I’m not looking for the next ten-bagger.
You heard that right.
I’m not out there, searching for the next stock that will return 10 times my money in fairly short order.
Since I’m more concerned with the income my Full-Time Fund generates for me, and since I’m actually a fan of lower prices on stocks (in most cases), seeing a stock multiply in price so significantly over the course of five or ten years isn’t really a dream of mine.
I’ve had people over the years contact me via social media or emails to see what I might think of Stock X or Stock Y in regards to its ability to triple or quadruple in price within a year or two.
First, I have no idea which way any stock’s price is going to go over the short term (though, I do have some kind of inkling as to what’s going to happen over a very long period of time).
Second, I’m more interested in hitting singles and doubles than I am home runs.
Third, I’m more concerned with limiting the 100% losses than I am in seeing the 900% gains.
Getting On Base
In baseball parlance, you can take a couple different approaches to scoring.
You can attempt to knock the cover off the baseball and hit a home run.
Or you can try to safely get on base.
One has a more aggressive risk-reward relationship (the home run attempts), whereas the other is a more conservative approach.
Well, I take the latter approach when it comes to investing.
I like to invest in companies that have business models that are easy to understand. I like to see sound fundamentals, including manageable debt, solid top-line and bottom-line growth over a long period of time, and great margins. I like industry leaders. I want competitive advantages, like switching costs, pricing power, brand recognition, cost advantages, distribution networks, and scale. And most importantly, I want to see a company share its growing profit with shareholders in the form of a growing dividend.
As an investor, I think like an owner. It doesn’t matter if I’m buying 10 shares or 1,000 shares – I pretend I’m buying the whole company. And as an investor, I try to think about what makes this particular business better than others, and why it should continue to succeed over a long period of time.
But what I’m not doing when I look at a stock is attempt to think about where the stock price might be in six months, a year, or five years.
Not only does it not matter to my long-term goals or ability to remain financially free but it’s something that’s out of my control. Moreover, energy spent on this endeavor will not only be wasted but also limit one’s ability to spend energy on things that can be controlled and improve one’s long-term financial health.
I simply do my best to estimate the intrinsic value of the business as a whole (and thus each share), and then buy in at a price as far below that value as possible so as to secure a higher yield, better long-term total return and income growth prospects, and less risk (via a margin of safety).
Major investments of mine include Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Philip Morris International Inc. (PM), and PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP).
These are all companies that pass most of my tests. There are solid track records of growing profit that’s shared with shareholders in the form of growing dividends. I see sound fundamentals and competitive advantages. And I wouldn’t mind owning the entirety of any of these businesses.
But none of these investments have been “home runs” for me.
I’m sitting on capital gains of approximately 80% with Johnson & Johnson, 40% with Philip Morris, and 70% with Pepsi.
Of course, that’s before talking about the years’ worth of dividends I’ve collected. And I lightened up on Philip Morris not terribly long ago due to exposure and valuation, or else it, too, would be higher.
But the point is that these stocks are unlikely to be ten-baggers any time soon. I’m not swinging for the fences here. These are relatively low-risk investments. And the risk is lowered further when the shares are acquired at a price below intrinsic value.
However, I am getting on base… routinely. My capital is working for me and my investments are worth more than I paid.
More importantly, all of these companies continue to send me large dividend payments every quarter, which covers a nice chunk of my bills.
Instead of buying up some unheard-of pharmaceutical company in hopes it’s bought out by a major player and risking most of my investment, I’m sticking to well-known companies that sell products and/or services that consumers and/or other businesses all over the globe want, need, and buy. The companies I invest in should slowly but surely churn out ever-increasing profit… and dividends.
I’m minimizing risk while simultaneously making sure that my long-term income and income growth allows me the flexibility I want to enjoy my life and pursue happiness.
I just don’t need to chase home runs to get to where I want to be.
Furthermore, while a 50% return won’t bolster your net worth as much as a 900% return, a 50% return is sure better than a 100% loss.
