Castanza

I hear you on this and understand the mindset. I just think the future is never as clear as it seems. I try to assign more value to lessons of the past then predictions of the future. The NA economy is not immortal and though things may seem good, you never know what tomorrow holds. I think there is a balance to be had and too far in either direction can lead to poor outcomes. History is in the making not just in the past! Skeptical optimism is how I try to approach life. I was thinking the other day what the bankers and well to do business owners in Ukraine would have said 10 years ago if you asked them what their economic outlook would have been for the next 10 years? Weird things can happen.

What you're seeing is the results of societal (US) individual spending addiction problem exacerbated by inflation. I would believe it is difficult to accumulate assets if I didn't see so many 20 something year olds with $3k mortgage payments, $1k car payments, 80k in student debt with 5k yearly vacation budgets all on combined incomes of less than 150k. But I don't think it is only this because my wife and I did this. Neither of us had college paid for. I had 30k of debt after 2 years of college, took two years off, continued worked fulltime (UPS 40kyr 1 - 80k yr 4) 10-12 hour days and finished school my last two at night (it SUCKED). My wife worked as a nurse and had 40k in student loans made probably 60k up to 75k. She graduated in 2015 I graduated officially in 2017. We rented a shitty apartment for $840 in South Western Ohio, continued to drive our High School beaters and I paid cash for my additional schooling something like ~740 a month. By 2019 we had no student loans, one new vehicle and a new (used vehicle which I still have and drive). Maxed Roth IRAs and something like 10% funded 401ks for each of the respective years. We managed to do some trips (explore some national parks in a van out west, Canada, etc.) Fast forward we continued heavily saving and are in our early 30's with new locations, new jobs, a paid off house (cashflow choice), a rental property, multiple vacations (Rivera Maya, Punta Cana, Canada, Western US), two used vehicles paid off (50k miles and 100k miles), 1 child and roughly 4x the recommended retirement savings by age (big thanks to this forum). Right now we save roughly 55% of our income and my wife has reduced her work to about 1/3rd to raise our child. I have never used significant leverage to accomplish any of this. I've made some poor investments, squandered time in the market and had a few good investments. But the majority of our "success" if you can call it, that was just saving and being frugal/rolling with the punches of life. Stuff has gotten more expensive....but peoples spending habits have barely changed. Drive a beater, rent a shitty apartment, shop at Goodwill, buy used furniture, reduce your monthly subscriptions, eat out less often and give yourself a weekly splurge....Do this for 5 years....just 5 and it will make a world of difference. Focus on saving and paying off student loans. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to and make decisions with a long-term focus. Be thankful for opportunities and live life. Too many pessimists out there. _______________________________________________________________________________ Now Canada? I'm not sure....seems like things are further out of whack North of the border. Especially regarding rent and housing. The 30 year fixed rate mortgage we have here in the US is an asset like none other. @Jaygo Appreciate the story of your late Father. Similar threads with my Dad. How do you think he would view todays younger generation and their spending/saving habits?

Tom Smykowski is that you?

Yeah, I’ve been buying here and there since about mid August. It’s always kind of expensive but I like the business, the management and the capital allocation. It’s always that balance between price and quality. Some things never seem cheap.

Man every time I find myself trying to justify a 50% weighting in a high conviction idea I try to reel myself back in and say “do I need a 40% return to be happy and financially secure? What if my 50% idea trades flat for 5 years, how much does that impact my future required growth for financial independence?” I usually come back to I only need 10% but I’m happy with 15% and really don’t need 30%. It’s tempting though…

Sorry, typo its....CNSWF (constellation software)

Only added a small chunk in 2020. the majority was added between 2016 and 2018. Especially during that weird market thing in 2018 where everything dumped in December. That was pretty early in my "investment career" if you can even call it that. It was a time when I surfaced from the r/wsb mentality and actually thought longer term. Just happened to get lucky. Moves prior to that were buying NVDA in 2013 when it was around $30 and then selling when it was like $50 or something. Can't even remember exactly. Did a similar thing with AMD.....bought them both because you know...."computer games and such." I like to think we all have those "wasted years" in investing....Maybe it was just me lol Anyways...

