actually the money, but the mindset. jacob doesn't seem to give a fuck about getting affiliate money from brute. that keeps him honest.

[cmonkey]

jacob doesn't seem to give a fuck about getting affiliate money from brute. that keeps him honest.

That is the one thing that hooked me on this community, that jacob never seemed to sell out like the others and kept things really simple. Definitely the best FI community out there.

[Fish]

Continuing to develop new solutions for income after FI is part of the strategy as one moves from the E-ER end of the spectrum towards ERE. See this post: http://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com ... 50#p120488

Jacob probably seems more relatable to us because he shunned rockstar status and his post-FI financial state is more attainable (in absolute terms, not relative to expenses).

[ThisDinosaur]

I'm not concerned with whether or not my FI bloggers are making money off my page views. I only care if their insights are useful and interesting. MMM made money off me in the Republic Wireless article, but I don't mind because I use RW now and I think its a good product. I would probably be paying ten times as much for my cellphone service right now if not for that article. Having said that, I agree that making money off something will reliably color your opinion of it. Maintain appropriate suspicion.

@brute Was it the google phone you didn't like?

[jennypenny]

I can't get annoyed at MMM for his income. We're all trying to make bank in one way or another. I don't read MMM so I don't know, but if his blog is still as useful then it shouldn't matter how much he makes off it. If MMM is really pushing anti-consumerism and then buying new cars, well then I can see where that's an issue for people regardless of his net worth.

[Dragline]

Jacob probably seems more relatable to us because he shunned rockstar status and his post-FI financial state is more attainable (in absolute terms, not relative to expenses).

Nah, that's not it. It's the dog.

[BRUTE]

@brute Was it the google phone you didn't like?

no, it was Republic. worst device brute ever had (constant crashes, slow as hell, only works on their network), terribly unreliable. call quality on wifi was good, but on cellular it was crap, and it was so buggy that it often didn't switch right or just dropped calls. often times people would ask brute why he never answered his phone, and the calls just hadn't made it through to brute at all.

[vezkor]

@brute Was it the google phone you didn't like?

no, it was Republic. worst device brute ever had (constant crashes, slow as hell, only works on their network), terribly unreliable. call quality on wifi was good, but on cellular it was crap, and it was so buggy that it often didn't switch right or just dropped calls. often times people would ask brute why he never answered his phone, and the calls just hadn't made it through to brute at all.

My experience over the past 19 months has been the exact opposite. Republic Wireless is one of the best changes I've made from a happy-with-cell-provider and monthly $$ standpoint. I'm using the moto G gen 1 (wife has a moto G gen 3). Combined, our monthly cell bill is $34 on average (up to $40 if we play a lot of pokemon go during the month). Call quality for me has been better than my old verizon plan. I imagine this is because I am usually on wifi of some sort, and 19 months ago I lived in a rural house that had great internet but horrible cell reception. I upgraded from an iPhone 4s when I switched. Now I live in a moderately densely populated city-type area, in an apartment complex.

I only learned about republic wireless becuase of MMM, but by the time I got to the article the affiliate program was discontinued so he made exactly $0 from my switching. Maybe republic wireless and/or the phones they offer have gotten better, or maybe BRUTE just doesn't get the same service/reception where he lives. I have noticed that republic wireless is MUCH better in urban areas than in rural areas. Flawless when on wifi, so far.

[ThisDinosaur]

I had low expectations for RW. I figured the appeal was the order of magnitude price difference. It's exceeded both my expectations and the sprint plan I had prior.

MMM was my introduction to FIRE. I kind of wonder occasionally how much further along I'd be if I found the ERE blog first when it started. I probably wasn't ready for it, though. I needed to read Pete's " The Shockingly Simple Math," " The 4% rule," and "How to Make Money in the Stock Market" first to get comfortable with the idea of FI.

Something something Wheaton Scales something something...