The 100% Loss
I long ago decided to focus on three major areas of my expenses: housing, transportation, and food.
It’s basically approaching budgeting using the Pareto principle. About 20% of my budget line items accounted for about 80% of the money I was spending. So I decided to aggressively cut these three line items as much as possible. Cutting out the regular “latte” visits might make for a sexy headline, but it’s really something like moving to a cheaper apartment and/or getting rid of your car that’s actually going to make a major impact.
I went from spending more than $500 per month on a car to about $50 per month on public transportation.
I went from spending more than $600 per month on rent to less than $500.
And I went from eating out somewhat regularly to eating sandwiches at home, which reduced my food budget down to less than $200 many months.
These savings added up to more than $750 per month that I ended up investing in high-quality dividend growth stocks that ended up providing me even more income to save and invest.
You know what kind of return I would have received on this money had I not made these moves in my personal life to free up that capital to invest?
-100%.
That’s right. It would have been a complete loss… every single month I was spending the money.
Every frivolous dollar spent earns me -100%.
Instead, all of those extra dollars bought more shares of companies like the ones listed above. So whereas I’m not hitting a lot of home runs, what might not necessarily show up in the stat sheet is that I’m able to accumulate far more shares of these stocks that are getting me on base over the investor that’s hitting more home runs but also saving less and accumulating less overall shares, wealth, and income. I’m getting on base over and over again while someone else is hitting home runs but also striking out a lot more, and probably just plain scoring less often.
So you can imagine my amusement when investors want to try to uncover the next home run, risking a lot of their capital in the process, while still spending way too much money on their lifestyle that’s earning -100%.
It’s essentially throwing away a lot of money on expenses, and then compounding the problem by potentially throwing away even more money on the inevitable strikeouts that will come by trying to knock the ball out of the park (Reggie Jackson leads the MLB all-time strikeout list, ya’ll).
As such, my mind works like this: I’m thinking about that $100 I’m spending and how it’ll turn into $0 instead of $1,093 (what it would be if it were compounded at 8% for 30 years – an eventual 10-bagger). That $100 turns into a nice $0.75 quarterly dividend (at a 3% yield) that, when repeated over and over again, gets me on base and, eventually, home. My portfolio was built on $100 here and $100 there over many, many years. It does indeed add up.
If winning the game is financial freedom, I’ve simply tried to round the bases as fast as possible, and every extra dollar of capital (via spending less) has propelled my hitting and speed.
While I’ve most certainly struck out on occasion, losing a little money here and there doesn’t feel too bad at all when you know that you’re going to make that back up with a week’s worth of savings.
Conversely, someone who isn’t saving as much is that much further behind when an investment goes sideways, because a 100% gain is required to offset a 50% loss, and that’s even harder to do when you’re not loading up with hitters left and right via a high savings rate.
Conclusion
I believe a strong focus on frugality is more important and more effective than trying to become the next Warren Buffett. Besides, it’s far easier to be an all-star saver than it is to be an all-star investor. If anything, I’ve tried to emulate my life after Warren Buffett the frugalist more than Warren Buffett the investor.
That $750 I was saving by making a few tweaks to my lifestyle, focusing on just three budget line items, was $750 that was getting on base over and over again, eventually allowing me to score and become financially free. Instead of losing $750 per month on a -100% return, I was accumulating more shares of great companies and increasing my growing passive income.
Approaching saving and investing conservatively, as part of a holistic lifestyle, puts one in a great position to step up to the plate, hit the ball, and methodically run the bases.
A 10% gain here and there adds up quickly. As does an extra $50 of extra passive income here and there. Every single and double is that much closer to scoring – and eventually winning the game. More savings equals more money equals more hitters equals more singles and doubles. Those focusing on just home runs will eventually get left behind.
Keep in mind, too, that focusing on quality companies that pay growing dividends naturally shifts one’s mindset away from just thinking about total return and toward the dividend income that’s coming in, because it’s really that income that’s going to pay your bills.