Current MSFT - last add ~2020 (20%) RTX - last add ~2020 (13%) FRFHF (20%->18%) BRK.B (10%->8%) GOOGL (8%) CNSWF (6%) New add JOE (5%) - Reduced from 10% to 5% in light of current short-term headwinds CPRT (5%) WFG (5%) MELI (3%) New add Cash ~9% I did lighten up on FFH and BRK.B just a bit. Mainly just because they are near ATH and will trade around them a bit etc. Probably won't reduce either anymore than I already have. I'm looking in increase CNSFW as a long-term position. Plus raising a bit of cash just in case JOE drops like a rock. Overtime MSFT and RTX will become smaller positions for me....but they just keep chugging along.... AIV Sold out of with a small profit back when the COBF RE team was discussing the disappointing sales numbers. NNI Sold on the bump, don't want to follow long-term and felt there are better opportunities elsewhere. Still a fine company though OXY Decided to avoid energy as it's too complex for me. I'll leave that to Buffett From Share your Portfolio thread August: MSFT RTX FRFHF BRK.b JOE GOOGL AIV NNI OXY CPRT WFG

I’ve been trying to focus more on building core anchors for my portfolio and not get involved in unnecessarily complicated market timings, sectors, or situations. In short I don’t need the money in the foreseeable future and I think FFH will be worth more than it is now over the next 2,5,10 years.

Yes change your email and all the utilities you use it for. ____________________________________________________________________ Security is just layers so you can go as far as you want... What I do: Email for Billing (utilities) Email for Banking (Credit Cards, store cards, etc.) Email for Investing (Brokerage accounts, retirement accounts) Email for Online Shopping Email for Entertainment accounts (Netflix, Hulu, Spotify etc.) eg: CastanzaBilling@gmail.com Complex passwords - Change them every 6 months (keep a hard copy offline) two-factor authentication Recovery email for the above emails (only for recovery) two-factor on the recovery email as well Other things you could do: Freeze your credit at all of the credit agencies (unique email for this as well) Have a chrome book dedicated to online shopping etc. (or a VPN for your home network)(setup a guest wifi network at home for IOT devices and guests. You would be amazed at how many IOT devices connect to servers in China for no "apparent" reason) Google Password manager (specific to each email account) Don't use SMS two-factor authentication if you can help it (not applicable everywhere)...use an actual authenticator like Google authenticator.

+1

Ron Paul probably

Lesson number one for these people "moving to a better country" will be the realization that Canada's immigration policy is pretty much just as difficult as the US (minus a few years).

You also need a bond market

Senate still might be tough if there is only a marginal advantage in seat count. There are a handful of republican seats that swing the other way pretty frequently. Hope it works out though....holders have been in purgatory forever.

Grocery stores don’t even take $50 bills anymore (which is insane). Doubt they’re taking gold! In fact most banks won’t take gold if you walk in with some.

Article for anyone interested https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/11/10/352872/index.htm Clip of Buffett and Munger on it:

Does Prem discuss their hurdle rate when looking for acquisitions? I know Mark Leonard over at Constellation noted they had to lower theirs from ~20% to somewhere in the mid teens (likely) primarily due to competition in North America for their investment space. Wondering if Fairfax is having to do the same?

The entire history of China pretty much boils down to them prioritizing the survival of they system. Sometimes in the short-term this comes at a cost to it's citizens, sometimes it benefits them. I just think it's really hard to make arguments about China turning over a new leaf. It's not a judgement, just an observation taking into account thousands of years of survivorship.

Mhmm and who controls the currency? Didn't China experiment with a currency that expires the other year?

It hasn’t been long enough to come to that conclusion yet imo. Even Bertrand Russell said that humanity rarely goes more than 100 years without a major screwup.

Yeah I was reading on that a bit more. Does sound like one major headache to deal with in a Trad or Roth IRA. Having to deal with a K-1 is annoying enough and has made me pass on a few other investments. Dealing with the extra paperwork and potentially sizable tax bill makes it a tough call. 37% tax rate….ehhh

Small adds to GOOGL and FRFHF

You don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun everyone else.

Doesn't seem like there is a clear cut answer to this. The IRS has some cases on their website and one of them seemed to indicate that if you're not improving the land you could make the case to maintain your exempt status. But this is just a guess from what I was able to find. Seems like the standard is not cut and dry. Not sure if @Gregmal has ventured down that rabbit trail. Their latest 10-Q is worth a read if you have not done so. Some good tidbits in their. "4. Statements of Net Assets in Liquidation Net assets as of June 30, 2024 and December 31, 2023 would result in estimated liquidating distributions of $35,387,309 and $30,721,034, respectively, or approximately $16.09 and $19.51 per common share, respectively, based on 2,199,308 and 1,574,308 shares outstanding, respectively (see Note 12– Rights Offering). The increase of $4,666,275 in estimated liquidating distributions is mainly attributable to the rights offering (net proceeds of $4,418,380) that closed on March 7, 2024. Approximately $3.39 per share of the reduction in net assets per share was driven by the issuance (stemming from the Rights Offering) of 625,000 shares at $8 per share (reflecting a discount of $8.12 per share to the proforma net assets in liquidation as of December 31, 2023)." I have no position in this, but looks interesting pending the UBTI outlook...