Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob Lund Fisker

leila hamaya wrote: it may sound kinda dramatic...but seriously it is AGONY for me to be trapped inside somewhere working for peanuts

It does not sound dramatic to me because I'm the same way. I had to start my own business because I couldn't work at a job any more, and now I probably couldn't last a single day at a job, I'd be an emotional wreck.

I agree with you there should be some legal way for people to live without money, there should be some option that's not "being a bum" etc...

totally!

i really feel it my, and all of our, birth right. to basically live free and be an animal. well since i was born as an animal =)

a human animal yes, funny creature for sure, but basically an animal! like a bear with a garden =) or like the birds....just find some suitable location thats not being used, and build a bit of nest, without having to pay rent or own it.

paying someone (or a company) to build your home and have it all premade, well ok- those people who work have got to get paid. but to want to build your own structure, on land that is abandoned or not being other wise used, seems obvious to me it should be free.

i am strongly anti private property in general, though i believe- like the other animals- we have and deserve sanctuary, a space to be a steward of, essentially.
so i understand and agree with people having deep connection to "their land"- private property in a very natural and obvious way of respecting boundaries...but not to be able to exploit. theres definitely a huge huge difference between somoeone who lives on their land in deep connection and taking care of it, having it provide grounding and stability for the person...and some one who is exploitive and owning multiple location for their "re" sources.

i strongly believe the government should re enact the homesteading laws, or something similar. in fact, it seems obvious this would immediately turn the economy around, if it included some kind of addition about people who are in danger of losing their homes and lands.

or that we, and would help if governments would support such at least by the giving away of land, should create a network of free farms. well thats my goal anyway, but i am just one person.

so theres a place for people to go, a way for them to plug in.


thats the real sad thing about all this, well theres many sad things. but its like...society is missing out on some of the best people and their gifts, imo. because they cant find, and dont know how to create, the place for people to plug in and be able to bring their gifts and skills to the community at large.

so much wasted talent and potential

leila hamaya wrote:society is missing out on some of the best people and their gifts, imo. because they cant find, and dont know how to create, the place for people to plug in and be able to bring their gifts and skills to the community at large.

A lot of people seem to be trying to overcome this by creating intentional communities. It's true the community still must have some money, but by pooling resources people can live with much less money. Seems like people are always asking for folks to join their communities, but selection criteria might be difficult if one has not been able to hold a job. Being able to hold a job is seen as a basic test of responsible behavior, even though it is selecting for a narrow set of abilities.

yep, that was my plan, i guess it still is, though i am quite frustrated through too many bad community situations. i have lived on 4 intentional communities, one where we were trying to do a business as an artists co op, and just seen them fail and be quite difficult places to be. i had managed to save a few thousands dollars at one point to put towards the dream....but lost it all in a community project...trying to do a business involving tree free paper making and bookbinding, other crafts. that turned into chaos at some point when some new people came in and the new people were weird ...well there were lots of issues...it was all not very well set up. it no longer exists.....

only really one of the communities i lived at was actually successful, its an established community that has been there for a long time ...part of the reason that place works is because it is so remote...only a certain kind of person will go that far out in the mountains and can find it...plus they are kinda on the down low as far being somewhat secret about the location...word of mouth and synchronicity is the only way to get there. that helps.....but they dont have many people there...and most people can only stay for a couple of years.

part of it though...is that it is already established, and although the rules and whats established makes sense for that place, it prevents people from feeling like its "their land"...unfortunately....so people leave...needing more autonomy....for instance you cannot build anything there without talking to everybody, including people who ARENT in residence...so that makes it impossible to build your own space there...and theres just too much of a sense of it being someone elses world. it basically guarantees that people will only live there temporarily, that and the extreme remoteness...not many can hang with being trapped behind a snow line all winter and driving three + hours on crazy roads to get to a town with supplies. then of course theres all the issues of trying to create community, when coming from the background of dominator culture and all of its harmful memes. the kick out exclusion game, the what have you done for me lately game, the who's the boss game- the unfolding of all that cultural weirdness we get from being socialized in such a non sensical and weird way.

one of the biggest hurdles to this i think is the crazy overinflated price of land...and this is like strike already against a community from before they begin.

