Gregmal Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 (edited) 20 minutes ago, Santayana said: I don't understand how someone can claim that it's no problem to live in NYC on $40K and poverty doesn't really exist except by choice, but that making 10x that much isn't "wealthy". I think there is a HUGE in between ground with poverty on one end, and wealthy on the other. I’ve brought it up before, but eliminate the privileged Ivy League type, who get handed high paying jobs because dads friend knew a guy, and eliminate the really poor people who have no chance. Take your slightly above average husband and wife with 1 kid and another planned. What’s a reasonable salary? $200k combined? Now eliminate taxes, housing, food, and transportation. What’s left? How many friggin years now do they have to save EVERYTHING in order to retire? How about if they decide to enjoy life a little? The system is just so stacked that I understand why people lose hope. If they’re not financial wizards and just put the money in a savings account even at a 15% savings/income rate, they each need to work for what? 30-40 years while living like cheapskates? Fuck that. Edited January 15 by Gregmal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thepupil Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 3 hours ago, Gregmal said: I’ve just never got the “NYC is expensive” cries from people with families. Looked for 2 minutes, you can put down 30% and your monthly payment is lower than what you’d get in a mediocre nyc “luxury” building. Safe as can be. Great public school. Yard for the kids and dog. Tons of stuff for the wives- ranging from bs part time jobs to social clubs for the stay at homes. 20 minute train/bus to the city. My friends dad has drove in every day for 40 years and if you leave before “everyone else” decides to go to work, it’s a 15 minute commute. Yea parking and tolls are a bitch but it still beats living in the city. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/502-Prospect-St-Glen-Rock-NJ-07452/37919664_zpid/ w/ 30% down, PITI is $7,500/month, so you should make like at least $20k/ month take home / like $400k gross to afford that. id describe that as pretty expensive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santayana Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 8 minutes ago, Gregmal said: I think there is a HUGE in between ground with poverty on one end, and wealthy on the other. I’ve brought it up before, but eliminate the privileged Ivy League type, who get handed high paying jobs because dads friend knew a guy, and eliminate the really poor people who have no chance. Take your slightly above average husband and wife with 1 kid and another planned. What’s a reasonable salary? $200k combined? Now eliminate taxes, housing, food, and transportation. What’s left? How many friggin years now do they have to save EVERYTHING in order to retire? How about if they decide to enjoy life a little? The system is just so stacked that I understand why people lose hope. If they’re not financial wizards and just put the money in a savings account even at a 15% savings/income rate, they each need to work for what? 30-40 years while living like cheapskates? Fuck that. I agree with this. But you're not trying to argue it both ways and say that poverty doesn't exist on the bottom of the scale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 20 minutes ago, Gregmal said: I think there is a HUGE in between ground with poverty on one end, and wealthy on the other. I’ve brought it up before, but eliminate the privileged Ivy League type, who get handed high paying jobs because dads friend knew a guy, and eliminate the really poor people who have no chance. Take your slightly above average husband and wife with 1 kid and another planned. What’s a reasonable salary? $200k combined? Now eliminate taxes, housing, food, and transportation. What’s left? How many friggin years now do they have to save EVERYTHING in order to retire? How about if they decide to enjoy life a little? The system is just so stacked that I understand why people lose hope. If they’re not financial wizards and just put the money in a savings account even at a 15% savings/income rate, they each need to work for what? 30-40 years while living like cheapskates? Fuck that. This begs the question Greg. How do you make your money? And how did you escape that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 20 minutes ago, thepupil said: w/ 30% down, PITI is $7,500/month, so you should make like at least $20k/ month take home / like $400k gross to afford that. id describe that as pretty expensive Sure, but what they were talking about was that you couldn’t live well on $500k or whatever in nyc and my comment was just kinda like why TF would you want to when you can have a significantly higher quality of life moving out of the city while still being just a short drive away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thepupil Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 Fair enough t, thought you were trying to argue it’s not expensive to raise a family in NYC metro, and i was…confused. