Digital Minimalism, from 3 to just 1 domain name

I remember reading the book “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport some years ago. What I remember from that book was that it argued among other things, for not using “social” media. It has taken me many more years to fully wean myself off of these “social” media. I put social in scare quotes because I’ve come to feel there is very little social about it. Twitter/x is mostly a platform where very few gain traction and all the plebs, me including, are left to linger in the comments under these messages. But that is an aside.

Today I want to tell you, dear readers and fellow travellers, that I will fold my 3 different websites into just one. For almost 20 years I’ve written on Seriousaboutech.com (previously titled Janstechtalk) and janromme.com. Also I’ve been dabbling a bit with IndependentlyPoor.com for a while. These 3 projects on 2 different tech stacks and 3 different domains cost me both money and time. To simplify things I have decided to move all my articles over to Janromme.com and deprecate the other domain names.

All articles will be hand checked. If I feel they are still relevant then I’ll republish them with their original date stamp at Janromme.com

Thank you for reading and supporting this independent writer.

September 4, 2025

A modest anti-FIRE manifesto.

This “independently poor” project of mine, whether you want to call it a blog, a website, or, dare I say it? Manifesto, whatever this is, it’s meant to explain how you can live the good life, on a budget, without the need of FIRE (Financially Independent, Retired Early).

MrMoneyMustache quote:

If you can save 50% of your take-home pay starting at age 20, you’ll be wealthy enough to retire by age 37. If you already have some assets now, you’re even closer than that. If you can save 75%, your working career is only 7 years.

For those who don’t know how FIRE is supposed to work, I’ll try and explain briefly:

1. You start young: work hard and earn a lot.

2. You save most of what you earn. Like 50% or more.

3. Everything that you save, you invest. Aim to get 7% annual return or more.

4. When your total wealth becomes so much that you can live off 5% of the annual return on your investment, you can retire.

To illustrate #4, look at this example: If you have 1 million and if you can take up 5% annually, that’s more than four thousand euros per month.

I started this project because I was vehemently opposed to FIRE. Why? Not because I don’t think it can work, I know for a fact it works (more or less) for some, but because it works for some. But what about average people? It so happens that I (and many others) did not to study engineering and get a job at Google or Apple at age 20 that immediately paid €100.000,00 annually while I still lived in my parents’ basement. I didn’t start a company that I can sell for a million or more. And no, my parents didn’t leave me that much wealth, either. What about people like me? You know, the rest of us…

For us, normal folks, there is ✨independently poorness✨. I know, poorness, it has such a negative connotation. But I hope that these past 1,5 years I have, by the examples and practical observations that I shared, helped you, my dear readers, to see the upside of things. Before highlighting those, let’s see why FIRE is a bad idea that doesn’t work for most people.

Deconstructing the madness that is FIRE.

To get back to those four steps that we just saw, here is why there are mostly impractical or impossible:

1. We are supposed to start working young and immediately earn lots. This is already an impossibility for those of us who don’t live in California near the Googleplex and studied something other than a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) field. Most of us start working at age 25 and earn very little until we are in our mid-30’s.

2. Most people need to spend most of what they earn. It is true, and a returning subject of my own laments, that many people confuse needs and wants, but that aside, if you don’t earn a lot to start with, the laws of math dictate that you’ll also end up with less. The emphasis on saving and investing instead of mindlessly spending is the only wonderful thing in all the fire-sphere. But here is the thing: I’ve always lived within my means, but then there have been many years when I would be thrilled if I had saved, say €200, at the end of every month. At that speed, no matter how good you invest that money, you’ll simply not save very much over long time periods.

3. I mostly agree with the investing part of FIRE. It’s plain nonsense to have money that is not working for you. But I also want to point out the wisdom of just holding cash or equivalents. Why? Because when markets go down, that’s usually when you’re most likely to lose your job and need to dip into your own savings. And wouldn’t it be absurd to sell those expensive stocks that you just bought, at a steep discount, just because you need the money now? Far better is it to have diversified your savings in things that return in the longer term (stocks or bitcoin) and have some cash just sitting on the sideline for emergencies.

4. Unless you have a physically demanding job, retirement is bad for your health. The entire idea that you just stop working seems silly to me. I know the FIRE-ists (or is it FIRE-ites?) would defend their cult by saying stuff like “but retirement means different things to different people” or “but I didn’t really stop working, I’m still flipping houses” or my personal favourite: “but living only on my savings means I’m now growing my own cotton and weaving my own t-shirts. Do you know how much time it costs to live this frugally!?” Some who are truly retired, of course, quickly discover that unless you have some very cool and interesting hobby’s it’s just boring to sit at home all day.

