Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Hi all,

My web browser keeps a list of my most visited websites pinned for easy access.
After ERE being displayed there prominently for over a year, I decided to join in on the forum fun.

I've recently turned 30, living in the midwest USA.
After an incredibly bouncy ride (which I may address in an upcoming journal), I've come to the realization that
you truly can't depend on anyone but yourself to secure your financial future.

What I'm really looking to do is get some encouragement to maintain a high savings rate and encourage others to do it with me.
And above all else, find satisfaction in learning new skills, reducing my desires to focus on what really matters, and becoming more independent by every measure.

I think that being able to do good in the world first requires that you have something to give. And ensuring that your fountain is overflowing with abundance (time, money, useful skills to lend, etc), is the critical underlying base from which a wonderful world can be created.

I hope there are others here that share my vision; I'd love to chat and hope to run into you soon!

Welcome

Welcome, Veronica.

I like your vision and attitude, and look forward to your journey.

Veronica,

Welcome! I think you'll definitely find encouragement to maintain a high savings rate here. Is there a specific savings rate you are targeting? At 30 you have so much time to make the great decisions you make now compound into something wonderful.

I am also curious to know what skills you wish to acquire. I tend to acquire new skills within my career but that doesn't equate to financial gain nor me having a more robust economic life.

Hi Frugaldoc!

Seems we've run into each other quite a bit here lately

I like to set ambitious goals, perhaps even overly optimistic, and hope that striving for them puts me in a great place even if i fail. Shoot for the moon, and land among the stars as they say. I have a 70%+ rate in mind, but I don't think this is going to be something that I achieve very quickly, if at all. But I do want to see if I can maintain a rate above 30% over the long term (say, decades).

Right now, I'm most interested in gaining new skills in programming and linux system administration. Luckily the most costly expenses related to these are time (and maybe the occasional AWS bill). But I'm also trying to eliminate a lot of convenience things like fast food and do more from scratch.
I'd like to live that kind of idyllic life where I harvest the grains from my own fields, put them in the grain mill, and make my own pasta from the flour and eggs from my own chicken coop, and top it with a sauce I canned myself from my own tomato patch. I'm probably not going to be moving to a villa in the italian countryside anytime soon, but it's an idea I've never been able to get of my head.