A big gain helps the net worth, but that’s not going to do much, if anything at all, if you’re not interested in selling your shares. And I’m also not stating that you won’t do incredibly well in terms of total return by sticking to high-quality dividend growth stocks. I’ve done very well, with many “accidental” home runs (companies that were bought out for big premiums shortly after I invested), in addition to seeing most of the companies I’ve invested in meeting or exceeding operational and income expectations. And I suspect most of my investments, including those listed above, will eventually go on to be worth many times my original investment. But that’s not the point here.
For some reason, I believe people like to do mental gymnastics. They’ll bemoan a $1,000 loss on an investment but won’t bat an eye to the extra $1,000 of fat in their budget. And instead of focusing on their spending, they want to try to hit the lottery with the next investment they make.
If a 3% drop on a stock’s price causes you a little bit of concern but you don’t yet have your spending down to maximum efficiency, there’s an opportunity there to really think about why you’re more concerned with a 3% unrealized loss on a stock’s price than the 100% realized loss you’re taking on excess waste in your budget.
Look, every frivolous dollar spent is basically money that never leaves the clubhouse. Why not at least step up to the plate?
As always, what you do is up to you. Each person needs to figure out a lifestyle and plan that works for them. But I do think that focusing on things you can’t control instead of that which you can control leaves you prone to striking out. Hitting singles and doubles might not be as sexy as hitting a home run, but rounding home base feels a lot better than sitting on the bench after a strikeout. And being financially free feels a lot better than not being financially free.
Full disclosure: I’m long JNJ, PM, and PEP.
What do you think? Do you focus on spending so as to limit your 100% losses instead of trying to hit home runs with your investments?
Thanks for reading.
Image courtesy of: vectorolie at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Great post, Jason.
I’ve had similar thoughts in developing a portfolio to avoid the big loss. If I can in invest in funds with reasonable yield and potential increases in capital, I’m okay with leaving the potential ten baggers for other people.
I would not be able to sleep with a 100% emerging market small cap stock portfolio, even if it might have a a higher probability of higher expected return over the very long term. Sometimes “good enough” is, in fact, good enough.
TJ,
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it!
I actually take it a step further and declare that I don’t even care about capital gain. If Johnson & Johnson were still priced back where it was when I bought it, I most certainly wouldn’t be unhappy. The capital gain does nothing for me unless I want to sell. Meanwhile, that cheaper stock is accretive from a business standpoint. And it would obviously be an incredible buying opportunity. But that’s really thinking like an owner, rather than just a stock buyer. Nonetheless, great businesses will naturally see their stock prices increase over time due to improving fundamentals, increasing dividends, etc. Otherwise, we’d see all these high-quality stocks with 10%+ yields, which would be crazy.
Thanks for dropping by!
Cheers.
Jason,
Good to come across your new site – have missed your posts in recent months!
A couple of years back, I would have been right with you on individual shares and dividend investing. However these days I have moved over to a more passive global index strategy using Vanguard Lifestrategy (not sure what the equivalent would be in US).
I find this is much less volatile than shares and therefore, for me, much less stressful and also as the fund has an average return of 9% p.a. over the past 5 yrs, I just take my 4% ‘income’ from the sale of part of my fund at the end of each year.
Investing does not come any simpler! But as you say, each to their chosen strategy…whatever works.
Good luck with the new site!
DIY,
Thanks! It’s great to be back at it. I know that my ideas are finite, so I won’t be at it forever. But I think I still have a lot to contribute to the world in this manner before I go on to spend more time with other ventures. It’s still a lot of fun. 🙂
Couldn’t agree more with you there about doing what works. Investing isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing. Everyone has to figure out what works for them.
Thanks for dropping by!
Take care.
