Investing megathread extravaganza

[DaFace]

A place to talk about investing stuff.

[R8RFAN]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

Something earning 1% interest is better than putting it underneath your mattress.

I am getting 1% at Ally

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

Pretty stupid to keep that much cash on hand. Make that money work for you.

I do the same, I make it work for me myself. I average well over 15 percent return throughout any given year, last year I did very well and almost doubled it.


I buy and sell cars in all conditions. I get them running , make them halfway safe sometimes. Sometimes I sell them in a basket.

But I usually make money. 3000 and two days work has turned into over ten in two weeks. And I still have a 69 camaro basket case and the 69 c10 2wd fleetside I posted in the car thread in the pics section and the trailer it's sitting on.


Sometimes I have 30 or 40 vehicles sitting here and there. Just waiting for the guy who has to have it.

I've had a 72 in a barn for 15 years and a guy saw the 69 in my drive and came wanting to buy it and I think I've sold the 72 to him. Bought for 50 bucks, got a title for 200 more.

He offered me 3500. It cost nothing to sit in a barn I own anyways.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

I haven't looked at any of our investment accounts since last Thursday. I don't want to see the losses and make a bad decision out of panic. I'll just ride it out. If I was 62 instead of 43, I'd be worried.

I'm a big believer in index funds with a long-term approach. Just keep putting money into them and forget about it.

On all of it. I too have become a big believer in more passive investing (index funds) like DaFace mentioned.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by R8RFAN

I have 150k cash
I have about 250k in my 401k
My house and cars are paid for

I am 100% debt free

That's my portfolio , Not glamorous but I am happy

Are you still working? Wife still working?

[R8RFAN]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Are you still working? Wife still working?

I work but the wife has not worked an outside job in 12-13 years because I got tired of her coming home with work on her mind so I asked her to quit and she did.

[LoneWolf]

Originally Posted by JASONSAUTO

I do the same, I make it work for me myself. I average well over 15 percent return throughout any given year, last year I did very well and almost doubled it.


I buy and sell cars in all conditions. I get them running , make them halfway safe sometimes. Sometimes I sell them in a basket.

But I usually make money. 3000 and two days work has turned into over ten in two weeks. And I still have a 69 camaro basket case and the 69 c10 2wd fleetside I posted in the car thread in the pics section and the trailer it's sitting on.


Sometimes I have 30 or 40 vehicles sitting here and there. Just waiting for the guy who has to have it.

I've had a 72 in a barn for 15 years and a guy saw the 69 in my drive and came wanting to buy it and I think I've sold the 72 to him. Bought for 50 bucks, got a title for 200 more.

He offered me 3500. It cost nothing to sit in a barn I own anyways.

That's smart investing.

R8RFAN could do something similar. Use some of his cash as down payment to purchase a couple of rental properties in undervalued neighborhoods.

I purchase land when the right opportunity comes along. I bought 75 acres 5 miles west of Wichita 18 years ago and leased it to a farmer. The city has now expanded to where the land is in a prime development area. It's worth anywhere from $800,000 to 1.2 million right now.

[R8RFAN]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

That's smart investing.

R8RFAN could do something similar. Use some of his cash as down payment to purchase a couple of rental properties in undervalued neighborhoods.

I purchase land when the right opportunity comes along. I bought 75 acres 5 miles west of Wichita 18 years ago and leased it to a farmer. The city has now expanded to where the land is in a prime development area. It's worth anywhere from $800,000 to 1.2 million right now.

I would get scumbag tenants that cost me more than I was taking in.... I had a friend who owned 11 rent houses... he sold them all said it was a major headache for him

[R8RFAN]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Are you still working? Wife still working?

I gross about 2k per week and have a online side business I have owned since 1999 that earns about 25-30k per year profit

And I have to pay a shit load of taxes too

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

That's smart investing.

R8RFAN could do something similar. Use some of his cash as down payment to purchase a couple of rental properties in undervalued neighborhoods.

I purchase land when the right opportunity comes along. I bought 75 acres 5 miles west of Wichita 18 years ago and leased it to a farmer. The city has now expanded to where the land is in a prime development area. It's worth anywhere from $800,000 to 1.2 million right now.