i agree that isnt the best criteria, and a lot of the other assumptions about people that people have...like if someone has money they are somehow more responsible or more solid. or that if your good person and work hard you will be able to suceed, and using that logic backwards anyone who doesnt have money and sucess in that very narrow way is a loser....thats really the underlying assumptions many people have (americans that is, and the rest of the "first world" anyway).

its like they take for granted this is the way it is, something i cant see at all. i mean it might be true...IF things were set up differently and people were starting on even ground to begin with...like IF the assumptions and way things seem to people of privilege tend to think they are...i mean darn even in that crappy monopoly game where you land on things and claim them to profit...well they start everyone off with the SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY to begin with, not so in real life.

actually a lot of the people that i have seen in communities who were the least cut out for it were people who were more in the work world, "normal" world type folks, having more resources from elsewhere, or trustifarians !
....sorry if that sounds weird....but its the way i see it.
they come in with a lot of assumptions and a lot of the headtrip of hierarchies and whatnot (lots of weird whatnot).

then again i have also seen a lot of the other side...people who have no where to go, arent cut out for community, not neccessarily interested in community and the creation of the network of free farms...you know they dont have the spirit behind it...they are just there because they dont have better options.....neither of these two types (sorry for the gross over generalizations, but i've seen this) are particularly good in community settings...one wants to be the boss of everyone and cause a lot of friction, the other just barely toes the line and or causes drama....while not having a whole lot to contribute. so having money, keeping a job, being seen as an employable or with it kind of person in the normal world....to me does not say anything about that persons ability to make it work....the qualities that make someone more cut out for community do not correspond to the qualities that make someone successful in the so called "real world"...but then again the people who are desperate and have no where to go also dont do very well in settings like that...and then theres like this vacuousness of everybody trying to get from each other....i would say that theres definitely exceptions to this...people with lots of money or who dont have any money or much standing in the dominator culture who would be great in community settings- to me it has little to do with it....and more likely someone who doesnt do well in dominator culture would be better in a community setting if that community would help them plug in correctly....

anywho apologies for getting sidetracked from the original topic, and my rambling.

to me this is all related...this is basically my thoughts....when i "retired" at 27 and wanted to do something different, make my art and make a living- community was the answer.
so i went about pursuing this and...well it didnt exactly work out.
seems so simple, and it could be.....pooling "re" sources and sharing land, growing food together, CSA, building inexpensive and free earth houses...this is what i have been attempting...but it isnt that simple cause we dont let it be. and partly, because of the crazy exploitive "real" estate market....and the private property paradigms of dominator culture. people bring all that baggage in....but they dont neccessarily see it

but i think people are getting closer to this, getting better at this, getting over themselves more...i do think this is THE answer still.
if some kind of homesteading laws were re enacted, if there were ways for people to get into stronger positions to begin with, if there was free land to those who wanted to make community projects and CSA farms this would all be much easier. but partly its the coming from all those assumptions.

i sense many wouldnt really get where i am coming from, but hey i am used to that. i am also unfortunately used to people prejudging me, like with those assumptions. and it hardly phases me anymore...i gather that people who have such a mindset is not someone i would have much to talk with about...so that they judge me based on smell(!) and /or availability of money...well to me thats a sign thats we are not on a similar wave...so i dont mind in a way...they can enjoy their illusions as long as they last =) and i can go about whatever with the people who see through this (the few!) and are more open to people....

i think to do this early retire ment extreme....to throw yourself into the leap of faith like this...well you get used to people not understanding where you are coming from and all the middle class knee jerk reactions like "get a job" etc.....looking down at you for being shower challenged! and all the rest.
so i go with....those that matter dont mind, and those that mind dont matter....kind of attitude...

I love this line of thinking. Living in what I guess would be called a commune when we first moved here allowed us a lot of stupid mistakes and some revelations before actually owning some land. It seems like it took us so long to achieve some things but it's been a wonderful process. I guess I had nothing to risk at twenty two and it has only gotten better...still learning and literally getting the fruits of our labors. I have learned to appreciate small steps and more and more am weeding out the things I think I need to do. We have found that we are very good at living on very little money.
No retirement plan but to have no debt (and we don't) , to grow all of our fruit and vegetables (and we are), to stay healthy and on good terms with our sons and their families who say they will take us in when the time comes (and we are both of those).
I think it is the leap of faith so many are having a hard time with and I would have too at a later time, maybe. I never thought about retiring (and I still don't)...I just wanted a life that felt whole and connected and worthwhile.

