Am I the only one annoyed by those “sleep at night” comments about stock market?
I’m suspecting many members lurking in Investor Alley to not being Mustachian/Badass at all.
Is there a takeover of this forum by the FINANCIAL INDUSTRY peoples losing their job or what?
Shall I remember that we are here because we are juuuuust a bit different than average. We are resilient, we spend only a few, we find solutions to problems, we get information we need, we enjoy being free etc. So, please stop telling us that stock market can lose 30%, 40% or even 50% because IT WILL and we all know about it. Let the so called “professionals” of investing industry telling this BLABLABLA to average peoples, please. I quit them for long now.
Back to the sleep at night thing:
As building my STASH from 1998 till now, I went through many downturns of the market and, most of the time, I was more upset to not being able to put more money toward investing than losing my sleep! The only time I taught about money instead of getting some sleep was when I bought a brand new Civic DX (back in 2002) and when I had a huge house/mortgage (back in 2004). Probably my weakest link is about having some debt, especially non-productive debt…anyway.
On the opposite, I really do like is having a positive and simple cash flow and never kept any emergency fund at all in the last 20 years (OMG!!!! What the Financial Industry would think about it, not having XXmonth/years of spending, idling and sitting still in my checking account). Meanwhile, I maxed out every pension plan and tax sheltered accounts every given year since my first paycheck.
For sure, you have to know YOURSELF a lot to be comfortable with YOUR decisions and YOUR plan to reach YOUR goals. So when I turned out Mustachian last year, I decided to reduce my commute/clown-like-driving-habits by 30% (to be at 35% of average peoples level), I increased my savings by 25% (to be at 500% average people level), I started biking everywhere in town (no % compared to the average because nobody ever do that around me, I’m one of the most Badass in town), I began weight lifting again, I stop dinning out, I spend more time playing with my 2 sons and read books with them etc.
So, when I stop by and post on this forum to get advices from MUSTACHIANS, I expect something else than the common talk that surrounds us in The Matrix. Most of us are here because we have no one else interested enough (eyes glazed over anyone?) around us to talk about those subjects.
I can give an example of useful comment I got here few days ago. I was about to start some leverage investing and asked for Mustachian/Investor comments on the plan I submitted. One of our fellows here, beltim, made me realize that there was maybe another way to go for me. SO I ran the numbers and probabilities* for my situation. The final result turned out to be about the same but WHITOUT leverage. Long story short, I just sold my bonds to increase my stock % (and fortunately, there was a sale on stock this week AND some scary peoples where looking for some bonds I was glad to sell).
And for those advocating they are Buffet-skilled to value and pick stocks, can you also value bonds, cash, gold, oil, corn etc? I need to put my money somewhere to be FI ASAP, keep up with inflation and grow my spending power over time. The best place I find until now is STOCKS MARKET.
Everyone as his own view and idea but we can all save a lot of unuseful post reading if we remind yourself to be juuuuust a bit MUSTACHIAN when posting around here.
*Not possibilities, I really mean PROBABILITIES