Look to the right of your screen and you’ll see that I just surpassed 100 subscribers (hopefully that will still be true when this gets published!). I realize that 100 subscribers isn’t a lot compared to many blogs and I’m OK with that because I know that my 100 subscribers are a whole lot smarter than tens of thousands of people getting their advice from Money magazine (seriously?).

So in honor of surpassing 100 subscribers, I’m doing a book give-away.

As many of you know, over the past few months I’ve pulled in my retirement date by over 20 years by making some significant (and fun) life changes. I changed jobs, I moved cities, I downsized my house, I sold my car, I cut my grocery budget in half – and now I’m on a path to self-sufficiency. And in less than 2 years, I’ll retire at age 35. There were plenty of things leading up to my decision to make these changes (life ennui, job frustration, money-sucking McMansion, and more), but the final catalyst was reading Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob Lund Fisker.

So with all that said, I’ll be giving away 3 copies of Early Retirement Extreme, Kindle edition. Why the Kindle edition, you ask? Because it’s cheaper, and because no trees will need to be cut down. If you don’t have a Kindle, don’t worry. You can read it on the Kindle for PC program (which works great by the way), your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. And before you say “oh, a book.. I was hoping for an iPad or at least a $50 gift card,” think again. This book is a $10 value per Amazon, but for me it turned out to be a $895,000 value.

There will be 3 ways to qualify, with one winner for each method. You can enter all 3. The winner will be announced on 10/25, so you can enter as late as 11:59 on 10/24. Here’s how to enter:

1. Write a comment to this post describing a method you use to decouple money from your needs/wants.

This could be something big like selling your car and biking to work, or moving houses to be closer to work. Or it could be something smaller like learning to make your own pasta out of semolina flour, while crock-potting some homemade pasta sauce. I’ll choose the winner of this category based on significance of the task, originality, and quantity. So if you’ve done several things, list them here. And please don’t list that you cut coupons, or I’ll be very disappointing.

2. Write a blog post about one significant thing you’ve done to decouple money from your wants/needs.

I realize you need a blog to do this. If you don’t have one but want to enter, then send me a short (or long) essay on what you’ve done to decouple money from your life’s needs, and why. I’ll then post it on this site, whether you win or lose the give-away. The winner will be the most thought-provoking prose.

If you do have a blog and choose to write it there, you don’t need to link back to this site (although you are more than welcome to do so). Just make sure you post a comment below that links back to your site so I know it’s there.

3. Tweet one significant thing you’ve done to decouple money from your wants/needs.

Start the tweet with @bravenewlife. The winner of this category will be chosen at random. If the ideas good, I’ll also retweet.

Remember that you can enter all 3 categories. Also, keep in mind that while tweeting is easiest, it will also be the toughest to win since it will have more entries (I’m speculating, of course). If you write a blog post, you’ll be far more likely to win the book. And you really want to win this book because it’s an eye opener, and a potential life changer.

Before I go, I want to say thanks again to the BNL subscribers. Before I publish a post, I remind myself that this will be read by hundreds (and getting closer to thousands) of people and it forces me to really put a lot of thought behind them. Lately, I’ve even deleted posts that didn’t meet the new bar you guys have set for me. For that I’m grateful.





