When did you discover ERE?

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Spartan_Warrior
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

I arrived independently at the basic principles of early retirement (that is, spend little + invest lots = retire early), at age 22, when I was issued information about the retirement plan at my first big corporate job. There were charts that demonstrated how much quicker you could retire by contributing 10% of your salary versus 5%, how much earlier you would retire if you started saving early, etc. It was a light bulb moment when I realized what these charts could look like with a savings rate of 50% or more. I pretty immediately set my sights on early retirement.

My first resources were Your Money or Your Life, The Millionaire Next Door, and some other early retirement forum populated by baby boomers where early retirement was defined more traditionally: leaving work a few years before social security kicks in and playing golf till you die. I remember that forum had a separate subsection for "Young Dreamers" (anyone under 50 or something!?) where the baby boomers could warn us all about how expensive health insurance is and roll their eyes at anyone who thought they could retire (or claimed they had retired) before 55. Needless to say I didn't fit in at that forum, but I did learn of Jacob there (as those baby boomers fretted over his future health insurance costs and whether or not he was really retired since he wasn't playing golf).

I found this forum, then the ERE book, and the rest is history. It really opened my eyes to how quickly FI could be achieved with the right parameters. Six years later, my net worth is about a quarter million more than where I started. And I still hate golf.

steveo73
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by steveo73 »

My answer is going to be a little different because I'm not sure when I found ERE. It was probably when I started posting on here. Prior to reading this blog and MMM I thought you had to work until 60 at least.

I don't feel though that I can be extreme in my path to retirement and FI. I have 3 kids, we have bought a house for a lot of money (I don't even believe that this was a bad deal) and I'm not really comfortable with a small stash because I'm not sure how expenses will change over the course of being retired. Still the principles of ERE to me are pretty solid. Save money via decreasing expenses and invest it. Live off the income that your investments produce. Don't get caught up in consumerism.

We have always been reasonably frugal so the changes that we made haven't even been that significant.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I don't know how I found this site. About a year ago I stayed up way too late reading all of m741 and c40's journals. That was the first time that I understood the relationship between savings rate and time to retirement. I started a journal here shortly after.

I have always been good at saving but this site made me realize I wasn't really tracking and optimizing, just saving whatever I didn't happen to spend. Having my own journal has really helped.

ERE appealed to me because it was a natural extension to the saving that I was already doing. At that time I also had already been working on increasing my income through passive sources for about a year and ERE seemed like another way to get to the same "four hour workweek" (or no hour workweek) goal.

Tyler9000
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by Tyler9000 »

I discovered ERE when my wife taught me the secret handshake. She felt a bit lost around 2010, and started reading a number of books looking for career advice. Titles like YMOYL eventually made the rotation, which put early retirement on her radar. Subsequent searches led her to ERE. I soon had my own series of career events that broke my "dream job" idealism, and her encouragement eventually led me here as well. As I started "running the numbers" for the first time, I realized that a different well-chosen path was eminently attainable and that we were already in a good position to make it happen if we made a few changes. This also coincided with the time I got serious about learning to invest wisely, as I started to appreciate the power of capital. The rest is history.

As a side note, I discovered ERE is the resource of choice for me (over other good internet alternatives out there) the closer I got to FI. The more I learned about FI in real life (and not simply in theory) the deeper and more insightful the content and discussions became for me at ERE compared to other alternatives. I still frequent a few, but the community is not quite the same for me personally. I even learned a term for it here -- Wheaton scales. I consider that a testament both to Jacob's approach and thoughtfulness and also to the contributions of the people here. Thanks!

JamesR
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by JamesR »

April 2013.

I was unemployed, deeply in debt, and *really* ambivalent about getting a job. I never was very interested in working long term and my work history was really spotty over the last decade, my longest held job was 8 months. I was talking to my mom about my ambivalence when it occurred to me that perhaps I needed to figure out how to retire ASAP and use that as a goal to get a job, so I walked over to the computer and googled "extreme retirement."

Well what did you know? Jacob's blog was the very first result.

Since then I've managed to land a decent paying job, which I've stuck to for 12 months now. I've cleared off my debt and now have savings.

I've always lived like a broke student, and been super frugal. So aiming for a savings rate of 80% is pretty straightforward. Typically my living expenses have always been around $600-700/mo. I even went and lived abroad in Philippines for 6 months and later in Thailand for 17 months just to have a higher quality of life. I believe I spent $11k total for 17 months of living in Thailand, including all airfares and side trips I did.

