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Deleveraging Burn Rate |
I must confess, from the time I started working in Wall Street in 1987 till late 2002 my MAIN goal in life was to make as much money as possible. - - you remember the 80s so don’t blame me. If I remember correctly it was everyone's life goal to become a "Master of the Universe".
Make the BIG money to buy bigger houses, more exotic cars, dine in better restaurants, stay in more exclusive resorts, play finer golf courses, smoke harder to get cigars, and drink rarer wines than anyone else… or at least on par with the other "Masters of the universe”
This cycle of "wants" and the continual increase in earnings grew the S&M - - "Spending & Maintenance cycle" - - to a >$100,000.00 per month in overhead / 'burn rate' to my household.
I looked around in late 2002 and saw my one of kind $6,000,000.00 custom ocean view home that I had built exactly as I wanted along with the other amenities: a Ferrari, Mercedes S500, 2 Hummers, 3 Range Rovers in the garage then spilling out into the driveway and all the other trappings of wealth placed in the home or hanging on the wall plus I had an insane amount of staff to help prove out my "rich identity".... I was rich!, truly wealthy – but was I ?
One day I started thinking about how long I could sustain this "quality of life" if I had any disruption in my ability to earn a few million a year. The answer was SCARY! – I couldn’t really sustain much past a year or two tops- and then I began to REALLY look around and think about landscape. See documented emails in Empirical Evidence as I warned all who would listen – “ Debt Free in 2003" became my Mantra. I sold the house, sold the Ferrari, sold my country club memberships, and auctioned off most of my exotic furnishings, antiquities, and works of art. I then packed all that I intended on keeping into a container and sent it to Hawaii. I looked at my net worth after liquidating most everything and bought 20% of net worth in gold at $280 for good measure so I had a REAL savings acct for the first time.
When I landed on the island and rented a place for $10,000.00 a month and it was a dream! I couldn’t believe how good it felt to NOT be a SLAVE to debt and just the regular insane monthly bills! I found 3+ acres shortly thereafter with 3 small rental houses and decided "Hell I have never been camping" and this, moving from 10000 square feet to a tiny little house on this property using the other 2 rentals as office space (now "the lab") and a guest house was going to be the closest thing for me, I thought I would try it...
The interesting part was to me it was riskless to own land (without a BIG mortgage, $30,000 property taxes and HUGE maintenance expenses = my entire monthly nut here became less than my insurance and property taxes were on the"mainland") that had a positive cash flow if "camping" didn’t workout. If I wanted to go back to something bigger or with more amenities I could, but there was never a need. I put up a YURT for my "trading week bedroom" and meditation area last year also as I wanted my own room. The H1 Hummer that didn’t get the bid right (I had paid cash for cars at least) when I was liquidating so I kept it to get around more obscure spots on island, along with my daily driver… a dodge pickup truck that I bought new here when they were giving away those trucks and it was the cheapest car I had bought in 10years, I kept the art I felt would be timeless sell also. My country club is the ocean, I swim, body surf or surf almost everyday. If I stopped working today – I have years upon years of burn rate in cash liquidity that would exceed by a VERY long time (and longer now without the STRESS of being a "slave to debt") my life expectancy in addition to handling the burn rate for my daughter and her kids if she has any. Basically I am retired, by child is retired, and probably my future grand children are also retired, I am working on the lifetime burn rates of my great grandchildren who may never meet me, but they will always remember me. I don’t "look" the least bit wealthy anymore but honestly – I have never been richer. |
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February 25, 2009
DEFINITION OF "INVESTMENT"
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the actual definition of "investing" it appears if you are blind, deaf and dumb you qualify!!! It literally says that you are to take financial "risk" with "hope” as a strategy and do zero "work" with regards to effort...
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February 13, 2009
PETER PRINCIPLE BUBBLE
Granted, I have NEVER heard of him all my life, but what he SAYS is amazing to extent that he just throw hands in air and says he wanted some discontent lady ...
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February 11, 2009
IT'S ALL FAKE
Since I have SCREAMED to anyone that knows me that - - " its ALL FAKE and has ALWAYS been FAKE "- - the "stock market"...
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January 22, 2009
THE NEXT ONE
Inasmuch as I don't have TV and have never actually registered to vote I did hear we have a new president ...
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