True happiness is on the Middle Ground

An observant reader might realize that what I advocate is a form of FIRE too. But it’s more realistic, more obtainable for the average Joe, it is, FIRE lite, if you will.

• I, too, think it’s a good idea to spend (far) less than you earn

• and I, too, think it’s a good idea to invest with long-term goals in mind

• and yes, I too think mindless spending is not only nonsensical, but actively hurtful for our own wellbeing as well as our environment.

This is why I’ve written about how to dress for less, get around on a budget, and how to have fun with a small purse. And why I’ve coined the phrase “money efficient” to replace “cheap.”

But that’s where the comparison stops. I do not believe focusing on getting a high-paid job is a wise life-choice, not even if it’s just for a couple of years with early retirement firmly on the 15-year horizon. Why? Because focusing on money, even for a few years, will make you miserable. Hoping that those investments that you have will pan out is a rocky road with many pitfalls, and simply living for decades hoping for a better life if things work out eventually, is again, undermining happiness today.

The Independently Poor lifestyle doesn’t promise a way to get rich later in life, it instead tells you to focus on today, enjoy your time now, not by spending money but by spending time with friends, and maybe spend some money (that you can miss) on them while you’re at it.

Learning to live well within your means will result in your ability to save for when you need it. The peace of mind that comes from knowing you can easily replace your washing machine or car because 1. you have savings and 2. because you’ve trained yourself to look for a cheap second-hand replacement, will minimize stress in your life.

Remember that chart earlier? The one that assumes you’ll save up to a million, make a 7% return of investment on average every year, and then scoop 5% off the top to live on? What if we instead assume that you’ve “only” saved € 75.000,00 (sadly, that is more than large cohorts of society). That amount is not enough to retire on, but if we assume the same 7% ROI and 5% payments to yourself, you’ll have an extra three hundred bucks per month to spend if the need arises. Or simply if you want to work fewer hours.

Instead of maybe retiring at some future date, working fewer hours now and having time and energy to spend on friends and family is the option that Independently Poorness offers today.

September 3, 2024 FIRE anti-fire manifesto money-efficient

A comparison of supermarket prices.️

The independently poor lifestyle is one full of choices. I’ve often said it’s better to optimise your life for happiness than for money effectiveness. What I mean by that is that if my life’s happiness is greatly improved by spending a little bit more, well, then so be it. I’ll spend a little bit more.

On a related note: I dislike the word “cheap”. I hereby coin the word “✨money-efficient✨”. Other usages of this word include “money-useful”, “money-capable” and “money-effective” to mean similar-ish things.

Of course, living on a small budget means that plenty of choices are pre-made. As independently poor persons, we simply don’t have a lot of money to “burn” on certain luxuries. I don’t need to choose between a new Fiat or a new VW, for example because it is much cheaper to simply buy a second-hand Toyota. I don’t need to spend time and resources comparing these new cars because I already know any old Japanese-made car will be much more ✨money-efficient✨.

Anyway, back to today’s topic: weekly food groceries. I’ve bought at the local Picnic supermarket for years now because I like the convenience of selecting my required items inside an app and having everything delivered to my doorstep. I like to think this also saves a lot of time. After all, the alternative is that I walk to a supermarket, peruse the shelves manually, stand in a queue to pay and walk back home. Compare this to clicking “order again” and paying inside an app for let’s be generous and say a whole whopping 2 minutes.

But what if we have more time (but not more money) to spend? How much difference would there be between shopping at Picnic or shopping at Lidl? (Full disclosure here: I’m based in the Netherlands and this experiment was conducted locally. Your mileage may vary in other countries since we are expensive, food-wise, as this recent news item highlights).

So today I took the time to conduct a quick experiment. I walked to my local Lidl and bought some foodstuffs. Then, I opened the Picnic app and selected comparable items (as far as one-to-one comparisons were possible).

The results? The bill at Picnic comes to €59,62. Lidl to €41,42. So, Picnic is more convenient, but it’s ± 40% more expensive. I knew it wasn’t the cheapest option, but this is mind-blowing. From now on, I’ll once again do my groceries at Lidl.

July 2, 2024 food supermarket comparing how to choose budgeting

The link between Salary and Importance.

When looking for a job, I will always check the salary range first. If there is no salary range, I’ll not even open the job description. Why waste time on a company that clearly has no intention of being upfront and open with me? Why waste my time on a job that probably pays poorly?