Chad
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by Chad »

In varying degrees I had already had many of the ERE ideas. My parents were frugal, so it wasn't a big stretch for me to become frugal. Though, I still needed to develop my knowledge concerning various aspects of personal finance and investing. To further this knowledge I was reading various blogs and stumbled onto ERE. I'm not 100% sure whenor how, but it has been quite a while. 2009? Could be earlier, but I don't really remember. I do know I was on here before the forums and thought the idea of creating them wasn't the greatest, so I didn't come into the forums until it had been up for a little while.

Hankaroundtheworld
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

I always hated debt (because of my parents history but also this bad feeling of dependency), and when I started to work abroad (meaning, no standard pension savings) 15 years ago, I had to learn how to save for a "pension", which I targeted at being 50. I was not really aware of ERE since 2 years, but unaware, I was already on track but not always in the best way.

By the way, back to ERE definition, it is not just a realization of how quick you can be FI (and then do what you like, even if it is work), but more like a life-philosophy, so basically start doing more yourself (by learning and trying out), re-use versus buy-new, realize that there is an optimal balance in everyone's life between "consumption" and "happiness" and that you can overshoot (when possessions become a burden, like a too big house, etc...). From that angle, this is a continuous learning process, you might "discover" ERE but it takes time to make it your own, like a normal life-attitude...

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TheWanderingScholar
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by TheWanderingScholar »

2009 December, IIRC.

I was a sophomore in high school and I was looking around personal finance blogs, looking for information for financing my college degree because I came from a family that made too much to be considered for financial aid yet too little to pay for college without going into debt. One of the blogs I was on, mentioned ERE and it started from there.

northman
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by northman »

22.01.10

Two days later, I had read all the blogs and sent Jacob an e-mail.

Quite the eye-opener.

candide
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by candide »

Reviving the thread, but changing the "when" to "how."

=====

I was on a summer break, and that allowed for the kind of healthy mild boredom that lets one re-examine life. I thought to myself "what are some free hobbies I could have?" I did a google search and I am pretty sure that the site that I was directed to was retireby40, but it doesn't look anything like it did when I made that search.

At the time, the post was noted as by far the most popular thing on the site, and another page gave credit to Early Retirement Extreme. . . None of this is easy to locate in its current glossy version. But still, it got me over to ERE.

Also, it was from ERE's blogroll that I was first exposed to the Archdruid Report (OH! Real time, I just realized I can use that to figure about when I made the search . . . It must have been somewhere around 2014-2015). I went pretty far down the collapse rabbit hole from there, but that a different story . . .

AxelHeyst
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by AxelHeyst »

This thread caused me to look back in my receipts and figure out when I actually bought the book out of curiosity. November 2017, within days of deciding to break up with a woman I'd been dating for half a decade. I was in Greece at the time. Clearly I was doing euphoric 'wtf to do with my life now that I'm free' research. Huh.

At that time I speed read it, absorbed almost nothing. I hadn't read any of the blog; I probably found the book via algorithmic recommendation. I was busy finishing Serenity and getting on with my life, and thought I had everything figured out. I'd been on to MMM for years in a shallow way and figured by vanlifing I pretty much had a FIRE trajectory in the bag.

Flash forward to January 2020, I have a new gf and my NW is going back down again. I realize I gotta do something extreme if I ever want to be free. That triggers a memory, dimly, of having read the book and I dig it back out of my Kindle library and reread it in a night or two. It sticks this time. Been here ever since.

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Lemur
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by Lemur »

Initially discovered MMM in 2012. 50% savings rate and I was still thinking "man 17 years is still too long..." It wasn't until years later where I read a blog post by MMM that said the "baton" was passed from Jacob at ERE. I was curious what ERE was. Rest is history I guess as I was hooked after reading the blog posts.

Since discovering ERE, I've become a much more avid reader (I didn't read at all before...) and my mind has been opened up to so many things. The ERE book was life changing / paradigm shifting for me and then at that moment I wondered what else I was missing out on. I heard the same message twice in a college course by a really great professor of mine that briefed us on meta-cognition (i.e. thinking about your thinking) and he emphasized the need to READ. I'm very lucky to hit both of these around the same time and make that connection.

I make it a point to do a rereading of the ERE book every year / two years or so as I gain new perspectives. I know I've grown because the ERE book was a tough read for me the first time but it is a much easier read now.

