New member new 7 figures

[hayekcapitalist]

What are y'all doing with your portfolios at this time? Standing firm, selling, buying; what about new money, where are you putting it to work? Just trying to develop a consensus opinion among our erudite and savvy group.

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayekcapitalist What are y'all doing with your portfolios at this time? Standing firm, selling, buying; what about new money, where are you putting it to work? Just trying to develop a consensus opinion among our erudite and savvy group.

Sitting. Coincidentally I bumped my international stocks from 20% to 25% of my stock allocation but that was unrelated to the recent gyrations.

Just sittin'. All new $$ are going into fixed as part of my plan to hit my allocation when I semi-FIRE in the near future. If it looks like this dip will deepen or lengthen, I may nudge a little back in to the total market index. Or not. Tweaking at the most.

[tricky88]

Same as usual. Dollar cost averaging into a couple big stocks (JNJ, BAC) and buying a chunk of SPY or MDY once a month. Also working to move some of my overweight position in cash to bonds over the next 12 months.

The volatility doesn't mean much to me, except maybe a chance to buy a few extra shares and reinvest dividends at lower prices.

[hayekcapitalist]

Can anyone tell me , and confirm I am really stupid, what IMHO means? I apparently didn't lurk long enough and need a dictionary to pick up the local dialect.

[REWahoo]

In my humble opinion IMHO means just that.

[hayekcapitalist]

Thanks YIAS.

[2B]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayekcapitalist What are y'all doing with your portfolios at this time? Standing firm, selling, buying; what about new money, where are you putting it to work? Just trying to develop a consensus opinion among our erudite and savvy group.

Welcome. I'm hanging on because that's what I do. I'm a big proponent of asset allocation and then an annual rebalance. It's so much less trouble and the studies say that market timing doesn't work and broad indexes out perform professional money managers' individual stock selection over the long term. I've done it all over my investing career and if I'd started with my current approach I'd be far richer.

[brandywine]

In the Forum Admin section, you'll find an entry I use all the time called "Acronyms and Slang Frequently Used on the Forum", where I just went to look up your "YIAS", but it wasn't there. (I keep reading it as "wisea$$" but I'm SURE that's not what you meant!!) Can you translate that one for me?

Carol

[hayekcapitalist]

Brandywine:
Being truly illeterate to the protocol(s) of this forum, and lacking knowledge of the referred ("A&SFUOTF") I improvised: "YIAS"= yes I am stupid.

[hayekcapitalist]

2B:
After twenty+ years I too am holding on because #1 a large % of total return can be ascribed to a few outlier up-performance days, 2) nobody but a fool "knows" when the these days will occur and the resultant uptrend persist. Buying and holding may appear to the cynic to be the lazy or ignorant person's path to mediocrity. Numerous academic studies demonstraqte, however, that it is the "everyman's" way to financial independence.

[brandywine]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayekcapitalist Brandywine: Being truly illeterate to the protocol(s) of this forum, and lacking knowledge of the referred ("A&SFUOTF") I improvised: "YIAS"= yes I am stupid.

You are not stupid, just new, and YIAS is a good one--maybe it will catch on. All of the standard ones (BTW, IMHO, ROFL, LOL, etc) must have started with one person, right? A surprising amount of the time you can figure them out, but if not, it's always good to ask (or you can google "What does ROFL mean?" and find out that way). I remember one board years ago where one poster kept getting very belligerent and upset: turned out he thought that people responding "ROFL!" were swearing at him!

This board has introduced ME to LBYM (living below your means) and FIRE (financial indepence retire early).

Again, welcome to the board!

brandywine

ps:
BTW: by the way
IMHO: in my humble opinion
ROFL: rolling on the floor laughing
LOL: laughing out loud

[CourtneyC]

I agree with your comments about bschool. You should consider going back to teach part time about personal finance. I am sure a lot of people would benefit from your disciplined approach!!

[2B]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CourtneyC I agree with your comments about bschool. You should consider going back to teach part time about personal finance. I am sure a lot of people would benefit from your disciplined approach!!

I have been on a personal crusade to educate people I know or meet through work about LBYM and saving for retirement. What I've decided is that there is a time in people's lives where they become truly interested and are open to learning something new. Until that time comes, people will just smile at you and move on.

My personal time came when I lost my j*b in 1982. We had 2 small babies and I was sure we would lose the house. I managed to come out of that experience without any real harm but I vowed like Scarlet -- "I'll never be poor again." That's when I started saving and worried about investments. I just wish an "old me" would have been around to give me guidance.

[hayekcapitalist]

Courtney: You are kind. I completed the educational requirements for the CFP because I wanted to know more about areas that I had a knowledge deficit in, particularly taxes and wills, trusts, and estates. That accomplished, healthy self-awareness and SWOT analysis of the field of "financial planning" led me to reject planning as a vocation, but further enhanced my desire to preach the empowerment inherent in financial independence to those of "average means" and circumstance of birth. The mature doctrine that you can't do everything, at least not well, but you can do something superlative and liberating with your finances, and in the process change your family tree for at least several generations, is probable IF you discipline yourself.

I taught an economics class at a local Christian school last year, and as part of the curriculum the students, guided and advised by me, participated in The Stock Market Game sponsored by the NYSE. They placed 4th in the nation!!! which I am proud of. I am even more excited, however, about the evidence that several of the students demonstrated an understanding that their tomorrow was being determined by the habits they are forming today.

