Question For You Achievers!

[johnblake]

I was able to ER at a young age, mostly due to having good luck, and taking advantage of rare opportunities. Having said that, prior to ER I worked very hard and spent 15 years setting myself up to be in 'lucky' situations.

I expect that many who ERed in 1998-2001 timeframe had the rare fortune of a red hot economy, booming stock market, booming realestate market, and private companies with no revenue selling for millions.

I don't expect to see those times again. I don't think people who followed my plan (or others') will do as well.

If I started 15 years later, I think I'd still be working.

 

[unclemick]

Hard work sucks, never heard of ER until I found this forum(VIA REHP), and was vaguely aware of the art of 'cheap b#%^ard courtesy Depression Era parents, Mother Earth News, etc, etc.

Beware the data point of one, but:

1966-1992 grunt engineer salary 8k - 61k.

Plunka, plunka - DCA, tax deferred, mostly Ben Graham - 50/50 S&P/GIC's. On the side - real estate, gold mine, timberland, part time work(tax prep), multi asset investing, a few spec stocks.

1993, age 49 - got layed off, girlfreind still worked - together 300- 350k pooled financial assets(paid up fish camp). 1994 she chucked her job.

Living on less than 20k per year was easy - my personal all time best was 12k in one year. She says I WILL never try that again (frying pan with my name on it).

Long story - but plunka, plunka DCA was 80-90% of our ER. All that other stuff(excluding house) was maybe 10%. Boring as watching oil based paint dry. There was a minor stock flat from 1966 - 1982 in the period. Wasn't near as exciting as Ben Graham's example of DCA from 1929 - 1949 if you consider the Depression and WWII historically interesting.

 

[JOhn Galt]

I have an observation about "start ups". It is true that
the failure rate is quite high (I won't go into the reasons for this here). You are better off buying a going business even if it is not doing too well. Often you
can find a seller who will finance you, and maybe a business which can be liquidated for a big profit.
People who found small businesses are reluctant to do this (liquidate) as they have too much emotional
investment. You, as a buyer only are looking at
the dollars. That alone can make the difference.

I also posted before that I would never see a million
dollar net worth, nor even half a million. Both true but
I was close pre-divorce. Ex. got half, which was fair.
Best investment I ever made possibly

John Galt