Yeah THAT is a nice lick.

I buy pieces of land all over the county. Only for the right price though. Ive bought TONS of little "lake lots" in these little subdivision areas outside of town.

Couple hundred bucks a piece at the most at the tax sake every year. Usually when I hang a sign one of the neighbors who keeps their yard nice (that's where scouting the area prior to the sale comes in ) jumps right on it just so they don't have to see it anymore.



Edit: that's also why I have barns here and there to store cars lol. I'll buy land just because it has a nice barn and is cheap sometimes.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by R8RFAN

I would get scumbag tenants that cost me more than I was taking in.... I had a friend who owned 11 rent houses... he sold them all said it was a major headache for him

I wouldn't want the hassle, I would end up punching some deadbeat

[R8RFAN]

Originally Posted by JASONSAUTO

I wouldn't want the hassle, I would end up punching some deadbeat

Thats me... I am 50 now.. I don't have time to deal with stupid shit anymore

[LoneWolf]

Originally Posted by JASONSAUTO

Yeah THAT is a nice lick.

I buy pieces of land all over the county. Only for the right price though. Ive bought TONS of little "lake lots" in these little subdivision areas outside of town.

Couple hundred bucks a piece at the most at the tax sake every year. Usually when I hang a sign one of the neighbors who keeps their yard nice (that's where scouting the area prior to the sale comes in ) jumps right on it just so they don't have to see it anymore.



Edit: that's also why I have barns here and there to store cars lol. I'll buy land just because it has a nice barn and is cheap sometimes.

What are these lake lots going for in your neck of the woods? A lake lot in a subdivision in Wichita runs anywhere from 25 to 50 thousand.

[SAUTO]

I will say though I have lost sometimes on a car or two, MANY times as I was learning but 15-20 years ago the initial investment was low but the return was too.

Now if I don't know I'm gonna come out ahead I would rather just let it sit on someone else's place

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

What are these lake lots going for in your neck of the woods? A lake lot in a subdivision in Wichita runs anywhere from 25 to 50 thousand.

Lol, most aren't "on the lake" that's why I put parentheses.

But they usually have lake access.

I've literally paid a couple hundred, to a couple thousand.

Some are higher, I stick to the shitty ones where they haven't kept it up for years, buy it for the taxes. And make sure there's a couple nice yards around it.

Cha ching.


And there are also higher end areas around too.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

I may have posted this before, but I wanted to pass along this tip about one of the better things I have ever done in terms of my overall financial planning and processes.

I track, on a monthly basis, my net worth. I do it the stupidest, old fashioned'est way you can imagine -- by plugging the numbers into a spreadsheet. Now there are apps for that, of course. Early on in life, when you have one or two bank accounts, it's not remotely necessary, but once you're older, and you have a spouse, and you have a 401(k) and the rollover IRA and your wife's rollover IRA and the defined contribution benefit fund and a house with a value offset by a mortgage, blah, blah, blah, it gets a bit more challenging to track it all.

So I have everything in a spreadsheet, and early every month I just update all the figures. For home value I use assessed value (usually a conservative number) and plug in the mortgage balance to offset. All the accounts are updated by month end statement figures, etc.

It has really helped me track everything that we have, and SEE the growth over time, which is very encouraging. Of course, you have to have the stomach to just plug in the numbers and avoid vomiting when years like 2008 come around, but then you can see exactly when you got back to where you were, and be like "hey, for the end of the ****ing world, that didn't take too long to recover from".

Anyway, I've found it useful for managing my financial life. Once you get the hang of it, updating the spreadsheet takes like half an hour a month. Not a big deal at all.

Huh - cool idea. I track all of my normal stuff in Quicken, which gives you a net worth calculation anyway (assuming you put all the big stuff in there). This would take me about 30 seconds a month to just record the value in a spreadsheet for long-term tracking. Thanks!

EDIT:

Or I could just find the Net Worth report in Quicken.

Still, it cuts out if I archive my file, so a spreadsheet will still be better long-term.