Judith Browning wrote: I have learned to appreciate small steps and more and more am weeding out the things I think I need to do. We have found that we are very good at living on very little money.

totally thats so key.
its like so many things are related, certain things that prop up other things, and when you start cutting out things and getting rid of the clutter and complicated things...those things all follow too. like if you dont have a job then you dont need a phone, a regular place to shower, fancy clothes, ga$, etc...or well maybe i should think of a better example, this happens all the time that i see this happening.....

its like....when you get rid of certain things all the things that prop that up also go....its still very intimidating to let go and take the leap of faith...but as you get rid of things that arent needed and get down sized right down to whats totally essential it becomes so much clearer and easier as you go.

life isnt that hard really, to get the bare minimum of what you need daily, contrary to popular misconceptions.
its the clutter that props up the other clutter, that props up things that never should've been (ie fossil fuels, unnecessary fees, insurance, taxes, etc, too much etc)
when you get to a place where you cant do these things at all, by default a LOT of the unnecessary things that prop up the other unnecessary things falls away. whats left, is all that you need, and ultimately one should and can realize you are at HOME wherever you are, there is enough, what you bottom line need appears when you need it.

still the prohibitive cost of over inflated land doesnt help...nor does how difficult it is to get that chunk of money to invest in the land.

"freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose " =)

leila hamaya wrote:maybe the weirdest thing that i learned and realized through all this, is the the world is a place of abundance !
this might not make sense at all...but its true.
not so much about abundance = money though, for sure.....

i live on miracles. sometimes they are a bit slow...but they always come =)
eventually. sometimes not till your totally freeking out !

I love what you said here, leila, this is the heart of it....this is a world of abundance...and the more we share the more abundance for all.

totally its truth !

SHARING is what creates abundance.

hoarding and holding back creates scarcity, or the convincing illusion of it.

no matter how complicated the economy is made to seem, and all this complicated stuff that people think is so real- this is what it really comes down to- the failure of our economy is basically a failure to SHARE. and the backlash of exploitation.
such an advanced civilization supposedly, still learning to share their toys =)

with as little as i have, although most of it was FREE =), i would give just about anything away at any time if i thought it was the right thing to do. actually i do all the time- give things away. likewise, most everything i need, sometimes quite miraculously, just comes out of the blue for FREE =)

i'm definitely in favor of a gifting economy and being a freegan. like the "give away" of traditional communities...where wealth was seen as the one who gives away the most =) or even just salvage and scavenging through waste- "dumpster thriving"
....well people are suddenly seeming less likely to turn their nose up at this...and starting to figure out how much is wasted, starting to get this more...so i do think things are changing.

and anywho dont mean to sound so judgemental with this all...i have a lot of compassion for those stuck in the dominators cultures memes and headtrip...they may sense that they are winning, they may look at me funny cause i dont smell like fakey perfume, but i do not blame them...thats the weirdest thing about dominator culture and all its memes- the guilt by association that makes the whole thing worse...as though you personally just by being immeshed in it are to blame for its failures and inequity....when people may be trying and wanting to get out from under it and its memes....but dont know how cause theres no way to from within it....

and i have deep compassion for those who are desperate and insecure...coming from the basic insecurity most people live with (even those who think they are doing ok within it but have based their foundations upon the insecurity and illusions) its pretty hard to get free of that and work it out, unfortunately

it is a shame that high schools no longer really teach the how to's like we got when we were children in home economics or shop classes, etc. I think some classes for each teenager not only on those but on economics would be helpful as it appears that a lot of what is happening now with people coming out of high school has little to do with common sense or an understanding of how things really work.

I know those classes helped me a lot yet I had no real classes on financial economics in school at all, and that is where I failed early on. Maturity and some messes financially rescued me..but I see people way older than me (i'm 61) that are still financial messes and going further and further into messes..and I also see things where the drought and frosts made food costs higher than high and people aren't planting gardens with food in them..or fruit or nut trees..but flowers..

I was in that group early on, but realized quite early on that trees with fruit meant I didn't have to buy that ..forever.. unless there was a crop failure.

I was fortunate to buy my first house for $8,000 and get out of debt young, and also realized buying used was smart..but it still took some time for me to realize that a lot of things I wanted I didn't need..

My hope is that young people will read these threads and get on the ball with financial security early on in their lives..