The other day I overheard a conversation at work. We are hiring and need to draw up some job advertisements. A consultant was hired to help us think about nice job descriptions and the feeling we want to get across to a potential candidate. To people who have a real job, all this talk about getting the feeling across and job descriptions sounds like a lot of hog wash. Just tell people what you will pay and what you want from them, and of course, if salary alone isn’t justifying somebody’s input alone, tell them about the free fruit and high-quality coffee for example.

When I mentioned this to a friend, I told him I could never do such a silly thing as that consultant was doing. I could never sit at a table and talk for two hours with a straight face about how a job description should make somebody feel. Unless it paid a lot. I mean a lot a lot. If it really paid buckets of money, I could probably silence that voice inside that told me I wasn’t adding value to humanity, or making the world more beautiful, or even helping a company make next quarters numbers look better.

And then something clicked for me.

Something I’ve been wondering about for a long time. Why do the most bullshitish jobs pay the best? It’s because they must! How else can anybody be convinced to come and do the work that they, their family and friends and all their colleagues know is nonsense? They can only be persuaded to do the useless work if, and only if their inner voice is silenced by lots of money.

The lesson here? Next time you meet a consultant, don’t look down on them for doing nonsense work.

A little sidetrack here: how can you spot workers who add no value to the world? It’s simple really, once you realize they get paid the highest salaries. They will look the part. Their car will be unnecessarily bulky and shiny and so will their clothes. They must compensate for so much, after all.

So, when you are forced to interact with them, don’t make them feel bad. If they want to talk about how to increase shareholder value, just give them your list of 13 things you think the company can save money and time on and tell them to read through it and only come back with questions. This way they can feel important (they have something of substance to read) and your valuable time is saved. If they are paid enough (if their inner voice is silenced) they might even use your list and claim it as their own.

That a win-win. Your time isn’t wasted and maybe your company will also prosper more, because bosses tend to listen to highly paid consultants, at least as long as they are within eyesight.

If you aren’t sure if this article is very serious advice, or a sarcastic piece of inner life of a desk jock, then my point came across well enough. We live in a deeply sinical world. If we take ourselves too seriously or see our jobs as important, our mental health will suffer.

Also, if anybody wants to hire me as a public speaker, it’s just € 200 per hour plus travel expenses.

November 30, 2023

Identifying and cutting down on ‘hidden costs’

A good way to live on a small budget is by not spending money on crud — me, 2023.

I always feel a bit sad when I hear friends and co-workers moan about their need to work full time to just afford a living, while at the same time I see them spend money like it is water, and they don’t even seem to notice. 💦💦

For example:

1. Preparing a lunch at home instead of buying on-the-go. If you simply buy a loaf of bread and take 4 slices out of the freezer every morning and put let’s say Salmon on your bread, then you can eat 5 days a week for €8, that’s €1.6 per day. And you are eating fresh bread with Salmon, a meal of kings. I’ve we had to buy the same meal in a store we would pay about €5 per day, so that’s €25 for a week vs. €8. €17 saved in one week is €884 per year. 🥪

2. Commuting by bike instead of by car. This, of course, only works if you live on a biking distance from your workplace. But why on earth would you seek employment further away? Instead of spending time lucked up in a tiny fish tin (a car) you get to spend time outside in the (hopefully) fresh air while doing a little healthy and light exercise as a bonus. Moreover, ever seen bikes in a long queue? Exactly, chances are you’ll save time on your commute as well as fuel. Say that you live 15 km from work, so back and forth is 30 km per day or 150 km per week, or 650 km per month. That is a full tank of gas, or about €125 per month, spent on a commute that could be virtually free. I bought my bike for €50 nine years ago, and it still works with only once needing maintenance, and that was for about €25. So €125 per month or €1500 per year saved, while also getting in better shape… not bad eh? 🚲

3. Get a sim-only plan instead of one where a phone is included. There are scarcely any people who need to replace their phone every two years, and yet that is what most phone plans will force you into. This is a waste of money and the environment. So instead of paying €30 per month for a plan you don’t need, you could probably do with one that costs €5 to €10. Therefore, that’s another €20 per month or €240 per year saved. 📴

4. Bonus. Don’t buy gadgets, or, when you do, be realistic in what you need. Our sister blog “Jan’s Tech Talk” has a great post about buying a new iPhone on a budget, you can read it here: iphones-have-been-getting-cheaper. 📲

Did you notice that all these saving tips have a few things in common?

• You need to think ahead, like, go shopping and have food in your house, instead of thinking only about food when you start to feel peckish. 🤨
• You need to be willing to endure some minor physical discomforts. Biking is fun, except when it stops being fun in the sweltering summer heat or freezing winter cold. 🚶
• You need to be aware of needs and wants. Yes, I’ve had an unlimited data plan on my phone too, and yes, like you, I never burned more than 10 GB per month either, so why on earth did I pay for it? 🙅

Those three simple ways to save a bit put together meant we saved €2624 per year.

