Wish you had the confidence to quit tech, go live in the woods, and play D&D all day? You might be closer than you think. ESI stands for “earn, save, and invest” and it is the main loop that powers your wealth-building game. By turning the dials of ESI up or down, you can build a perpetual money-making machine. Learn how giving yourself a raise, geoarbitrage, house hacking, 401k automation, pay-yourself-first, and other financial design patterns help you automate your wealth building and reach financial independence faster. This is not an abstract talk, it’s a personal finance story. As the son of an immigrant, nobody taught me how to build wealth but as a Fortune 500 software developer I had the privilege of not needing to think about money… until I had kids. Paying 2X for daycare was a suckerpunch to the gut and that’s when I stumbled across the FIRE crowd. Sacrificing everything to retire early didn’t appeal to me but slowing down and enjoying the journey did. Even with a house, wife and three kids, applying the ESI framework took our 14% savings rate to over 50% after 2 years which let us take summers off, slow travel, and gave me the confidence to work for myself. I definitely play more D&D now but I don’t live in the woods. Yet.

Kamran is a DevEd consultant who helps developer marketers create lean, mean lead-generating content cuisine. He writes about how to avoid fast food developer content marketing in his DevEd Test Kitchen newsletter and hosts DevEducate, a podcast about creating remarkable developer learning experiences. He’s also a Pluralsight author and speaker at conferences like NDC, MDC, and MidwestJS. He is an amateur game designer, helps maintain the Excalibur.js open source game engine, has shipped 9 games, and is the founder of a SaaS for game enthusiasts. Previously, Kamran worked at Fortune 500 enterprises helping engineering teams optimize and scale consumer-facing brand websites. You can learn more at https://deved.love.