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 19 minutes ago, Sweet said: This begs the question Greg. How do you make your money? And how did you escape that? Ive been busy lately and this probably warrants a longer response but Ill give the short one. 1) do whatever it takes. Worked 100 hour 5 day work weeks in the beginning. 1.5 of those non work hours per day were spent commuting. Be relentless, thats the difference between winners and losers. Just get the results. Need to crank adderall for a bit to get there...down the hatch those little fuckers go. Pitch an Asian client over the phone at 1am NY time? lets do it. Hop on a flight to Bermuda to have lunch with an existing relationship short notice...so what, done. You gotta want it and be willing to do whatever it takes to get the results. 2) invest wisely, be willing to challenge traditional perception of what investing and risk are. My first big purchase at 23 was an Audi because I dealt with clients and you cant drive a schmuck car. Investing in appearance mattered to a degree. Second investment was buying a house I could live in for 30 years and raise a family in. By 26 my critical infrastructure was in place. From there just invest the fuck out of the majority of my incoming cashflow and then make sure lifestyle scales up to reward myself, but with a massive lag so that its never outpacing my means. Now my goal is to just make sure my kids have the wealth to do whatever they want in life and with compounding and time on my side, its fairly easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubsfan Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 6 minutes ago, Gregmal said: Ive been busy lately and this probably warrants a longer response but Ill give the short one. 1) do whatever it takes. Worked 100 hour 5 day work weeks in the beginning. 1.5 of those non work hours per day were spent commuting. Be relentless, thats the difference between winners and losers. Just get the results. Need to crank adderall for a bit to get there...down the hatch those little fuckers go. Pitch an Asian client over the phone at 1am NY time? lets do it. Hop on a flight to Bermuda to have lunch with an existing relationship short notice...so what, done. You gotta want it and be willing to do whatever it takes to get the results. 2) invest wisely, be willing to challenge traditional perception of what investing and risk are. My first big purchase at 23 was an Audi because I dealt with clients and you cant drive a schmuck car. Investing in appearance mattered to a degree. Second investment was buying a house I could live in for 30 years and raise a family in. By 26 my critical infrastructure was in place. From there just invest the fuck out of the majority of my incoming cashflow and then make sure lifestyle scales up to reward myself, but with a massive lag so that its never outpacing my means. Now my goal is to just make sure my kids have the wealth to do whatever they want in life and with compounding and time on my side, its fairly easy. A real lesson in getting it done. Whatever it takes in terms of sacrifice. My regard for you grows. Mainly because you're a generous individual. Your kids are lucky to have a father like you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 5 minutes ago, cubsfan said: A real lesson in getting it done. Whatever it takes in terms of sacrifice. My regard for you grows. Mainly because you're a generous individual. Your kids are lucky to have a father like you. Thanks Mike! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rohitc99 Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 34 minutes ago, Gregmal said: Thanks Mike! +1 @Gregmal 99% of the population is not like you btw, what made you go down this path so early in life ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 1 hour ago, Gregmal said: Ive been busy lately and this probably warrants a longer response but Ill give the short one. 1) do whatever it takes. Worked 100 hour 5 day work weeks in the beginning. 1.5 of those non work hours per day were spent commuting. Be relentless, thats the difference between winners and losers. Just get the results. Need to crank adderall for a bit to get there...down the hatch those little fuckers go. Pitch an Asian client over the phone at 1am NY time? lets do it. Hop on a flight to Bermuda to have lunch with an existing relationship short notice...so what, done. You gotta want it and be willing to do whatever it takes to get the results. 