I don’t have grant theories or big plans that I work towards here. I just want to show you that with a little thinking ahead and making conscience choices, you too can live on a much smaller budget and save much more money. Not because it’s useful to just have more money on the bank, but because now you can spend it on the people and experiences that really matter to you.

October 8, 2023

It’s not about saving money, it’s about not having to spend at all.

Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth. Neo: What truth? Boy: There is no spoon.

Wearing something new gets old quickly 💃

We all need to cover our naked bodies, as much for our sake as for the mental well-being of the rest of mankind. And yes, wearing a new apparel for the first few times ✨feels like magic✨. Everybody stares jealously at you. Your boss takes you more serious, maybe now that you are wearing those new shoes you’ll even get that long wanted pay raise?

And then, slowly and imperceptibly, that newness, that cozy feeling when you look at your attire, fades away. Your outfit becomes once again what is always was to begin with: a thin layer between you and the outside world.

The sooner we realize that spending money on clothing, like spending money on so many other kinds of stuff at best a necessity and at worst a waste of money, the better of we will be financially.

Spending too little on clothing? 👎

As we just saw, spending too much money on clothing is generally a bad idea. But we all do require some attire. So, how can a independently poor person dress up as the trans-financial (rich person born in a poor person’s body), and look the part? Moreover, is there such a thing as spending too little on clothing? According to Vimes, there is:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was written in 1993, a time when $50 could still get you a high-quality pair of boots. But, is the general gist of this story true? Was it ever so?

In my humble experience, it depends. Socks and underwear can last 1–3 years, pants and shirts 5–10 years and coats endure up to 15 years.

Say, I spend ± €400 on a nice coat. That sounds like an awful lot of money. And it is. But what if this delightful high-quality coat (it should be high quality for this trick to work) holds out for about 15 years, then, really, I’ve only paid €27 per year for it!

My point is this: it’s better to buy fewer pieces of attire but of a generally better quality then the fast-fashion peddlers would like us to. As is so often the case, the capitalists of this world are not working in the best interest of you and me, the hardworking proletariat that this society is truly built on. We must resist the temptations of advertisement and throw off the burden of “fashion trends.”

So, expensive is better? 🎩

No. Some brands are costly because they must spend truckloads on marketing. This does not guarantee their quality. It just guarantees that you are paying too much. In our minds, some brands have comparable quality and price, but this isn’t necessarily so.

For example, both Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger have similar prices for comparable garments. But from my experience, I know that the colors in my Hilfiger pants fade out after only one year of wearing them, whereas my Lauren’s still look good after three years. The same goes for Levi’s vs. Superdry: both have nice t-shirts, but my Levi’s shirts have holes in them a lot faster than the Superdry’s. And so on. Find out for yourself which brands last the longest.

Are we there yet? 🚌

No. So far, we have seen that buying fewer cloths and buying quality stuff is a good idea. But we still need to do this on a restricted budget, after all, this is what separates us independently poor, from the poor plebeian classes who simply spend all their disposable income on, let’s face it, colored pieces of cotton.

How to dress for less? 👍

Now that we have established that we should look for high quality and aim to buy less in general, we can truly get started on our shopping spree.

The best time to buy any apparel at all is before you need it. Why? Because when you do need it, you are likely to rush into a decision based on an urgent need instead of a cool and detached vantage point. Imagine it’s the time of the year that all clothing stores put up big “sales” signs. It’s a good exercise to ask yourself 1. What do I require? 2. what is on my nice-to-have-if-cheap-enough list? Only when both answers are sharply in focus, you can go shopping.

But what if the sales-season is months away, and you require something sooner? Or better yet: you are thinking ahead and want to buy something before you’ll need it?

First grade, but second hand 🔄

1. Some platforms allow users to sell second hand clothing, like Vinted
2. Sellpy goes one step further by enforcing quality pictures and a realistic description of size and wear-and-tear.
3. Other platforms and shops no doubt exist near you. Since marketing budgets are naturally limited, you might have to go out and look a bit harder than usually for them.

Now that all is said and done…

An independently poor person isn’t too concerned with “stuff”, be it shoes, clothes, apparels, or other kinds of things. Instead of always pondering what to buy and wear next, we can enjoy the better things in life, like spending time with friends ⛹️‍♂️🤽‍♂️ or in nature.⛄️

If we do need to buy something, we try to spend as little as possible on the most enduring and high quality we can find.

Still having trouble making sound choices? The article How Can I Improve My Wardrobe? maybe of further assistance.

October 5, 2023