Blog: Brief introduction

I'm 22, graduated from college earlier in 2004 and started working for a large corporation a few months later. I like my job and the work that I do, but I quickly realized that I don't want to be a wage-slave for the rest of my life. Too many of the people I work with are dependent on a paycheck every two weeks and I think it might be nice to have more freedom than that.

So this blog is a chronicle of my financial journey from time zero until I get where I want to be. Not quite sure where that is yet, but ideally it would mean that my assets generate enough passive income to allow me to stop working for an extended period of time and still maintain a reasonable standard of living. This is not to say that I want to stop working - I really like working and solving problems...rather, I just want the freedom to pursue other options as they come up. This might be because I get stuck with a bad employer, or I want to work for a non-profit concern, or I want to do something completely new (that isn't financially lucrative) like be a scuba bum for a few years.

Some constraints: 1) My goal is definitely not to do a true "early retirement" where I sit around the house all day or drive an RV around the country. I like being productive. 2) Although this goal is important to me, I still need to find a balance between living in the present (enjoying life) and saving for the future. So no living in cardboard boxes, no driving a ratbox, and no eating dog food for dinner (yet). Although I have no firm plans for them yet, it might be nice to have kids someday - even if they are terribly expensive, a decision like that is outside the realm of pure economic logic.

Finally, I should say that this project was inspired by www.pfblog.com. I had been messing around for a few months with my own Excel financial statements when someone recommended his site to me. His site encouraged me to use financial planning and analysis (FP&A) in order to reach my financial goals.