By: Jacob Lund Fisker
When many of us think of retirement, we think of some far off time in our future when we’ve saved enough money and reached an age where the government will allow us to withdraw our money without significant penalties. When Jacob Lund Fisker thinks about retirement, he’s thinking about the here and now. You see, Jacob retired when he was 33. How? By following the principles that he outlines in the book.
What this book has done for me is to turn much of what I thought about personal finance on it’s head. At this point, I can’t say whether I will attempt to try and join the ERE army or not, but I can guarantee you that I will be looking at things from a different point of view from here on out.
The book itself is dense. Dense in that it’s packed full of information. There’s no way that one read through will be enough. You’ve either got to read it several times, or supplement that first reading with plenty of reading of Jacob’s blog. It reads (the book, not the blog) much like a textbook does. It’s even segmented into sections the way a textbook would be. Luckily, it’s not all facts and figures and there’s a bit of discernible humanity in there as well. Jacob lays out how he managed to retire at 33 by some extreme saving. Then he goes into how he lives off of less than $10,000 a year that he draws from his investments and a few odd jobs (that he enjoys) during the year.
By no means is the Early Retirement Extreme going to be for everyone. It’s a hard read. But, it is well worth the read. It’s the “thinking man”s personal finance book. It’s not chock full of anecdotal evidence, but raw hard facts and numbers. It will change the way you think about personal finance, and life in general.
You can buy it directly from the Printer or from Amazon(click the picture)
Shane Ede is a business teacher and personal finance blogger. He holds dual Bachelors degrees in education and computer sciences, as well as a Masters Degree in educational technology. Shane is passionate about personal finance, literacy and helping others master their money. When he isn’t enjoying live music, Shane likes spending time with family, barbeque and meteorology.