2) invest wisely, be willing to challenge traditional perception of what investing and risk are. My first big purchase at 23 was an Audi because I dealt with clients and you cant drive a schmuck car. Investing in appearance mattered to a degree. Second investment was buying a house I could live in for 30 years and raise a family in. By 26 my critical infrastructure was in place. From there just invest the fuck out of the majority of my incoming cashflow and then make sure lifestyle scales up to reward myself, but with a massive lag so that its never outpacing my means. Now my goal is to just make sure my kids have the wealth to do whatever they want in life and with compounding and time on my side, it’s fairly easy. Thanks for writing that up. Some of reminded me of this Charlie Munger quote: ”The first $100,000 is a bitch, but you gotta do it. I don’t care what you have to do – if it means walking everywhere and not eating anything that wasn’t purchased with a coupon, find a way to get your hands on $100,000. After that, you can ease off the gas a little bit." Not sure when he said that, probably 20-30 years ago. Did you have a number after which you eased off the gas a bit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 30 minutes ago, rohitc99 said: +1 @Gregmal 99% of the population is not like you btw, what made you go down this path so early in life ? I had some hardships and adversity earlier in my life and my parents had a very unhealthy relationship with money so I just never wanted to be a slave to it. I didn’t have a pot to piss in and working for somebody else for 20 years, let alone 40-50 like many do just wasn’t an option for me. I probably couldn’t even have done that for 10. Just wanted to live a normal life and do what I wanted with my time and future family and the path seemed clear to me so I just needed to put in the work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 26 minutes ago, Sweet said: Thanks for writing that up. Some of reminded me of this Charlie Munger quote: ”The first $100,000 is a bitch, but you gotta do it. I don’t care what you have to do – if it means walking everywhere and not eating anything that wasn’t purchased with a coupon, find a way to get your hands on $100,000. After that, you can ease off the gas a little bit." Not sure when he said that, probably 20-30 years ago. Did you have a number after which you eased off the gas a bit? Exactly. The entire thesis for my life was that if I could develop a core portfolio of investments that the compounding would take care of the rest. By 26 I had my primary residence secured, a decent car, a boat and an investment property…everything material I wanted, and with the business rolling I came to the conclusion I didnt need more than a half mil or so of investable assets to get me there. If you leave it alone and double it every 10 years then by 50 you’re still worlds ahead of the 9-5 W2 lifestyle. A few of the more important aspects that I’d mention because they might help folks is that it’s so important that if you spend, to try to spend on things that retain value. If you go about it the right way, you can blow $30k on a watch for a meeting….that’s still on the asset side of things. The custom suit? Worthless. If you can incorporate business into travel, there’s an embedded ROI there. And as I’ve said with real estate a million times, you just need to get on the title and let other people do the work and in 30 years you have it free and clear. My fallback was always the idea that if I could find my way into a few million bucks face value of real estate, worst case I could eat dirt for 20 years as a w2 while I waited for either the next real estate bubble, or the mortgage to be paid down. Really you just have to bet on yourself and to me it was always clear that there’s no real path to early freedom for folks as a w2. It’s just kinda of impossible unless you’re a statistical outlier. You have to eat what you kill to get ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james22 Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 23 minutes ago, Gregmal said: If you go about it the right way, you can blow $30k on a watch for a meeting….that’s still on the asset side of things. That's my excuse! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattee2264 Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 Read an article in the FT suggesting that the Fed will soon start QE. https://www.ft.com/content/d4012025-28d5-40bd-b525-9594dc970569 Argument is that just as draining of reserves forced a pivot in 2019 this time it is the exhaustion of the overnight reverse repo facility (ON RRP) with Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan is already suggesting QT should taper once the ON RRP runs dry. Apparently the ON RRP is connected to a hedge fund basis trade and there are also worries about all the bonds the US Treasury will be issuing this year. Reminds me of Japan. QE seems to be like heroin. Once you start, you can never seem to get off it. Very bullish for stocks though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 10 hours ago, Sweet said: Thanks for writing that up. Some of reminded me of this Charlie Munger quote: ”The first $100,000 is a bitch, but you gotta do it. I don’t care what you have to do – if it means walking everywhere and not eating anything that wasn’t purchased with a coupon, find a way to get your hands on $100,000. After that, you can ease off the gas a little bit." Not sure when he said that, probably 20-30 years ago. Did you have a number after which you eased off the gas a bit? I would say that number is significantly higher than $100,000 now. I think you need keep the foot on the gas till at least $500,000. At $500,000, you've accumulated multiple years of expenses. A short-term blip like short-term medical issue, loss of employment or major repair to your home would have negligible effect going forward. $100,000 today would simply be two times most emergency funds. While that protects you from going into debt, it won't drive compounding. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipod Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 The current price level of the QQQ and NVDA makes no logical or rational sense to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubsfan Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 3 minutes ago, dipod said: The current price level of the QQQ and NVDA makes no logical or rational sense to me. AI hype? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luca Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 Nvidia a nice 4x since last year, 1.4 T company with 20b in earnings a year. Massive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 Reminder for the millionth time, stop worrying about things that don’t make sense to you. Stop spending so much time fretting whether or not something is “expensive”….and just focus that energy on things that do make sense to you and that are solid value. #foreverSPY3000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luca Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 6 minutes ago, Gregmal said: Reminder for the millionth time, stop worrying about things that don’t make sense to you. Stop spending so much time fretting whether or not something is “expensive”….and just focus that energy on things that do make sense to you and that are solid value. #foreverSPY3000 Its still interesting to look at these things, Nvidia is too difficult to understand for me from this point, youd really need to know what happens to justify the valuation, still remarkable valuation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 3 minutes ago, Luca said: Its still interesting to look at these things, Nvidia is too difficult to understand for me from this point, youd really need to know what happens to justify the valuation, still remarkable valuation. Maybe we do, maybe we just aren’t looking at it the right way. Who knows? All I know is there’s a million instances over my investing career where something didn’t make sense to me in the moment and then in hindsite it became clear what I was missing. For instance there were some pretty aggressive Tesla short pitches in 2012-2015, most got really, really hung up on “valuation”, and today they look downright stupid and that valuation would be a bargain. My comment was more so directed at the folks who spend all this time micro analyzing all these reasons they can’t invest, rather than just finding things to invest in. There’s always stuff to invest in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArminvanBuyout Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 29 minutes ago, Gregmal said: Maybe we do, maybe we just aren’t looking at it the right way. Who knows? All I know is there’s a million instances over my investing career where something didn’t make sense to me in the moment and then in hindsite it became clear what I was missing. For instance there were some pretty aggressive Tesla short pitches in 2012-2015, most got really, really hung up on “valuation”, and today they look downright stupid and that valuation would be a bargain. My comment was more so directed at the folks who spend all this time micro analyzing all these reasons they can’t invest, rather than just finding things to invest in. There’s always stuff to invest in. In normal environment (i.e. ex-2021), market definitely underprices durability of growth + capital allocation, so when you think you've found a winner, better hold onto it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArminvanBuyout Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 (edited) 43 minutes ago, Luca said: Its still interesting to look at these things, Nvidia is too difficult to understand for me from this point, youd really need to know what happens to justify the valuation, still remarkable valuation. Looks like it's trading ~30x NTM EPS, in-line with AAPL. Not to say either of it makes sense (and I'm not in either), but bull at these prices probably thinks continuation of the AI driven growth for next few years (big if, but that's what bull is playing for), and so 30x NTM probably looks cheap in 3 years time In fact, maybe someone else looks at this, and thinks NVDA outgrows AAPL in medium-term, yet both are at same multiples, good pair trade here, and in market downturn, even if Mag7 loses halo, downside is protected with pair, and so NVDA is actually a relative long here...just to play devil's advocate Edited January 19 by ArminvanBuyout Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 I actually think that NVDA makes more sense than AAPL. As @ArminvanBuyout mentioned, the multiples are not that differ on t and if you are bullish on AI, NVDA should grow by leaps and bounds more so than AAPL. AAPL looks more and more like KO in 1999. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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