Brenda, you are so right...I still use skills I can trace back to home ec and 4H! And my parents raised us on what I later realized was very little money even for the fifties and sixties. They were very open with what we could and couldn't afford and how to budget, make do or do without...and how to have fun on a dime. And now I think my husband and I have carried it to the extreme of living with not much income but I have always loved a challange.

having been involved with Wall St for 25 years, I will add my 2 cents: Anyone intent on borrowing at a low interest rate to invest somewhere else, HOPING to pocket the spread is truly rolling the dice and can easily be unside down. My father beat it into my head from the time I was 12 and washing cars for pocket money, that 10% of anything you ever make goes into you"hush" account and it's a 1 way door - only opens in. So for the past 40 something years, 10% of everything I ever made was put aside with no intention of ever spending it as long as I was working & earning money. The second thing of importance that I've done 12 times: I bought real POS houses in nice neighborhoods and rennovated them using a line of credit on that house and lived in each for 2 years. After 2 years, as long as it's your primary residence, there's NO taxes what so ever on the gain. You do not have to reinvest the money into another house. So each house I bought was in a bit of a better neighborhood and a higher price point, so my profits every 2 years were a little greater. I used those profits for a minimum down payment on the next house and the rest I put aside until I had enough to buy a piece of rural, forest land. I kept flipping houses, doing the same thing with down payments and saving until I had enough to buy materials to start to build etc. 4 years ago, with the Wall St. mess, I called it a day and the farm was far enough along to move to full time. It's taken 15 years of working a job and renovating houses with hell bent intent to carve our a healthy self sufficient life in the woods. Hopefully someday we actually get there completely.....probably another decade, but in the mean time, I'm spending my days in a forest far enough off of blacktop to make it all worthwhile.

I've been "retired" for about 5 years now. I'm 31 and don't really see a good reason for me to go back to the "office". I'm content with working on my land, growing my forest, meeting my needs and building my skill set. I've learned a lot more in the last 5 years than I could ever have learned in a lifelong career. I'm the type of person that rapidly gets bored with the daily grind. I started working at age 12 with my own landscaping business. since then I've had about eight completly different careers. I find that I max out on a job quickly(6months-2years) and end up leaving due to that fact. I just can't do the same thing every day. so I bail

Now my work is seasonal: Cutting wood and starting plants in the early spring, full time garden/forest work in the summer, earthworks, construction and maintenance in fall and snow and indoor house work in the winter.

This cuts the boredom and helps me to plan for the future. I pay more attention to the weather and my surroundings and I feel more aware of my existence as a part of the world. I feel more like a machine operator, than a cog in the machine.

I guess all in all, it's a good thing to be out of the rat race, sitting fat and happy on the sidelines watching the other rats run for ever smaller pieces of cheese. Meanwhile I'm making plans to buy a dairy cow.

Certainly, I have a long way to go but I'm not going back. Even if I managed to lose everything I've worked for, I still have my skills and my health. With that I can easily find a place where I can be a benefit without having to bow to a paycheck.

"if you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working"? - the good, the bad, & the ugly.

Finally found a thread where I can actually add something on everything thing else I am pretty much a newbie! But we bought our first house for cash when I had turned 31 - I have now just turned 40. It took 3 years to save for the first property - then another years saving for car/furniture/renovation money. But it did not work so we had to sell up and move. We where very lucky as we bought in an area that became popular - long story short, we got 5 times what we paid for it in 3 years. That was enough to buy our current house, do some additions and set me up in my small business. I have always been a saver and hate debt. My wife does not like debt but is not a saver - but she was very open to the idea and we both worked hard to get there. Couple of things that helped are:

1) We lived on one salary saved one salary. This was an unbreakable rule - we did not earn a fortune and the only way we could make this work was to work longer hours and part time work. We both worked 6 days a week and often 7 - make hay while the sun shines!
2) Work in an expensive area but save for the cheap area. We lived in London, UK - but we where looking to buy in France or Spain. London is an expensive city to live - but the salaries are also higher and you can save a lot if you watch every penny. We where saving around $1500 p/m - prices in France at the time started around $7000 for a small plot 2000 - 4000m2 plus a unlivable ruin of a house. This was great as every couple of months we could "shop on-line" and see property we could afford - made the saving more real.
3) Lastly, make sure you are still having fun. We used to go out once a week and watch jazz at a pub close by with a few friends. All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy - says it all really.
4) If you need something - buy secondhand. Besides electronic's - although often break this rule for computers - anything large is bought secondhand. And when you finished using an item and have no further use of it, remember to sell it again. I have a bunch of items on our version of ebay - and even though it sometimes takes a couple of month to sell, you always sell it eventually.

