Early Retirement Extreme Forums

For me happened quite quickly.

I started working in 2020, immediately had a "its going to be like this for 40 years?!?" freakout and decided to retire early no matter what. I did some armchair math and calculated I could retire at 40 with even a small savings rate. I wanted to see if I could go further.
I had heard of FIRE before, so I went to reddit.
Reddit has two main fire subreddits, leanFIRE and fatFIRE. I was already spending at leanfire levels (20-30k), and fatfire just seemed absurd to me, so I landed there. I quickly read every link I could find and found ERE in the reccomended books. I read the forum, bought the book, havent gone on the subreddit since.

My first brush was reading Millionaire Next Door as I was in sales and it was easier to sell and manage ten millionaires my services than 1000 thousandaires. Successfully applied many of the concepts covered in the book to my own life and career. Also read Affluenza and I think Australian documentary around this time (below) which chronicles the absurdity of consumption in the Western World. Did not come across ERE until the book popped up on my Amazon suggestions in around 2016 after ordering books on systems engineering. By the time I actually read ERE or any FIRE gurus, and used FIRE techniques, was well under 4% SWR.

https://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/home.html

I heard about this early retirement extreme thing at least five or six years ago, but never thoroughly explored it. The reasons? The "early retirement extreme" title felt to me like there must be a US style sensationalist miracle solution under the superlative cover. Quod non. ERE is also often misrepresented in the FIRE world as overly focused on financial savings only. Ironic, because if anything, FIRE is often much more unidimensional than ERE in its focus on finances. In any case, those two factors instinctively put me off.

It took me a recent unexpected windfall of spare time to finally dig into ERE. I _think_ it started with a less negative description of ERE by a MMM forum user. Jacob, I remember looking at your wikipedia page and noticing you actually grew up in Denmark. That roped me in a bit further, because surely get rich quick US sensationalism is below a STEM PhD who grew up in Denmark, right? Prejudiced instinct on my side, but whatever, it helped me dig in.

The book is very useful, even if a bit hard to chew on at times. Jacob, your skills presenting the subject have grown a lot since publishing your book. I was quite impressed by the clarity of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPvftqB-WXk for example. Thank you for your efforts, Jacob!

I was similarly impressed by this forum and how it feels like an oasis of civility. Thank you for your efforts, forum members!

I was coasting through life roughly in the right direction. More focus than most, but blurry goals sometimes that were not always very well-aligned between them. ERE is like a consistent life framework tailor-made to me. It feels like pure bliss to me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

Today a memory popped up in Google Photos. 8 years ago we were moving from our rental with a mountain view (they were right there) in a fancy neighborhood to the smallest place we could find that didn't feel like a roach motel. I had been reading the blog for some months before that, but to me that move marked the beginning of the real journey (actions taken).

loutfard wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 19, 2023 7:09 am

The book is very useful, even if a bit hard to chew on at times. Jacob, your skills presenting the subject have grown a lot since publishing your book.

It’s funny, I liked “more rough around the edges” jacob a lot.
The book and blog are in your face pure and “punk” in a way that is absolutely effing awesome

But then I am the kind of guy who likes Show No Mercy, Kill’em All and Iron Maiden better than South Of Heaven, Black Album and The Number Of the Beast.

Seppia wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 03, 2023 10:01 pm

It’s funny, I liked “more rough around the edges” jacob a lot.
The book and blog are in your face pure and “punk” in a way that is absolutely effing awesome

/me likes it a lot too..

But then I am the kind of guy who likes Show No Mercy, Kill’em All and Iron Maiden better than South Of Heaven, Black Album and The Number Of the Beast.

I like the 14th century music of the duke of Burgundy's court. And Turkish 1970's rock. And Bach. And 1980's Soviet occupied Latvian punk. And Nicolaus Bruhns. And the Grateful Dead. And Musikantenstadl in light doses. And Vladimir Vysotsky. And Boris Vian. And Les Luthiers' Aria Agraria. And more. Exellent fit with ERE, even if I say so myself. But I digress, and you already know how I discovered ERE, so I'll keep quiet in this thread now.

My (now ex-)gf found the book on the Stripperweb forum and told me it "sounded like something I might like" and then we both read it. R.I.P. Stripperweb. It was 2014/2015ish.

I hope many, many strippers have benefited and are now living their best life

I recall reading Dennis Hof’s book The Art of the Pimp where he told about several of his employees saving and investing their pay aggressively and retiring out of prostitution in four years. The women lived at his brothel and had low expenses. They focused on maximizing tips for their services then investing as much as possible. IIRC he recommended Vanguard to every employee when they start. He says a small number follow through and get out. He says you’d never know they were prostitutes if you met them after retirement. It reminded me a little of ERE but with sex workers.