## Problem
I followed the instructions and got this error when running an NPM
package globally:
```
Path "/Users/me/~/.npm-global/lib/node_modules" does not exist.
Please check the NODE_PATH environment variable.
```

In `.npmrc` the prefix was set to:
```
prefix=~/.npm-global
```

`~` is not expanded here so NPM looks for a literal `~/` path instead of
the home directory.

## Solution
Use the absolute path instead:
```
prefix=/Users/me/.npm-global
```

Run `npm config` without quotes around the path so that `~` is properly
expanded.