I'll likely read this. Eventually. What concerns me about his system is the investing part. I see the book was published two years after the market crashed. I wonder how he did during that time. And of course we're back to record highs in the market again, but my gut is that we're headed for another bubble. It all just seems extremely volatile to me, and adequate investment education to be able to be successful enough at it to consistently generate $500 a month would be a steep learning curve. Certainly not within the scope of a single book dedicated to much more than just investing.

There are relatively easy strategies for preserving wealth and making a decent return. Here's one. It's not new or original


Divide your investments into 4 categories:

1. Stocks (Stock mutual funds really)

2. Bonds (again, probably a bond fund to reduce risk)

3. Cash and cash equivalents (money market funds, CD's)

4. Tangibles: paid for real estate, rental property, precious metals, guns, tires, trees, food, art, etc



Once or twice a year, you evaluate your holdings. If one of the categories did really well, you sell enough of it to balance again, and put the money into the category that did the worst.

So, if stocks did really great in the last year, you'd sell enough so you end up with 25% of your investments in stock. You'd put that cash into whatever was cheap (went down) like gold and silver did in the last year.


This translates into buy low and sell high. I forget the guy's name who pioneered this back in the 70's, but it has been pretty successful over the decades.

His best returns were never as good as throwing all-in to a hot real estate market, or a hot stock market. But when the real estate or stock market takes a crap, his method still makes a nice return instead of losing 30 or 50%.

I think to date, his methods have returned 8-9% over a decades long time frame.

Good to know. That makes me more interested in reading what he has to share.

Thanks.

Just to be clear, this method is not from Early Retirement Extreme, but the general idea is the same.

Cut your needs low enough, and it no longer takes half a million bucks to retire...at 86.

There is not any 1 way to invest responsibly. Investing is anything but 1 size fits all - it has to be comfortable for you, not what's worked for someone else. That being said, it is important to see what other people have done; that will lead you down the right path which should be just for you - if stocks seem too risky, then don't buy stocks. Troy's point about diversity is really important - not all your eggs in 1 basket, but there are literally 100s of possibilities.

I think 1st things first, all good plans can come to a halt if you don't have at least 6 months of living expenses in cash (money market, literal cash etc). You never know when something will come out of left field and being prepared for that will make life a lot easier. Some investments cannot be sold quickly at a reasonable price. Look at the stock market crash several years ago - plenty of folks lost their jobs and if they were forced to sell stocks to make ends meet (at very low values) they were in a really bad situation -

Sound concept (doing it ourselves-in year 3 of 50% income saving) and some very valid points about the people who would benefit most not even earning $500- especially Abe Cooper's remark "My point is that voluntary poverty is fine, and as long as you have regular income, you can use that to leverage a nest egg. But, if you don't have the income, then saving isn't really in the stars for you." And that's why I love permaculture, it levels the playing field significantly for minimal input (or a bit of well designed charity).

I find one of the really neat things about the ERE idea is that you are shooting for 25 years worth of net spending... which means that @ 33.3% net savings rate this is 50 years to do, @ 50% it is 25 years, @ 66.6% savings it is 12.5 years... and at 75% savings it is 8.3 years!

A bit off in practice because in the longer timeframes there would be more of a boost from investment income on the earlier savings. But still, a nice easy to visualize curve showing how much impact there is from every few dollars shaved off the monthly budget!


Permaculture does help with leveling the field to a degree, but as others have mentioned land access/prices are a major issue. Hard to imagine there will be major changes short of truly catastrophic global meltdown, though.

Marianne Cicala wrote:If stocks seem too risky, then don't buy stocks

In my opinion a dangerous suggestion. Here in Canada a great many people have mostly or entirely avoided 'risky' stocks, electing to invest in the extremely overpriced housing market instead. Either through ownership of a house/rental priced above what is reasonable for them, or through owning rental units of some sort. In practice, most of them own a part of a house, the bank owns most of it... This lack of diversification is far more risky than the stocks they fear!

Just because something seems high/low risk does not mean that it is. It might just mean that it feels like low risk because some people with a vested interest in the matter convinced you of that. Maybe at the same time they convinced you that some alternatives are very risky.


