*ask three ERE folk what ERE is and you’re like to get nine answers. This is one of mine.
Early Retirement Extreme (ERE) is a skill-based philosophy of nonconsumer lifestyle design that incorporates systems thinking. There is no one identifiable ERE ‘lifestyle’; ERE is the set of principles by which one can design their own unique nonconsumer lifestyle, with an emphasis on maximizing autonomy and resilience. This video is an excellent introduction.
A core insight of ERE is that the amount of money you need depends on your skills. The more skills you have, the less money you need:
Graph inspiration: @Ego
If you don’t have the skill to change your oil, you need to spend more money to get it changed. If you don’t have the skill of buying a used car, you need to spend more money on a new car. If you don’t have the skill to design your life to your satisfaction without needing a car, you need to buy a car.
If you don’t have the skill to cook your own food, you need to pay someone else to cook it for you. If you don’t have the skill to cook food with inexpensive ingredients, you need to pay a lot for fancy ingredients. If you don’t have the skill to grow a lot of your own food, you need to pay someone else to grow/raise it for you. If you don’t have the skill to build up healthy soil, you need to buy soil enhancements at the store.
Some people think “frugality” simply means “doing without”. Generally speaking, in ERE, “frugality” means “replacing money with skill”, although deciding/realizing you don't need certain things can be considered one of the ERE skills.
But Why Though?
Why would you want to become an ERE-style nonconsumer? There are several possible motivations or desired outcomes:
Freedom/Autonomy. Consumers depend on jobs for money, and they depend on money for almost everything. Consumers are essentially not free to not work. They can do anything they want, as long as they want to work 40hrs a week. Nonconsumers have a variety of methods for solving problems because they have broad skills, so they are much more free to do what they like with their time.
Smaller ecological footprint. Nonconsumers tend to have a significantly smaller impact in terms of carbon emissions, pollution, resource use, etc.
More equitable use of global resources. Related to the above, nonconsumers tend to use an amount of resources much closer to the globally equitable amount. If the world is a pizza that has to be shared among all of us, nonconsumers are happy with a thinner slice, so others can have a slice as well.
Ability to pursue meaningful activities. This is just an extension of the first point. If you don't *have* to spend 40 hours a week just to meet your basic needs, you're much more free to find engagement that is meaningful to you since "generates $x0,000/yr" isn't a requirement for your actions.
Resilience. Other words for this include agility and adaptability. If money is your only means of solving problems, you will be up a creek if you run out at any point. If you can solve problems with not only money but a broad variety of skills, then you will be able to continue to solving problems even if your money supply is constrained for any reason.
Whatever your set of motivations may be, you’ll likely start your ERE journey as an adult with a source of income. As your skills increase, your spending decreases. The amount of surplus money you have will grow, since you’re not spending all of it. If you keep working long enough (5-10 years), eventually you’ll have as much money as you need for the rest of your life. You’ll technically be “financially independent.” If you then quit, you’ll be “retired”, even though you might be 32.You also might decide to stop working full time before you become technically “financially independent”. You’ll still need to earn some money, but since you spend very little, you don’t need to work very much at all. A couple months a year might suffice. (This is my current circumstance.)
It’s also quite common that, in the course of doing whatever it is you like to do with your autonomy, you’ll find an activity you want to do that other people will pay you to do. In this case, money becomes an “incidental yield”, and there is little observable difference between your life and the life of someone who is technically FI. You’ll likely become FI eventually as well, but you might not even notice it when it happens.
ERE, then, despite the name, isn't about early retirement. Early retirement isn't the point, it is merely a common side effect of pursuing this particular form of nonconsumerism.
As such, there are an infinite number of ways one might pursue an ERE lifestyle. Some ERE folk retired to live mostly in SEA. Some live in vans or slowtravel the world. Most live in normal looking houses they rent or own and do whatever they like. Many continue to work their full time jobs, because they find the work fulfilling and meaningful.