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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

I just became a millionaire at age 35

 
On a recent Thursday night I logged into my brokerage account and saw an extra digit I'd never seen before.
$1,004,845
When I was in my early 20s I didn't think becoming a millionaire at 35 was even possible.
Back then I didn't have much money, but the little extra that I did — usually $500 a month — I saved and invested. So this is proof of what can happen when you do that:
You might think when your account rolls over to seven digits that fireworks light up the sky, confetti falls, and champagne starts flowing. I can tell you that doesn't happen, in fact it's pretty anti-climatic; I was like, "Oh, cool," and then went back to work.
Honestly, the financial milestone that really mattered to me was making my first $1K from investing. That meant my investments could make me $10K, which meant they could make me $25K, and so on.
Recently, a 25-year-old reader emailed me to ask where I was financially when I was his age. If you find value in benchmarking yourself against me — depending on your number that could be ill-advised — use this chart:
As you can see, getting to $1M isn't a straight line. There were numerous times when I lost a lot of money in the market. For example, before the recession in 2008 I had $175K and nine months later I had $120K. When that happens it's scary because you think you're never going to make that money back.
But you have two choices when the market is falling and you're losing money — flee, or the stay the course. If you let fear take ahold of you then you're likely to make the wrong choice. Psychologically, it's quite normal for us to equate price volatility with risk, and ironically end up doing risky things like selling at the worst possible time.
During the recession, the financial talking heads advised us to invest solely in safe Treasury bills or bank CDs. For the people who took that advice, they're now earning essentially nothing on their savings that they thought would support them in retirement. If they hadn't acted out of fear, they could have built a great retirement portfolio with low-cost index funds.
I've reaped the rewards of staying the course, and now when I lose $70K in a month (which recently happened), I recognize it's just part of the process to build wealth.

How long will $1M last?

The right answer is, "It depends." The financial talking heads make us believe we need $3M to retire, so we can draw a "reasonable" $130K a year. So that's true if you spend $11K a month.
When I plug my numbers into the retirement calculator FIRECalc — yearly spending of $36K, a $1M portfolio, and 51 years left to live (based on the U.S. government's death calculator) — it tells me there's a 98.9% chance my $1M won't be depleted before I die.
That means I never have to work again.
Even better, there's a few key assumptions not in this calculation:
  • When my 15-year mortgage is paid off my spending decreases
  • If I cohabitate my spending decreases (my girlfriend wants to split living expenses)
  • I'll probably make some money at some point during the next 51 years
  • My Social Security benefits kick in at 65
What I worry about are kids and their impact on spending. I think I can raise a child for $85K, but the USDA thinks I'll spend up to $500K. I just don't know yet, but my best guess is that my finances would be okay if I didn't work and had one or two kids.

So what's the secret to becoming a millionaire?

I didn't win the lottery, I didn't inherit any money, and I didn't start a company. If you're in the same situation then the fastest way to $1M is to decrease spending and increase income. Those are the two levers you have control of.
I found that the best approach was to go after the big wins, not like these crazy people.
Instead of peeling bananas at the store to save $0.25, that person could be:
Those are the big wins where a lot of money is hiding, so tackle those first before moving on to saving money in the produce section. Now, if you're pulling on the spending and income levers you're going to want to see the results, right?

How to track your spending, income, and investments

I know what you're thinking, boring! Nobody wants to plug numbers into a spreadsheet. I'm a weirdo because it might just be my all-time favorite thing to do. The reason I want you to start, or try it for one month, is because I guarantee you'll learn at least one thing about your finances you didn't know.
For example, in the late aughts I knew I was spending a lot but I didn't know it was almost as much as I was making. Through tracking came awareness, and that lead to making a decision in 2010 to my effort behind becoming financially independent. 
Not surprisingly, by decreasing my spending and increasing my income the amount of money I could save exploded! I went from having about $10K a year to invest to having over $40K.
To become financially independent, you need to reach the crossover point — when withdrawing 4% of your savings meets your yearly expenses. That is called the Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR).
On average, I used to spend $4K a month. By decreasing my spending to $3K, I was able to reach financial independence faster. Simply put, the higher your expenses then the more money you're going to need to save to reach the crossover point. 

Convinced yet to start tracking? You can download the spreadsheet that I use at the end of this post, and try it out for yourself! It even makes that cool chart above.