Troy's post on rebalancing covers the basics. This is key, and simple... and hard to do! Emotionally it's challenging to sell the thing that is doing well, to buy more of the thing that is doing poorly. Major temptation to think you know better, try and time the market, etc. Self discipline is not optional here...

It can be difficult to educate yourself about investing and risk as everyone is trying to sell you something. Stock pickers. Insurance folks. Realtors. Banks, who are happy to loan you way too much money as long as someone else is assuming the risk, like the taxpayer... But IMO it is hard to steer into complete disaster as long as you stay out of debt, are diversified, and rebalance.

I believe I'll give this book a read. I'm retired navy, did two years working in Afghanistan afterwards. My wife and I picked up some land after I returned, and I planned to take a year off before going back to work, in order to get the place livable. We found that without a mortgage, and one old car, we were able to hold our expenses at under $1 k per month. OTher than some occasional freelance writing jobs, we've decided that I'm not going to do the traditional job thing, after all.

With more effort and sustability improvements, paid for mainly in sweat and effort, we ought to be able to bring our expenses down quite a bit. I'm a minimalist by nature, my wife isn't, so figuring out the best way ahead isn't always easy. It is always good to see what solutions others have come up with.

Cheers,
DB

I've been retired for over a year now - really enjoying it. I just spend dividends - find it's a lot easier than worry about a fluctuating market and as you not spending the capital you pretty much guaranteed not to run out of money. Live in RSA and inflation is running at 6% and dividends are increasing at around 10% so actually slightly better off every year. Which is good as I did not retire on much.

Have been enjoying growing some food -took a while to find a system that works for me - but am getting better and slowly more garden produce is finding it's way onto my plate. In fact, find the the food thing quite enjoyable - growing, eating and also preserving. Have been air drying - fruit leathers - and have just started canning.

Will now slowly start turning the front garden into a food forest - but basically want to end up with a urban homestead - which meshes in perfectly with my early retirement.

Fred Morgan wrote:

Len wrote:
In some places 900A is not that big... Where I grew up you could just barely make it on a half section (320A but in that area a quarter is the smallest anyone talks about and 6 sec in a family farm is common) but where I am now, 5A can grow enough to live on and maybe even pay the land tax. Farm sizes are often 40 to 80 A.

A lot of the time, the really monster farms are poor soil. You might have one head of cattle per ten acres, here on volcanic soil in the tropics, 1.5 acres per head is about right.  But yeah, 900 acres in Texas is a hobby farm. Here, the average is about 40 acres.

with lots of natural fertilizer, such as manure, is it possible to turn poor soil into good quality soil for trees?
i have a patch of really lousy soil

A three hour long chat with me, Jacob and Shawn.   We talk about ERE, variations, FIRE, Gert, passive income streams, residual income streams ...   Jacob reviews Shawn and I's new chapter for our new book.   The book is called "Building a Better World in Your Backyard Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys" and the chapter is called "Radically Deviant Financial Strategies"

I give this book 10 out of 10 acorns!

Early Retirement Extreme is a well-written book that, as the author states, is a "how-to' manual for 'how-to' manuals" to "teaches you to become a navigator" instead of just being a "map of directions." The organization of the book is much appreciated, because the Introduction establishes a good idea of what the reader will get out of this book- how "to become financially independent", which is then followed by chapters on how to change, what the current models are that people live by, the implications of the different models, and then he goes into further discussions specifically about the Renaissance lifestyle. The Renaissance lifestyle underpins the majority of the book, as this is the lifestyle that Jakob has found to provide the most security, benefit, and lowest expense. As a whole, I see the Renaissance lifestyle as a natural companion to the Do-It-Yourself, homesteading, and permaculture schools of thought, because I think all of these methods of approaching the world are wonderfully expressed as taking responsibility for oneself. It will take me some time to fully implement everything in this book, but it was well worth reading, and most likely will be worth reading again to refresh and reference.

I'm excited to get hold of this Kickstarter stretch goal bonus.  Hoping it will answer a lot of questions that I've had over the years.  My thanks to the author for your generosity!

I wonder, if after 11 years proof of the pudding has been established?

John C Daley wrote:I wonder, if after 11 years proof of the pudding has been established?

Since the gentleman in question has not gone to great lengths to monetize his established brand, selling gewgaws, T-shirts and "advanced retreats," I imagine all is well.