Being young, I still struggle daily with going for homeruns or dividend investing. Therefore, I have adapted a bit of both strategies. If I see a company that does not pay a dividend but falls based on no fundamental changes to the company, I pick up shares. This keeps me engaged with the stock market instead of a set it and forget it approach. Having the ability to pick up good companies cheaper by reacting quickly can set up sizeable gains in the future and help propel us faster towards FI.
I am still weighted heavily towards dividend stocks since I love seeing money roll in but you better believe if FB falls to $75 based on a server outage (or something immaterial) I’d be buying up shares!
Like you said above, there is no one size fits all and thats what makes a market. For every seller there is a buyer. Now just hope we can get more sellers in here and bring prices down to some nice levels!
Good post, Jason.
ADD
ADD,
Hey, definitely. Gotta figure out what works for you. Some people like occasionally swinging for those home runs. I guess it’s exciting? I honestly don’t know. For me, being financially free and able to do what I want at a very young age is super exciting, and I’ve found that concentrating on limiting those 100% losses is more effective in real life than trying to swing for those big hits. The great thing about dividend growth investing, though, is that the home runs are probably going to come here and there, regardless. It’s just sometimes funny to me to hear about investors bemoaning small unrealized losses but practically blind to those big realized losses they’re taking every day. And that’s what inspired me to write this.
Thanks for dropping by!
Cheers.
Great analysis. It comes down to what investing strategy you’re comfortable with and figuring out how much is enough for you. Are you aiming for million and million of dollar? Or are you aiming to maintain your lifestyle with passive income? The answer will dictate which investing strategy you pursuit. 🙂
Tawcan,
Hmm, that’s interesting. A few comments that have come in are all based around investment strategy. Perhaps I failed in my message here, but this wasn’t an “investment strategy” article at all. I was rather attempting to discuss how unnecessary waste in one’s spending is a 100% loss, and focusing instead on that slippage rather than trying to hit the skin off the ball is really a more effective way to approach the holistic lifestyle toward financial freedom. This certainly wasn’t a DGI booster piece, as I’ve already been there, done that.
But I do agree with you in that you each person has to figure out what works for them. 🙂
Cheers!
Hey Jason,
I’d be interested to read a future article on how you decide when to cut your losses if a solid-looking, low-risk company doesn’t meet expectations in the long term. After all, picking decent businesses like JNJ or NOV is still an educated guess that you make with the best information available to you at the time.
Congrats on the new website!
Nooni,
Well, this really wasn’t an investment piece at all. It’s really a high-level article speaking to the need to limit unnecessary waste in one’s life, which could otherwise be put to work. Every investment, as you note, carries risk. Some carry more. Some carry less. But every time you invest your money, you’re incurring risk. I’m simply saying that I prefer what I perceive to be lower-risk investments. Even that, though, is subjective. Someone with a lot of IT experience might find some semiconductor company carries less risk for them. And that’s why I noted in the article that each person has to decide which investments work for them. I’ve found focusing on limiting those 100% losses to be more effective than trying to hunt down the next ten-bagger, as evidenced by my ability to become financially free at 33 years old on what was not exactly a huge income. But to each their own. 🙂
Best regards!
Hi Jason
very nicely done, putting investment gain/loss up against certain loss of expenses!
Puts things in perspective. I have just this month cut our electricity bill in half tweaking hot water boiler temperature, changing the shower head and switching to LEDs. A certain 100% loss of €100/month saved, and that despite the volatile markets recently. Think how many dividend stocks I would need to buy to get this monthly income! And think how many dividend stocks I am going to buy with that money…
Only question remaining is why didn’t I do this before? I will look forward all the same and be happy for the progress now made.
Cheers!
Philipp
Philipp,
Great job over there. That’s an additional 100 euros that spends just like 100 euros worth of dividends. I’m agnostic when it comes to money. If I can save $750 per month, I’m all over it. Better yet, the effort required is, as you note, surely much less than that which is required to gain that through investing. It’s just an easier and more approachable way to think about money, and it quickly becomes part of a holistic lifestyle that gets you where you want to be. 🙂
Thanks for adding that!