Which leads me to 2B:
"People convinced against their will remain unconvinced still," someone once said. Most people don't truly learn, if learning is defined as changed behavior, until they answer the question "WIFM? ("What's In It For Me?")." We have today a society that for many reasons, some valid, many not, for instance the self-esteem movement, fails to recognize the motivational potential of fear.

Raised poor, knowing well before high school graduation that I would be on my own after H.S. commencement, had a surreal dimension, until I was roofing houses, laying asphalt, and working in a lumber yard making a truck payment, then the "too much month at the end of the money" blues became real, and I was scared.
After I got over the deer in the headlights paralysis, a self-improvement plan, not well defined, rather general and vague in fact, but with a real goal nevertheless emerged. Then, not going certain places at night and doing certain things which had very low present utility anyway, and even lower future value, while going other places that were free or could be considered an investment in self, and doing other things that had high future payoffs, such as going to classes at night at the local community college and actually studying became an easier choice to make and eventually a lifelong habit. The power of choice on a person's life and finances cannot be overemphasized. Once we empty our pockets of excuses, quit playing the blame game, and accept responsible for predictable outcomes related to the choices we are making, in other words grow up, we can begin a fulfilling, lifelong journey of satisfaction and acheivement, financially and otherwise.

I've been scared a few times since then but fear and desire mixed, accompanied by a faith relationship, and a supportive spouse got me through them. After I prayed,however, I had to get up and do something...and that is where so many fail, they see, they desire, but they don't put their coveralls on and do some very hard work, which is to look at the person in the mirror and demand a change from that person. "I can't" usually means "I won't." I am not embarassed of where I come from, but I was not foolish enough to glory in my poverty and blame those that had more than I. Instead I looked at what successful people did/do, and that is where this forum can help.

Kudos to you.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayekcapitalist 52 year old son of coal miners and lumber men, raised poor. Decided 20 years ago (summer 1987) to not stay that way and set arbitrary goal of $1,000,000 liquid. Hit $1,000,000+ net worth last year

Fancy that, I too am a 52 year old son of a coal miner (many generations of coal miners in fact - brother is still one in Australia) and earned my pre-college money working in my uncle's scrap wood business. In fall of 1987 emigrated to USA to make my fortune - and hit a million in January 2006

I'm sitting tight with my investments, will re-balance in January as usual if needed to maintain allocation model

[hayekcapitalist]

Alan: It's a pleasure to meet you! Your story is a testimony and the parallels inescapable but uncanny: same age, got serious about financial independence in 1987 and to think that we are both millionaires now...pretty cool, even if a million ain't what it used to be, it's still worth more than not having a million. I am dollar averaging into the markets through my 403-b and wife's 401-k. I am pretty interested in the Aussie miners. With your brother still in the mines where the sun never shines, "digging his own grave" my "grandpa" used to say: What are your thoughts about same: will the global growth story concentrated in the Pacific Rim keep minerals, miniing, hard commodities same, higher, lower, over what time horizon?

[Eyerishgold]

I'm about a quarter of the way there. It's good to hear from people who are already there. It make me more motivated and a bit more patient because I know I'll be there eventually.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayekcapitalist Alan: It's a pleasure to meet you! Your story is a testimony and the parallels inescapable but uncanny: same age, got serious about financial independence in 1987 and to think that we are both millionaires now...pretty cool, even if a million ain't what it used to be, it's still worth more than not having a million. I am dollar averaging into the markets through my 403-b and wife's 401-k. I am pretty interested in the Aussie miners. With your brother still in the mines where the sun never shines, "digging his own grave" my "grandpa" used to say: What are your thoughts about same: will the global growth story concentrated in the Pacific Rim keep minerals, miniing, hard commodities same, higher, lower, over what time horizon?

Getting to where we are financially is just the same story as many others on this board. Once we were earning more than we reasonably needed we started saving everything we could, mostly into 401(k)'s and IRA's and then into taxable accounts once we were maxing out and still had money left over.

I don't really have any feel on how the mineral commodity markets will do in the Pacific rim. My brother did take us down his mine when we visited him in 1997 and that was a real eye-opener. They were producing more coal in a week than the mine my brother, father and and most of my relatives had worked at in England could produce in a year.

[packrat44]

[quote=brandywine;548765]
This board has introduced ME to LBYM (living below your means) and FIRE (financial indepence retire early).


Everyone LBYM.

Unfortunately, most incorrectly translated the acronym as Live Beyond Your Means.

[packrat44]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayekcapitalist . I've been scared a few times since then but fear and desire mixed, accompanied by a faith relationship, and a supportive spouse got me through them. After I prayed,however, I had to get up and do something...and that is where so many fail, they see, they desire, but they don't put their coveralls on and do some very hard work, which is to look at the person in the mirror and demand a change from that person. "I can't" usually means "I won't." I am not embarassed of where I come from, but I was not foolish enough to glory in my poverty and blame those that had more than I. Instead I looked at what successful people did/do, and that is where this forum can help. Kudos to you.

When I was in the military, to those type of people we had the following saying: "Wish in one hand, $h!t in the other and see which fills up first".