Early Retirement Extreme: A philosophical and practical guide to financial independence

If the only means of repayment is a job, this means that working must also last at least 30 years. This way, a single decision just after leaving school turns into a lifelong commitment that can be very hard to escape, given that the borrowed money has been spent on increasing consumption rather than increasing production.

Rather than increasing the amount of work to acquire more stuff, reducing this superficial need reduces the amount of necessary work.

Thus, to increase effectiveness, the focus must be on improving on the strategy rather than improving on the tactics. Rather than using better tactics to reach goals, the goal-setting method must become better.

The design presented in the rest of the book rests on three pillars. First, reduce waste and increase efficiency. It's possible to live with the same benefits as the rest of society for one quarter of what the average consumer spends. Many of these

Which skills should one focus on? The Renaissance men of the 17th century strove to increase their ability to defend themselves with a variety of weapons. play a variety of musical instruments and paint. debate politics and philosophy. advance knowledge and the sciences.

Is spending the most productive years of your life chained to the job market to collect a lot of rarely used stuff that gathers dust in the closet or takes up space in junkyards a wise choice? Were you really born just to die, leaving a large pile of discarded consumer goods? Probably not.

Memorize the prices for anything you buy regularly--parts for food, also known as ingredients, come to mind. If memory is failing, keep a price diary. Only issue "limit orders"--that is, don't buy until the price falls below some predetermined level. Patience is rewarded more often than not. Let current purchases determine what problem yo

It's strange how specialists gladly spend a great deal of time perfecting their skills to pursue a five percent raise, while at the same time there is a fatalistic tendency to accept whatever investment strategies are currently fashionable on Wall Street when it comes to generating passive income.30

The Dark Ages gradually ended six centuries ago with the Renaissance, which seeded new ideas for a different world. The Renaissance ideal dominated our culture until three centuries ago, from the 14th to the 18th century, when it was superseded by modernism. Not surprisingly, this human ideal has almost been forgotten in our culture. The Renaissanc