Benefits of $1M

I know that I'm very fortunate to call myself a millionaire. While I wasn't excited about becoming one, it does allow me to live my life in a way that seemed impossible just a few years ago:
  • I don't have to stress about work: layoffs, getting fired, failing, or navigating office politics
  • If I choose to work I can be extremely selective, taking only jobs I'm truly passionate about
  • If I wake up and decide I want to take a year (or 51) off, that's what I do
Most importantly, I've learned that money is infinite. If I work I can get more of it, or I can let my $1M grow to $2M. There's always more of it out there. But time is finite. I have a limited number of years left, and now I have the freedom how I spend it. 

This post was originally published on Mr. Everyday Dollar.
Read more: http://mreverydaydollar.com

Monday, March 16, 2015

10 Investment Books You Should Read

 

10 Investment books we really like...and so should you

Whether you are into technical analysis or fundamental analysis, a beginner or an experienced investor, we encourage you to read the following investment books. Some of these are well known investment classics while others less so. This list is by no means exhaustive- we acknowledge that there are many other great and perhaps more instructive books out there. However, these are books that we have personally read and benefited greatly from. The ideas expressed within helped mold our investment ideas and philosophy over the years and made us better investors. We truly believe that any investor would be able to gain something from them too:

Source:  http://stockresearchasia.com



1. The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham

Definitive book by the father of value investing and Warren Buffett's mentor, Ben Graham. If Buffett deems it fit to be called "the best book about investing ever written", few can have any argument about this. It was this book that our founder read more than 10 years ago that truly opened our eyes to the investing world. It may open yours too.

2. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings, Philip A. Fisher

Investment classic by one of the most influential investors of all time. This book introduced to the investment community the now famous "Scuttlebutt" approach to investing, a qualitative method to analyse businesses and their competitive advantages. The technique focuses on the importance of gathering information from all possible sources. This work by Philip Fisher inspired and influenced generations of modern investors, including us.

3. The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Lawrence A. Cunningham

More than just a compilation of Warren Buffett's annual letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, the author organises and presents the key concepts in these letters in an easily understandable and digestible form. What better ways to understand the inner thoughts of the world's greatest investor than through the words of the man himself?   

4. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder

Only known official biography of Warren Buffett, this book details the life story of the legendary investor known as “The Oracle of Omaha”.  With unprecedented access to the man himself, his family and closest friends, Alice Schroeder, an ex-senior Morgan Stanley analyst, manages to tell a fascinating and compelling tale of how Warren Buffett built his massive fortune over the years. The book also contains less than flattering details of his personal life. At 800 over pages (900 over if you include end notes) though, this book is not for the faint-hearted.  

5. One Up on Wall Street, Peter Lynch with John Rothchild

Another investment classic. Legendary mutual fund manager, Peter Lynch explains how the common investor in the street can beat the professionals at their own game of investing. It is widely believed that this book popularised the term "multi-bagger", meaning a stock that returned multiple folds its original investment. Peter Lynch's record of 29% average annual returns in the 13-year period he was managing the Fidelity Magellan Fund speaks for itself.

6. Super Stocks, Kenneth L. Fisher

Son of wall street legend, Philip Fisher, Ken Fisher is a highly successful investor and billionaire in his own right. His firm, Fisher Investments, managed more than US$50 billion as of 2013. Find out, amongst others, how you can use the Price to Sales Ratio (PSR), as a measure to gauge relative valuation of stocks.

7. You can be a Stock Market Genius, Joel Greenblatt

Famed value investor and hedge fund manager, Joel Greenblatt's first book published in 1997. Corny title aside, this book provides useful insights on how you can profit from special situations such as spin-offs, mergers, rights offerings, bankruptcies and risk arbitrages. One of our personal favorites, we would not recommend this book to beginners still grasping with the basics of investing though. Investors might also want to check out one of Joel Greenblatt's other titles, The Little Book That Beats the Market.

8. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Edwin Lefèvre

The only non-value investing book on our list. This book purportedly tells the story of legendary trader, Jesse Livermore. You will probably not learn any fundamental investing concepts from this book although it is fascinating to read about the roller coaster fortunes of the former wall street trader, whose life ended tragically in 1940.

9. Bull, Maggie Mahar

As the saying goes, those who never learn from history are doomed to repeat it. For younger generation of investors  who never lived through the boom and bust of the past 3 decades, this book provides a timely reminder of how volatile the markets can be as well as offer a rare insight into the inner workings of wall street. After reading this, you may never view brokerage reports the same way again.

10. Warren Buffett Speaks, Janet Lowe

This book of quotes is extremely easy to read and suitable for beginners but it only made our list for sentimental reasons. In 2005, a chance encounter with the folksy wisdom of Warren Buffett depicted within led us to The Intelligent Investor and changed our founder's views on investments forever.  We are hopeful it will change yours too, for the better of course.

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