Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob Lund Fisker

velacreations wrote:
my problem is that I want to retire without having to earn money in the first place....

South Carolina wrote:
So, really, if you have food, and you have shelter, what else do you really need?  At that point if you have any income it can be used for those ‘wants’ that most of us think we need.  In my case that would be chocolate and a good bottle of brown liquor.  Oh, and coffee!

erejacob wrote:
I've heard about it. I haven't read it.

My very first motivation (when I was 24ish) was to save enough money to buy my first house in cash to save on interest. Figure 30 years times 6% and you get 180% of the price of the house, effectively paying for it three times. I wanted to avoid that.

So when we ultimately decide on a state to live in, we'll be paying cash.

jacque g wrote:

We're just no longer trapped by bosses, evil co-workers, time clocks, and soul-sapping commutes.

Mark Vander Meer wrote:
What's wrong with work?    Dale here. There's nothing wrong with work when you're doing what you want to do.Work for yourself if you want to escape bosses and time clocks.

Jeanine Gurley wrote:
The only moron I have to contend with is myself and we usually agree with each other.

paul wheaton wrote:
"Mortgage Free" lays out a lot of stuff similar to your stuff. 

1)  cut your living expenses to the bone and save up a "grubstake"

2)  buy a chunk of bare land outright and build a crappy shack on it

3)  while living in the crappy shack, build a tiny home that is designed for future extension.

4)  remodel and expand as needed.

misterinnovation wrote:
I like the idea but I would want to do it a bit differently. I would LOVE to live for under $500 a month but I would take the excess and buy gold with it.

I know that alot of people say that and they sound crazy but unlike cash, cars, guns, or houses, which depreciate, gold is only running out and has been steadily rising for years.

Fred Morgan wrote:
Just a quick comment for you to think about. What do they use gold for that is not recyclable? Secondly, they are mining gold all the time, and if they ever get nanotech working, they can extract it from seawater. Gold isn't that scarce and it isn't "consumed".

The reason the price has steadily gone up, is the value of the dollar has gone down. In other words, gold holds its value, it doesn't move. It is currencies that move against it.

So, an investment in gold is saying that you don't trust the currency you use at this time. If you want think about something that they aren't making any more of, and always yields additional value, productive land. It was inflated because of the bubble, but there are good deals out there, and there is a finite amount.

Hard to go wrong with good land.  Keep your house small, but get as much land as you can.

Just my opinion.

Dave Bennett wrote:
The deal with precious metals is that it has traditionally been considered "hard currency" and if a total economic collapse occurs we will experience hyperinflation.  Precious metals will be accepted for goods more readily than relatively worthless pieces of paper.  I have been slowly purchasing 1 oz. .999 pure silver ingots for the last several years.  The price has been pretty stable but does rise as gold rises.  It will always have similar liquidity as gold but doesn't "break the bank" to purchase it plus is has plenty of other uses. 
Land is a much wiser investment in the long run.  Will Rogers made that point way back when.  The problem with "real estate" has more to do with people thinking that buying a house was a wise investment but the reality sure hit home when the corrupt mortgage system collapsed. 
My younger sister and I are making a deal this week on a small parcel in western Pa. so I will have a little over 6 acres of mostly raw land to put my forest farming into practical application.  It is mostly trees and much of it will stay that way with the exception of an areas for some pasture development for our grazing livestock.
We are getting this land that was a farm 20 years ago or so.  The majority of the property was left wild which suits me perfectly well.  There is a very good well on the property too.   I am pretty excited about it.

Fred Morgan wrote:
I concur. I do think that one of my sheep or cattle will be easier to sell than gold, if I really have to.  By the way, to show I put my money where my mouth is, we own nearly 900 acres. Okay, maybe I am out of control. 

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.

Fred Morgan wrote:
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.