Mikenhe

http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/18/investing/steinberg-sac-capital/ Steinberg guilty. house of cards....

I've never paid anyone to fix something that I've done first. (ok - I've only been in this house a few months so nothing has gone wrong that I've touched..... but it will :D ) Houses will cost you.you can mitigate some of the expenses - or at least postpone them... You must be a better plumber than I . :) Its in the genes!! My grandfather was a plumber! Not that it helps – all I’ve done so far is get the garbage disposal working replace a couple of moen mixer valves for the shower bath units and fix a leak in one of the toilets. Nothing that a bit of research on the internet won’t tell you and nothing major. Theres no guarantee they will stay fixed!! It was worth doing as the work involved in the mixer valves was mainly grunt work and using the right tools to extract the old ones. Do now have another leak on one of the toilets that I have to fix – got to work out where its coming from. I wouldn’t attempt anything too major though!! Doesn't make me a plumber though - and certainly not better. I'm way slower than a qualified plumber would be!

I've never paid anyone to fix something that I've done first. (ok - I've only been in this house a few months so nothing has gone wrong that I've touched..... but it will :D ) Houses will cost you.you can mitigate some of the expenses - or at least postpone them...

man cave is cheaper. The kitchen I would make functional and then save up a fund for repairs and improvement. whne you have enough to do the kitchen properly then do it. Worth it if you intend to live there a while - not if you are going to move on in a few years.

learn some basics about house Maintenance. Basic plumbing and upkeep of the house like winterizing it, a bit of basic carpentry and painting. Save you a small fortune in call outs and keeping the place in good shape can prevent bigger problems later. Oh – and put in a decent bathroom , keep the wife happy. Then obviously set up a man cave…

sure does. puts us a couple of years away from being reliant on any particular job in order to live. a few more years from being able to live well without employment.... of course a crash in the value of the shares I hold will put right any thoughts I have of doing that :D

The return I’ve had on the market this year come out at 27% (so far). However I took profit from my account, got rid of the old house and mortgage and bought a house cash. My assets have moved upwards slightly but my net worth has increased 74% due to those (and a few other) moves. I have more to invest (just) than 12 months ago but have removed the shackles that the banks had upon me. And that feels good! Next year net money that was going to other people for mortgage/rent will be going gross into my 401k. I’m still hoping that it’ll be a minor amount compared to the outrageous returns I plan to make :D

I'm in the opposite position - I may soon have to deal with Taxes on a UK estate that will end up in the USA. any tax tips anyone has there would be very handy. cheers! (sorry for the hijack but I was talking about this with my parents a couple of days ago and we came to the conclusion that we had a few ideas but not enough knowledge to actually execute any of them!!)

I’m in my 4th house in 18 months. During the moves I’ve reduced the physical stuff that I own by about 40%. I don’t need any more stuff. If I was to get anything it would be a gift card so I can buy food. My cooking is my creative and artistic side and I could have fun doing some nice dishes so I can invite friends and family to enjoy them. My parents are retired and are in fairly good shape – they have travelled 4,000 miles to be with us for December so having them around over the holidays with the two youngest kids is great (albeit a little tiring for those of us that have to work as well!!). The only other thing I could wish for is our eldest child to be able to fly in and join us for the holidays. Sadly that won’t happen but we’ll make the most of it with the magic of skype!! I hope you get what you wish for!! (OK BAC at $25 wouldn’t hurt….)

France and Switzerland have easy groups. who'd have thought that uefa and fifa are headed by a French and a swiss guy.......

I have a desktop as our main pc. The kids use it mostly and its out in the open so I can see what they are up to!! I use a laptop all the time as I like to be able to move around and not just steal the dining table for my home office. I am considering a tablet for my next move. love Samsung products so I'm looking at them. I still have a laptop as my works pc. we also have nooks for reading/ light browsing.

They were pretty good but she moved to Grantie State CU inseat as they were closer to her home and were going to pay her more.. seemed like a decent place to work though.

TCU are good and patient people. they must be as they employed my eldest child for quite a while!! ;D

On the foreign front, I hope it's Liverpool. Congratulations Gio! You'll Never Walk Alone. Best, Ragu oh yes. always got a soft spot for AC.. especially after this.. thank you AC

nice work sir! but the important stuff... inter or ac?

Not advisable to ask for copies of prior years ...

That would be awesome!! Time to leave the office… I was really nervous this morning, while now I am amused and much more confident. I owe it to all of you! :) Gio bit early isn't it. Aren't you just finishing lunch? More advice. Don't take her to the football.....

ask lots of questions that elicit answers from her (avoid investments unless she is also interested. also avoid previous relationship and annoying family members). do more listening than talking. ask follow up questions. if you don't like her start talking about the pros and cons of investing in BH....

Of course Eric - the answer is to set up your own bank....

I use ML and have an account with free trading. Once I stopped listening to the advisors then my relationship with them has been fine. Trading through them has been easy enough.

FFH are looking to produce a 15% return on average over a long period of time and a large number of investments are going to make that up. I was out of FFH two months ago.. it had nothing to do with Blackberry. My only issue was that the deal that Prem tried to put together was done so publically (probably unavoidable) which means that people are examining every move he makes and everything he says. That’s just not the FFH way and I’m sure that the FFH management team were, and are, uncomfortable with how public it was. It’s just not their style. Given the amount of investments that they hold then its inevitable that some of them will go wrong. This should be looked at in the same way that you looked at the CDO success – it’s the extremities of the scale.. except that the BBY holding still has value. If that’s the worst case scenario then who in their right mind would use it as a stick to beat everything that FFH is doing. Prem and the investment team are extremely able investors and they seem to be into most holdings for the long term. Lumpy returns is what they forecast – and that includes down’s as well as ups. If you can’t deal with that then FFH isn’t the share for you. As for respect – has Prem lost any over this deal? Not for me.

ummm - the reporter was definatley looking for a story regardless of facts. that aside Berkshire company cash flow out of the door has, in my opinion and experience, been very tightly controlled leading to them not being the fastest payers of claims in the business. Disclosure - I have presented claims to, and collected such claims in the past. I've also done a small stint as a consultant in one of their insurance operations and had no problem collecting the funds due to me..

All one has to do is look at all the 100% cash deals that were done the last few years by investors. Does anyone with 2 cents of brains in their head really believe these investors all wanted to be doing 100% cash deals? They wanted to buy all they could! But nobody would lend to them. Not at 25%LTV. Not at 50% LTV. Not at 75% LTV Not even at 5% LTV! Completely madness to believe there is no loan demand. exactly.. This is where the banks need to be brought to task. Explain to the Fed why they won't help encourage the economy by making sensible loans.

exactly.. I closed on a house in september and had to use cash. Couldn't borrow a cent from the banks. wanted a massive 50% from the bank which would have put the loan at less than my annual salary. Way less than our combined annual salary and at a very low % of our net worth. I guess the banks decided that me renting a house at three times the price of the repayment per month was sensible fiscal policy.

Could have made a decent amount of money shorting FFH in the last week. Whats Cohen been up to? I too no longer hold FFH. Although I have slightly different reasons to those mentioned so far. Eiher way i'm out for the moment. The good news is that if the market falls then FFH will fall with it until they start to realise gains in the hedges. Then its a good time to buy... but that puts you into a situation that requires getting your timing right. I'll continue to watch as this unravels.