Best wishes.
Jason – I absolutely agree that single are better than home runs. I think that as I get closer to retirement (I hope to retire in 5 years) and/or as your net worth increases (I’m at just over $3M and I track it monthly on my website) I find that I am becoming more and more risk adverse. I don’t need 20% gains per year to get to where I want to be. A “mere” 7-8%/year will be more than sufficient.
I also think think that when you’re starting it’s easier to take more risks because the value of your market return is so much less than your contributions. If you have a $20,000 portfolio and are aggressively saving $1,000/month, the value of a 10% return ($2,000) is totally eclipsed by the value of your $12,000 in yearly savings. Having a -10% return or a 30% return really won’t move the needle much one way or the other. But at a $1M portfolio, the impact of your returns dwarfs the impact of your savings/investments. It makes sense to be more conservative.
TMC,
Yeah, I definitely agree. One’s concept of risk is likely to change as their goals become realized and as the total amount of money they control increases. Like they say, you only need to get rich once. If someone gave me a check for $10 million tomorrow, I wouldn’t even buy stocks. It would be silly to take on any risk at all when you have enough money for multiple lifetimes. I personally always plan to be in 100% stocks, but I’ve always been fairly conservative with that, relatively speaking, by investing mostly in blue-chip companies with great dividend growth track records. I’m not investing as much as I used to, however, because I’m pretty much where I need to be, so that urgency isn’t quite there anymore.
Thanks for dropping by!
Best wishes.
Good point about what you’d do with $10M. I think the hard part for most people is realizing when enough is enough. For most people, being given $10M would result in buying new houses, cars, funding an entourage, etc. For you, me, and the kind of person who reads our blogs, hopefully it would result in the realization that they’ve instantly reaching financial independence and the real goal from that point is just to not screw things up.
TMC,
“I think the hard part for most people is realizing when enough is enough.”
No doubt about that. That’s exactly why I started this new project, which is going to focus a lot less on money and a lot more on happiness and living purposefully.
Cheers!
Hey Jason, love your strategy and your way of thinking with this. Just do the best you can with your budget, which is what you can control the most. And try to invest as well as you can, for growing dividends. Easy!
Tristan
Tristan,
Definitely, man. That’s the thing. The spending is within your control. The price of stocks is not. And the former is far easier to extract more money from. Moreover, it’s really just part of a holistic lifestyle that becomes second nature. All the pieces fit together. 🙂
Best regards!
Yep control your spending as that is within the realm of things you can change. Still convincing the wife and family we need to downsize and move to a fully paid off fixer upper. Then I can accelerate the savings big time. Thanks for the inspiration boost Jason to keep at it.
Later,
DFG
DFG,
Best of luck with that move, if you’re able to make it! 🙂
Cheers.
I don’t typically “swing for the fence” when making an investment, but I have been guilty of chasing yield on more than one occasion. Great article…
Rod,
Glad you enjoyed it!
I have some high-yield stocks, too, but I try to average things out with those stocks on the opposite end of the spectrum. Working out okay thus far. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by.
Cheers!
I wrote a three paragraph comment that seems to have gotten lost, so that sucks. I’ll just give the tl;dr version: People probably harp on investment losses more than frivolous spending because in the former, they feel like they LOST money whereas in the former they feel like it brought them a non-financial return. Also, swinging for the fences MIGHT be okay if you are an expert in the field with decades of experience.
Seriously, I hate it when I comment on a blog and it vanishes. The blogger’s great tragedy.
Sincerely,
ARB–Angry Retail Banker
ARB,
Sorry your comment was lost, man. That’s unfortunate.
But I hear you there. I suppose one feels like there’s at least a modicum of gain, somehow, when the money is spent versus invested. But the more I study behavior and happiness, the more I realize that’s really a false sense of gain (assuming they already have more than enough, at which point they’re investing). And even though an investment loss might be unrealized, the mind works to fester, making this person think they somehow would have ended up better if they would have spent the money or invested differently. People only imagine better outcomes. It’s just funny how people are.
