He wasn’t lying when he named his blog “early retirement extreme.” Jacob has managed to live an incredibly frugal lifestyle and retire within a decade of starting this quest and he’s lived to blog about it!
This is one of my favorite blogs because it’s critical, well thought out and discusses things that actually matter.
It’s a bit of an extremist view (hence the name), but definitely worth taking a read.
If you’d like to learn how to retire in 5 years check out how Jacob became financially independent in a short period of time.
What i’m wondering is…. why bother going to grad school if you want to retire so early? Isn’t grad school a 2 year waste of time if you’re not going to leverage it to teach or do other things?
I’d agree with that. The cost / benefit of doing so doesn’t really seem worth it to me. I’m wondering if the idea of early retirement popped in his head once he was already in Grad School.
I personally never plan on retiring, but I read the ERE blog to understand where financial freedom can begin if you really want it. I’m more partial to doing what you enjoy your whole life, being smart with your money, and living in a bit more “luxury” than Jacob.
What’s your take on the idea of retirement?
The idea of ER came a couple of years out of grad school—actually not until I somewhat accidentally noticed that my passive income began to be comparable to my expenses. Before that I was saving to buy a house in cash to avoid the mortgage payments. I went to grad school specifically to do something challenging and work on something interesting(*), but if money was the only issue I would seriously consider some kind of trade school as this provides the biggest bang for the buck in terms of cost in money and years vs income and freedom of location.… Read more »
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