@Seneca - The $200/hour number comes from the law of diminishing returns in paying professional rates for a simple job. Often consumers are paying "first hour+overhead+equipment+office rent" getting a $80 bill for a 10 minute job that they could do themselves with a wrench and 10 minutes of watching a youtube video. This year DW took a job as a Tax Prepper, so I now know the professional rate of what our return, which takes us roughly 2 hours to put together ourselves (after spending more time
initially learning), costs $500+. However, if you yourself make that much at work (and very few do) and you're able to completely scale your own income, there's no economic sense in saving $80 on by paying 10 minutes of your time when you could do your professional work and make $120 in ten minutes.
If you compute the effective cost of having professional work done for you and compare to your effective wage calculated in the YMOYL sense, you will find that in most cases, hiring the work out makes no sense whatsoever, because you're paying a lot more life-energy buying the solution than doing it yourself.
The lower limit (minimum wage) comes from observation that your time is better spent boosting that instead of bringing your other skills up. Maybe you can save $200 on a bill, but spending the 10 hours needed to learn how (the first time, not the subsequent time) is probably better spent boosting your income from $7/hr to $8/hour.
There are of course also diversification issues to consider. Being able to DIY is less risky no matter what the salary.
General rule: If you need something done more than once, learn to do it yourself. For example, I'd learn tax prep since that happens annually, but I wouldn't learn roofing since that only happens every other decade. I'd learn how to change oil and brake pads. I wouldn't learn how to rebuild an engine.
@jezter6 - The best strategy is a gradual approach from (+2,-2,-2,...) to the (+1,+1,+1,0,0....). (See
viewtopic.php?t=3063&page=3#post-49162). Each year, you bring a couple of the -2 to 0. You keep the +2. Your spending should be coming down. Then after a while, a few of the 0s come to +1 (this can be investment income, side income, random income). Also even more will be 0. At this point the +2 job becomes less relevant. So it's a process that takes several years unless you started really young and learned all this stuff as a teenager. Most of us didn't and instead spent our time getting degrees. Also, many have accumulated a lot of -2 things in their life and gotten locked in to a high spending life style. That also makes it harder.
@Felix - Running ERE is like teaching a martial art in a dojo.
Step 1) Learning to punch repetitively. First you learn the correct form. Then you learn to do it faster. Then you learn to do it harder. Then you learn the next technique. Rinse and repeat.
Step 2) After lots of practice you realize that the techniques rest on general principles and that once you understand the principles, the techniques don't matter anymore.
Of course this is a gradual process. Two steps forwards. One step
backward. Learning, then unlearning. One insight becomes the foundation for the next insight which replaces the one that lead to it.
Different people are at different stages and so they're taught
differently. Typically beginnings are pretty hard and boring. Lots of repetition. It's a frustrating process. Eventually, it will all make sense though.
Of course it would be nice if it was possible to go directly to step 2, but I don't think anyone has ever found a way to do this. So the general path is that step 1 acts as a foundation to step 2.
You start with step 1 stuff. Then gradually step 2 ideas are introduced. Step 1 fades into step 2. Eventually it's all step 2.
It is wrong (self-limiting) for people in step 1 to think that step 1 is all there is to it. The students must acknowledge that there's a reason to the madness. That step 1 mainly exists for pedagogical reasons. That there's something behind it.
The reason I started this thread is that I see some failure to acknowledge this (on this forum) and because I think that paying attention to this aspect would be helpful.
Step 1 is probably a necessary first step, but it's nothing more than a pedagogical method of reaching step 2. Of course it also happens to be useful in itself, but I don't really think it's the best way to go about.
Similar to karate, punching harder is useful in and of itself, but
actually understanding what makes karate work is much more effective and you'll find that you don't need to punch hard at all.
If a student thinks that karate is all about punching and kicking, that student will never go further; never go beyond punching and kicking. It will always be about repetitive punching and kicking training. If you insist that punching is all there is to it, then training just make you a harder-punching amateur ... not a martial artist.
In this case, the worst students are those who are already successful punching hard because they're bigger and heavier than average. In their mind they're just studying to pick and choose thinking they know everything already.
Analogously ... thinking that ERE is all about pinching pennies and saving for FI will lead to a miserly life that's always about pinching, worrying, and sacrificing. The worst students tend to be the ones who already earn well and who are successful at buying their solutions.
Part of the reason why there's so much beginner's stuff here is that there are many more beginners here than there are experts and so most of the post volume is about beginner's stuff. This does not mean that ERE is ONLY about beginners stuff. It just reflects the ratio between beginners and experts. The 21 day makeover is obviously also beginner's stuff. You'll find the advanced stuff in the book. Particularly chapters 3,4 and 5. You'll find some advanced posts on the blog. Some summaries on the wiki also tries to nail it. But mainly, it's in the book.
It could be that I'm simply impatient. I had a similar experience when I took piano lessons when I was 10 years old. After 1.5 years of hitting keys [in order], my teacher started talking about putting "emotion" into my music. I had no idea what she was talking about. She gave an example. I didn't hear any difference. Furthermore, I refused to believe that there was such a thing
because after all, I was just playing or rather hitting the piano keys according to what the sheet was telling me. Only much later did I understand what she meant, but at that point I had long given up on playing.
Maybe the difference between step1 and step2 is something people need to discover for themselves.
I'm just saying it's there. And that it's easier to discover step2 if you actually believe it exists and thus try to find it if you haven't rather than argue, like I did with the piano, that it doesn't exist.
And that as the dude in charge of the dojo, I'm fine if some just want to practice their punching, but I'm still going to make noise about the benefits of further study.