[enigmaT120]

@brute Was it the google phone you didn't like?

no, it was Republic. worst device brute ever had (constant crashes, slow as hell, only works on their network), terribly unreliable. call quality on wifi was good, but on cellular it was crap, and it was so buggy that it often didn't switch right or just dropped calls. often times people would ask brute why he never answered his phone, and the calls just hadn't made it through to brute at all.

Funny, I have a freedompop phone with some of the same issues but I see them as positive. I must be more antisocial than Brute. Not bugs but features.

The phone works when I want to call somebody else....

[jacob]

The Shockingly Simple Math post used to reference/quote the ERE book directly including one of the chapter 7 graphs for illustration (I think he's linking to an app now).

Here's the 4% rule: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/what- ... umber.html This was my very first blog post. Dated December 4th 2007.

Of course the difference in presentation style is ... staggering ... and things mostly don't click until one is ready for them.

[BRUTE]

always good to have some jester dumb it down for the peasants

[ThisDinosaur]

Yeah, it has to be dumbed down for the plebes, but one also has to be primed for the message as well. 3M was profiled in the local paper when I was feeling disillusioned at work one day. I scowered his website to figure out how a non-millionaire could retire at 30. If that newspaper had wrote about you, Jacob, I would have come here searching for "How I became Financially Independent in 5 years." Even better if it had been in 2007-2008 when I was still a broke-ass student.

[RealPerson]

The Shockingly Simple Math post used to reference/quote the ERE book directly including one of the chapter 7 graphs for illustration (I think he's linking to an app now).

Here's the 4% rule: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/what- ... umber.html This was my very first blog post. Dated December 4th 2007.

Of course the difference in presentation style is ... staggering ... and things mostly don't click until one is ready for them.

That is what I enjoy about this site. Your life philosophy comes through in a very genuine way. No hidden commercialism. WYSIWYG. It makes people come back. I know it takes a lot of your time to run the forum, contributing frequently with lengthy posts. Not to mention enduring personal attacks by retirement police strangers who are clueless.

Thanks for continuing to do this for all the readers.

[oldbeyond]

what brute doesn't get about Ferriss, and to a smaller degree MMM... if they're really so rich/FI, why do they keep commercializing everything? of course Ferriss is a way worse offender in this regard..

supposedly he's worth 10s of millions. so why does he add 10 fucking minutes of ads to his podcasts? why does he still do all the scammy newsletter affiliate shit? hasn't he bought his intellectual freedom and dignity back? how much does he need? MMM isn't quite as scammy, but all the affiliate stuff is still BS. brute made the mistake of believing MMM's recommendation once (that phone service) and it was just a terrible product, that he was obviously only promoting because of affiliate cash. brute will never believe any of MMM's recommendations ever again.

maybe it's not actually the money, but the mindset. jacob doesn't seem to give a fuck about getting affiliate money from brute. that keeps him honest.

This goes for a lot of people. It's really part of a scarcity/treadmill mindset, even if we're taking about banking the next ten million. Movie stars really needing a second tuscan palace more than their self-respect, and the like. I can't comment on MMM's affiliate links since I've never used any of the products, but overall he seems to have kept it at a reasonable level.

[enigmaT120]

You have to love badassity. Great word and attitude.

[Fish]

@BRUTE @oldbeyond Another way of looking at this is that people like Ferriss and MMM are under-compensated relative to the impact they have on their audience. For example, consider the empowering and life-changing effect an idea like FIRE has. What price would you put on that value?

Now consider that Jacob has reached tens of thousands with his book, and his remuneration is limited to the ~$7 commission on the book. In aggregate it's a substantial amount but the present total is still dwarfed by the lifetime income of a single minimum-wage earner. The book has much more impact over many lives than the one wage-laborer toiling in anonymity, but the author is not compensated proportionally.

Not intending to get into the fairness of this but perhaps the Ferriss types see "scammy" affiliate marketing and ads as a way of evening the score.