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

Sorry for taking a bit to get back to you, had to wait out a temp suspension because apparently I'm a jerk. Never be afraid or sorry to ask a question. The worse that can happen is someone won't answer or will get upset. Neither of these are bad.

It was actually more in total to pay off but that's the high point of the debt. What changed for me was over the course of a few years I went from making ~30K/yr to making over 100K/yr and not inflating my lifestyle. Which begs the question, how did that happen right?

It's completely reproducible, believe me I am not super special, but it did require a lot of planning and working towards a goal and quite a bit of luck. Some suggestions on how to make more money.

• Move if you can to somewhere with better prospects for higher pay. The absolute best way to do this is to have a crappy commute from a low paying area to a higher paying area. It's a kind of arbitrage. Just make sure you consider your commuting time as part of your overall pay. If it doesn't make sense dollar wise, don't do it. I've got a mostly telecommuting job now.
  
  
• Make yourself invaluable to your employer or customer. If you're working for an employer and doing more than is asked, document that and bring your achievements up when it's time for a raise. If you're self employed, do not undersell your worth. Make sure you take into account the Pareto principle and focus on the customers that make you the most money for the least amount of effort. You're working to live, not living to work.
  
• Get better at finances. Since you're here, I'm going to assume you've got a handle on the software part. YNAB is great, but it's not meant to be a complete tool. You need to know how to work with spreadsheets, and learn the basic math behind compound interest, interest rates, etc so that you can make them work for you.
  
  Listen I could, and probably should, write a book on going from dirt poor to comfortable. There are a ton of excellent resources out there. I'll list them here for you. I'm pretty sure I'm done with Reddit after this suspension deal (I only came back because I wanted to answer you :)) but I'll PM you some contact details if you're really interested. You can ping me any time you've got a question or even just for moral support. :)
  
  List of (what I think are) excellent resources:
  
  ^Note: ^I ^have ^used ^all ^of ^these
  
  

  Finance
  

  Radical Personal Finance - Excellent financial information. If you're Christian you will probably really love this guy. If you're not, it comes up a lot, but the information really is just amazing.
  
  The Millionaire Fastlane - This guy comes off as such a mook or a wiseguy, especially in the audiobook, but I've never heard someone explain why passive income is so important better. This is a self made guy who lays out how he made his money.
  
  Early Retirement Extreme - It's basically just his blog in book format, but it goes into how the numbers work. Maybe you aren't as extreme, but if you want to go extreme, this is an excellent guidepost.
  
  

  Personal Improvement
  

  
  Saylor Academy - Free education with an opportunity to get an inexpensive degree, or certificates. If you're an autodidact this place goes through some great courses.
  
  Ramit Sethi - This course is more than just finance it's how to save money, negotiate better wages, get better rates, and basically how to restructure your thinking to understand your own worth.

Hello,

You're a young guy, so don't be so harsh on yourself.

Not wanting to go to college and spend a huge investment isn't the worst idea. If you don't think you will get much out of it, it might just run you into the hole. That's valid, but if you find something you want to do- even if it's a trade I would go for it if your family will pay.

Regardless: A large number of my friends have either never gone/dropped out of college. Many of them are doing just fine, it's just a matter of personal drive and work ethic. If you have a drive to work, you will make your way in the world.

But before you spend that money on books about money: Hold up.

I think investing and making money is something possible for you, but I think it would have to be done with your own money on income from your own job. I do not think many major finance companies will hire someone without a degree, but that doesn't mean you can't profit from investing. A single Vanguard account and a ROTH IRA can do you well if you're making money (it requires an income but investments are made after tax so it can grow tax free) and give you some personal experience with the subject.

Investing, I think for you, might be best started there and then worked out with caution moving forward. Don't rush into it, and don't spend a ton of money trying to get people to tell you how they think it works, because most of them can't even beat the s&p 500 over the longterm.

Those wealthy people we all see on tv, the ones that made it big: For each one of those there were a million people that fucked up and lost everything. My advice, from a lifetime of fucking up and holding things together with duct-tape blood and grit: Don't try to be like them. If it happens, it happens. If you find a passion and run with it and end up finding success, that's kickass, but trying to force something like that is often more about luck and circumstances.

Find a job you can tolerate, focus on your passions in the time between, and let life take you where it takes you. If you're interested in money/investing, here are some things I've read that really made a difference on my life.

Bogleheads is where I would recommend you look first for investing/money knowledge.

Early retirement extreme
is a book I read a few years ago. It shaped my thoughts on money right as I was transitioning from a low paying job to a slightly less low paying job, and since then I've thought about it all very differently.

Vanguard information

Fidelity information - Also low cost to investors like vanguard

More specifically FI-RE related things (Online sources that might not be relevant to you but contain a lot of very good advice on lifestyle and investing/personal views that are interesting to read)

MMM

Living a FI

Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob Lund Fisker http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ and his book is the most profound thing I've ever read for finances https://www.amazon.com/Early-Retirement-Extreme-philosophical-ebook/dp/B0046LU7H0/.