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Day 2: Decluttering and managing stuff
I bet a lot of you were looking forward to putting your car up for sale today. Well, today I decided to be nice, but don’t worry. There will be at least one car gone by the end of the month. Today I’m...
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Day 3: Grocery shopping
There are basically three big categories in a normal household budget that need to be severely modified to make retiring extremely early feasible. These are housing, transportation, and food. Whereas I...
View ArticleDay 4: Drop the cell phone plan
There was a time, a simpler time, perhaps 10 years ago(*), when people were able to make detailed advanced plans to meet their appointment to do a certain thing at a certain time. For instance, several...
View ArticleDay 5: Find a free hobby
Hobbies can, as far as I can tell, be classified into three groups. Most hobbies belong in the first group and that can be detrimental. The challenge is therefore to move into the second group and...
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Day 6: Clothes
The most effective option to save money on clothing clearly is not to buy any, hence this is what I would recommend. This strategy can work for several years because most people, myself included,...
View ArticleDay 7: Going car free
Everyone needs to live somewhere, but not everyone needs to drive somewhere, especially not those that found a place to live that is close to work on day 1. Next to housing cost, transportation costs...
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Day 8: Get engaged!
No I’m not talking about getting married. I’m talking about finding something that motivates you: Perhaps your calling, what you were meant to do if you did not have to go to work every day to support...
View ArticleDay 9: Budgeting
I see no need for detailed budgets or tracking expenses. In my world there are basically two categories Money I spend Money I keep There is to me no discernible difference in terms of how I spend the...
View ArticleDay 10: Calculating net worth
It seems that everybody calculates net worth differently. For extreme early retirement or financial independence, there is only one way to do it. The only thing that matters to your net worth are...
View ArticleDay 11: Connecting your stuff with your neighbors
… and all the other usual suspects: friends, family, loved ones, colleagues, and the long-lost relative of your grocer’s favorite shoe store’s distributer’s son. On day 2, I recommended getting rid of...
View ArticleDay 12: Establishing a savings account
It is vital to the early retirement plan to be able to access savings in your retirement. For those younger than 55, saving in plans, which presume that people should retirement no sooner than age...
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Day 13: Insurance
Come on! What else did you think day 13 in the makeover was going to be about? On day 12, several people mentioned the importance of an emergency fund, so with that idea so firmly ingrained, it should...
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Day 14: Investing for early retirement – Part 1
If you plan to retire early, you are eventually going to become a “professional” money manager as in a sense you will be managing your money for money. You will, of course, be operating on a much...
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Day 15: The first two weeks of the make over
The first two weeks of the makeover covered the most important aspects of the ERE strategy. Out of those 14 items, the most important are housing (day 1), transportation (day 7), and food (day 3)....
View ArticleDay 16: The stuff you actually keep and use
One of my core philosophies is to maximize the quality of things I spend a lot of time with/in/on and minimize the quantity of things I do not spend a lot of time with/in/on. This way the reduction in...
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Day 17: Maintaining and repairing things
Back by popular request, the 30 day Makeover continues … at least as long as I can keep it going. As I have explained before, it mostly comes down to housing, transportation, and food. There are really...
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Day 18: Join a challenge
Some people like challenges and if so, adopting a challenge is a good way to stay motivated. Just think of the 100 push up challenge (I’m looking at you Syd ), the buy nothing for a year challenge, the...
View ArticleDay 19: Getting rid of your TV (addiction)
…and computer games. While I can not prove this, I think not having a TV, or at least not watching it, is a big factor when it comes to choosing unconventional paths. Naturally, there’s this popular...
View ArticleDay 20: Own classics
When something stands the test of time, it becomes a classic. As far as I am concerned, everything else is “contemporary junk” items. I would strongly encourage anyone interested in living well on very...
View ArticleDay 21: Investing for early retirement – Part 2
As mentioned in part 1, I am reluctant to give specific investment advice on this blog. The reason is that unlike frugality and personal finance, which anyone can learn in a couple of months (the...
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