Thanks for dropping by and adding that!
Best regards.
Hi Jason,
Thanks for sharing this article. I liked it. It resonates with the concept I had that if your savings rate is high enough, it doesn’t matter what your rate of return is so long as you don’t lose money.
However if you are living off your passive income after retirement with expenditures (that are already trimmed down) being close to the money coming in then something like a dividend cut or adverse impact to a company can be of greater concern. I do think your strategy of focusing on companies with a long track record and adequate diversification is a robust one.
For me, my core strategy is DGI but I do take a small portion of my money to go after flyers with a big return potential. It works so long as I’m working with a high savings rate and enjoying what I’m doing. When that changes the entire focus will revert to the core strategy.
-Mike
Mike,
Indeed. When the focus is on a high savings rate, the rate of one’s investment return becomes less important. If you’re saving, say, 70% of your net income and you become financially free in, say, six years, the rate of return will have very little to do with all that. But if your savings rate is, say, 10%, and you’re aiming for freedom in your mid-50s, that’s a whole different ballgame. And I think that’s why my focus has always been on the savings rate and strong dividend income – my time frame was truncated so significantly. But not only is the investment strategy at that point fairly robust but also the focus on savings rate. It puts more in your control while getting you there faster.
I’ve never gone after flyers like that, but I also find that they come around anyway. One of the more recent ones I’ve had is Spectra. Don’t really need the 85% gain since January, but I think it proves that they’re there in this space (even without the usual risk). But to each their own. 🙂
Cheers!
Jason, Great article; puts the focus where it should be when starting out. I’m up here in Sun Valley Idaho where I saw a snapshot of Warren Buffet and his wife in the SV lodge taken during one of his visits. Not that it’s relevant but it reminded me of this article since I had just read it. Of course, a $380/night stay at the lodge might be considered frugal for Warren. I stayed in Ketchum Idaho about 2 miles away for half that 🙂 Anyway, I appreciated your angle on the value of saving and investing. Keep up the good work.
Retired,
Nice! I’ve always wondered what that conference up there is like. Must be pretty fascinating to be around that kind of concentrated collection of intelligence and vision. I remember reading about one of Buffett’s visits in one of his books (either The Snowball or Tap Dancing To Work) – and, for some reason, it just seemed to really take the shine off the idea. I recall reading about how Buffett was just sitting at the edge of this bed at the hotel, just kind of ruminating about things that anyone else would. But that really just reinforces my thoughts on how there’s no gold at the end of any rainbow; the rainbow itself is the gold.
Thanks for stopping by!
Best wishes.
Selling options for income is much the same. You give up some upside to get paid today. If buying dividend growth names for stability and income is hitting singles, option selling is bunting.
FV,
Bunting? Yeah, I like it. I don’t mind bunting! 🙂
Cheers.
Jason,
You’re making a good point. Money spent is money that will never bring in income and financial freedom and in that way, it’s true that it’s a total loss. And money is time…
People are shopping all thoughout town to save a bit here and there on grocery every week-end and they feel great about it but then they sign a 7 years loan for a 65,000$ car they don’t need without negociating even a bit.. and then they buy a 500,000$ home with granite countertops and high tech appliances only to eat out for lunch and dinner half of the time…
That’s money lost… and a good way to spend a life in work slavery. On top of that, they chase for homeruns in the stock market. That’s a good way to lose hard earned money but even though I tried to convince many people around me that it was a stupid behavior, they still believe that one day they will hit the jackpot and laugh in my face… ah well!
I guess they didn’t understand the fable from Lafontaine about the ant and the grasshoper. I took me 32 years to figure it out so I guess I shouldn’t be showing off but…
If you do right on paying you first, controling the costs of transportation, lodging and food, you can spend the rest foolishly the way you want and still reach financial freedom fast.