I've a lot of gratitude for discovering systems thinking, voluntary simplicity, and all the other fringe topics that fall here. :D

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Slevin
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by Slevin »

Late 2014 I was within 6 months of finishing my BS in Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, had job set up making what I thought was infinite money (about 1/3rd of my current income) working on spacecraft software. Didn't know how personal finance worked. My father told me to save x% for retirement. I was confused about that number and wanted to know where it was derived from. I think this funneled me to the FIRE world, and then obviously biased baby physicist me decided the advice from the physicist in the space that was derived from first principles made absolutely the most sense. This matched up with my quick hatred of my new job of being micromanaged and working with people 20 years older than me that I couldn't relate to. So i built in an exit ASAP strat.

This all fell apart when a 6 year long relationship did, quit that job I hated (but thought the money was pretty good), and bummed around Europe for a bit (mid-late 2016? I think?). I promptly ignored FIRE for the next few years (though the principles were pretty inbuilt. Never spent much on rent, hobbies, etc other than for gear which pays itself off quickly), got really into mountaineering, then climbing, then trad climbing, then movement, then ended up back here in 2021 or so?

daylen
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by daylen »

I discovered ERE around the time this thread was started (2015). At the time I was working on a math degree and exploring potential application topics like finance. The ERE book somehow came up in this research, and I was instantly hooked. I remember it being vastly more interesting than all the other finance books I was scouring at the time. Signed up for the forum soon after.

bostonimproper
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by bostonimproper »

I read Rich Dad Poor Dad when I was like 12, so that got me the passive inflows > outflows = you can retire mindset pretty early. I think I found the ERE blog sometime in college, circa 2011-ish? Whenever it was, it was pre-Jacob passing the FIRE baton to MMM, because I remember that recommendation then reading the MMM blog and not being as into it.

Toska2
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by Toska2 »

ERE or ERE(tm)?

ERE - age 16. My grades were only good enough for a "half ride" and my parents weren't paying for college. In hindsight I should have become a millwright or linesman.

ERE(tm) 26ish. IWith a true carreer job, I had no peers with my savings rate so I sought some.

sky
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by sky »

I read a book called Voyaging Under Sail, by Annie Hill, and in that book there was an article by Weston Martyr: "The £200 Millionaire". http://www.bluemoment.com/200pm.html

That article made me decide to 1. live off of income and 2. live extremely frugally. At that time my goal was to buy a sailboat and have $100,000 in investments. That was probably in the early 1990's, although my goal was to live on a sailboat even as early as in my teens.

I credit Jacob with showing me the math relationship between reduced spending and a reduction in the number of months needed to RE: reducing one's expenses reduces the amount of investment needed to live off the income, while also increasing the amount one can save of one's income. EUREKA!

I lost my password to my first account on this board, I was here for some time before creating this username.

jacob
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by jacob »

sky wrote:
Sun May 29, 2022 10:59 am
That article made me decide to 1. live off of income and 2. live extremely frugally. At that time my goal was to buy a sailboat and have $100,000 in investments. That was probably in the early 1990's, although my goal was to live on a sailboat even as early as in my teens.
To complete the circle, I came across your website some time between 2004 and 2006 reading your miniseries on how to retire early through frugality.

Scott 2
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by Scott 2 »

I first came across the anti-consumer ideas with Ad Buster's magazine, around 99. The Millionaire Next Door and Rich Dad Poor Dad not too long after. The frugal girl blog, maybe a few years later? I think she might have preceded Jacob.

After years of reading Ad Buster's at book stores, I eventually subscribed - but only once. I was too cheap! Amazing they are still around. I don't know if they originated buy nothing day, but they definitely popularized it.

I remember commenting on the ERE blog back when it was active, showing my wife the rake, MMM emerging on the scene, etc. So I must have been on here around 2008? In parallel, I was on early-retirement.org. I never leaned fully in to the 80% savings rate, more like 50%.

Around that same time, I read the entire tightwad gazette compilation, and explored my frugality. Made the price book, calculated meal costs down to the penny, etc. My wife still washes plastic bags. I discovered your money or your life then as well.

I specifically remember searching for and finding both sites at work, because I really did not want to be there. I told the owner at my next company about this crazy guy living in an RV with his PhD. I must have been more vocal about it than I intended, because when I retired, people remembered!

mathiverse
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Re: When did you discover ERE?

Post by mathiverse »

In 2015, I learned about FIRE on reddit and the discussions there led me to the ERE blog. I started reading the blog and I got the book from my uni library soon after that. I lurked on the forum for a long time until I finally got an account and started posting in 2019 after reading YMoYL and being disappointed in how much of my income I had spent since the start of my career.

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