Trying to be Warren Buffett the frugalist is a lot better than trying to be Warren Buffett the investor I definitely do agree with you on that. You proved it and I’ll prove it over the next several years too. There is absolutely no need to hit a homerun every time and actually I don’t see the point. It’s only taking undue risk. Time in the market is indeed more important than total return or trying to time the market when trying to amass a nest egg. 100$ here and there over many many years will turn into a huge amount of wealth over a sufficient period of time!
By the way, when I started following you in 2013, I thought I could almost be able to catch up with you, but you’ve been an incredible saver! 3 years down the road, I just got to the 75,000$ mark with 2600$ in dividend income while you amassed a couple of hundred grands… I made a couple of rookie mistakes (chase the yield with ARCP and LIQ.to) but overall I’m doing great at least… And I hope to reach my first 100 grands in 2017. I hope that getting to the second 100k will be easier though. It’s easy, but it’s hard at the same time because I get impatient.
Even though I’ve not chosen to live in an appartment and to live a car free life for personal reasons (and weather in our blistering cold Quebec winters) I’ve been relatively “intelligent” with expenses in transportation, keeping my 2011 Toyota corolla basic model and a rather regular bungalow paid 180k. It definitely helps. And I also went up the corporate ladder and got another promotion. My brute salary will soon reach 130k per year and this will sure help. But, paying off my mortgage is ruining me… 29640$ per year goes to that expense and I still have a 4 years and 2 months amortization to finally get rid of it and live there “forever” for the price of the municipal taxes which should round up to 250$ per month divided by the two of us.
Obviously I could have paid it in more years to be able to invest more, but the freedom from being debt free is motivating me and my wife a lot and I still can save over 25k per year. Plus, no one knows where interest rate is heading and the bank has a financial lever over me and I don’t like it. People don’t seem to understand that a 2% increase in a mortgage rate can translate easily into a 15-20% increase in monthly payments because of the leverage.
All in all, by being frugal, I’ve been able to refund more than 47k on my mortgage while saving 75k over the course of 3 years. Not bad! And while doing this, I never tried to hit homeruns but I only aimed for sure shots on the exceptions of 2 or 3 missed swings because I was aiming too far.
I also started an investment fund for my newborn baby. He already has a net worth of 3000$ at nine months old and a dividend income of 5$ per month so far with half the money left to invest! 🙂
I’ll teach him how to make money work for him and how to save and invest. Actually I’m already teaching him, sitting him on me while I shop for dividend growth stocks lol
I hope he’s going to have a better life than mine and I feel lucky to be able to help him from day 1 to start having the right thinking and to amass some money for him while he has a lot of time for compounding it into freedom.
Spending all our money every month is not only having a 100% loss, it’s also spending our time and freedom. I personnaly prefer freedom over a Big Mac or over an expensive luxury car. But I guess we must respect everyone’s way of thinking.
It’s good to see you back. Your blog already has a great momentum! Wish you the best!
Alain,
Thanks for the kind words. It feels great to be back. I still have a few ideas in the tank that I want to share, so here I am! 🙂
It sounds like you’re doing great over there. As you know, we all have to figure out a balance that works for us. One’s perfect lifestyle could be a nightmare for someone else. But what I hope to show over the course of this blog’s lifespan is that it isn’t really the money at all that provides happiness but the freedom that money buys, because it’s the freedom and flexibility that allows you to customize a lifestyle that does work for you.
I’m quite sure you’ll catch up to me very soon. I’m not working as hard as I used to, and so I’m not saving and investing as much. Meanwhile, you’re making about twice what I was making in my last year in the auto industry. So that’s a big advantage. But I’ve pretty much reached the top of the mountain now, so my goals don’t really revolve around money any more. It’s a great perspective to be blessed with. 🙂
Thanks for dropping by and sharing. Hope you stay in touch!
Best wishes.
Just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading your comment Alain, keep up the great work!!