Is rally.......

Hey Max, people think I'm much older than I am so we're even. I've been in your shoes but in a different way, I'll send you a PM with a few thoughts from what I've learned on the topic.

JVL couldn't be more right with his comments on the risk side of investments.

Here's my idea of risk these days, for my fellow Washingtonians and Seattleites, lovers or haters of Microsoft, to the RA author of the original thread "The internet is a scary place"

It's been a wild ride for a couple of years but here's one worth watching.

Realizing this is not a stock tip forum I'll keep this short. It's complicated but worth the research.

VHC



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2011 02:56AM by Wannabe.

Call me insane, but Rental properties is the direction I have gone. I can pick up a 3 bed 2 bath 1300 sq ft house with two car garage for 70k and rent it at a minimum of $850 per month, I dunno the math looks pretty good to me.

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aj_johnson
Call me insane, but Rental properties is the direction I have gone. I can pick up a 3 bed 2 bath 1300 sq ft house with two car garage for 70k and rent it at a minimum of $850 per month, I dunno the math looks pretty good to me.

Rental market looks better all the time. Low prices on houses, lots of desperate carpenters to fix stuff and people who can't finance a cup of coffee these days. If you can protect your properties from damage it should be a very nice investment. I've seen a couple duplexs here that are screaming deals.

I have a friend who does well investing in commercial rental properties. he buys a decent lot in a well traveled location, builds an automotive shop and leases. seems to work well for him. he owns over 6 income propertys including his own home that he rents to massholes in the summer.

Wahoo! Someone said it first.

If I mentioned rentals, I would have been flamed. But yeah, do that. Passive income = money you dont actively work for.

90K?!? Fuck me thats a lot of money! I would put all of that into a really stable low yield investment and then retire a decade early! I would not want to have to work until I'm 70.

Rally should be funded with disposable income.

I'm only 41 but I'm going to sound like an old fort for a moment. I had a customer yesterday with a brand new (618 miles) Lotus Exiege. I was installing 6pt belts for him. This is a track only car. He will be back for a fire system and some other things. He told me that his wife is expecting a baby in December. What stunned me and got me thinking is that he cannot be a day older than thirty. I just cannot fathom how this is possible. I come from a different world. When I was a child my mother, sister and myself had to eat our pet rabbits one year. She told us it was chicken.

Until recently I have always had a good paying job. I have always been careful with my money. It was a huge step to pay for the rally school in England. It took me weeks to decide to spend the money. I have the ability to buy a new Lotus today but I never would. I am beginning to think that there is a generational difference in regards to financial planning.

Max, I'll be over later to administer a round house bitch slap.

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

I remember a couple of years ago going with dad to purchase one of his rental houses. The lending agent was about 25 yrs old, and said something to the effect of "You have enough credit to purchase anything you want..." Dad didn't say anything but a couple of seconds later it was amazing to see the light-bulb come on "I guess you would if you haven't financed everything you want"

Really explains the bank situation now, and why my parents have everything paid off. 6 months ago dad paid cash for his dream car, a 2007 911S. He still refuses to take the hit of driving a car off the lot.

Thanks for the ideas. being 33 ive still got 17 years till i get my 30 in. Thats when i want to be able to walk out.

Well, i did buy a new vehicle. But I traded in the Jeep for it. Id like rest to go somewhere where itll stew and boil up about the time Im ready to retire. My work 401k is in a rather volatile market. Id really like to have to two when Im ready. With the lefter overs ive marked disposable, Im gonna put towards the rabbit. Which is under 2500. No more then i have at any other time.

If you wanna talk early retirement, then take a look at this page: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/
He's actually Danish, but lives in The States - he retired himself at around 35 AFAIK, and will be a dollar millionaire in he's late forties... and he's hasn't worked his ass off, nor did he inherit a ton of money. He just didn't really spend a lot .
But then... it doesn't really combine all that well with rallying .

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Brgrds
Brian

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Racinkid13
Thanks for the ideas. being 33 ive still got 17 years till i get my 30 in. Thats when i want to be able to walk out.

If you're likely to get hooked on rally in a big way, do yourself a favor and stash most or all of that money away in accounts that aren't all that easy to get at. Having $$ sitting in the bank is just way too tempting for me, so I try to make sure I'm doing all the right things to retire early, and whatever is leftover gets burned up in tires & fuel.

If you think the market's going to go up, picking a broad basket of stocks/mutual funds/ETFs, in one lump might be the way to go. If you think the market is going to drop, then you wait. If you're like most people who aren't psychic, consider dollar-cost-averaging yourself into the market by putting say 1/10th of the money into play each month or quarter so that in a few years, all that money should be working for you.

Since you're getting the money "after-tax" consider sticking the maximum amount into a ROTH IRA ($5k/year) and make that your aggressive bet (again, you can invest in stocks/bonds/mutual funds/ETFs, etc). That way if it pays off, you won't owe any taxes on that money when you withdraw it in retirement. Save your 401k for the slightly more conservative bets. You are 17 years away from retirement, so your overall portfolio should reflect that.

Speaking of 401ks, since you no longer owe monthly amounts to student loans and/or the credit card companies, consider trying to up your contributions if you haven't been maxing out your 401k ($12,500/year). Since this is done with pre-tax dollars, upping your contribution say 10% will only drop your take home pay by 7%.

Of course if you think the world is to end in 2012...go out on a high note and blow it all on anti-lag and umbrella girls!

Dave

A certain rallyist I know codrives so he can retire at 40 once his investment funds his a mil.
I keep cashing out my retirement funds but they have been in systems that I won't likely work for again and had no faith in long term solvency (is that the term). The Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association for example.

If you don't own your home, I'd say pay principal off on your house.
You can do a whole lot with a whole little if you aren't house poor.

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NoCoast

If you don't own your home, I'd say pay principal off on your house.
You can do a whole lot with a whole little if you aren't house poor.

This. We paid off our 30 year note in 8 this past summer. Next up is to put up a solar array. Then I can pretty much work at walmart and afford the property tax, food, utilities and insurance. Until I have to work at walmart, I am dumping as much money into retirement accounts.

The problem is, I have no idea where to invest money that will give me a passive return. Nor Cal is overbuilt for rental inventory and a $200K house will only rent for $1350 or so. My 401k/IRA has barely the principle I have put into it over the last 14 years. Bernake/Greenspan have fucking ruined the bond market.

I am thinking of buying a Jiffy Lube/Smog/Brake type autoshop. More and more mechanically inept folks are buying cars every year and, while not a sexy business, it is a needed service.

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SeanP
We paid off our 30 year note in 8 this past summer.

I've totally been torn on whether to do this or not. My fear is that by overpaying on the mortgage and given the current state of the mortgage market, it could be a difficult source of $$ to have access to in an emergency vs. having a good emergency fund. Its also somewhat hard mentally to stomach the fact that I'd be piling all this money into something that's worth less than what I bought it for...but I suppose I need to just get over that. If the tax code did away with the mortgage deduction, it'd be a much easier decision to make. Either way, I do really like the idea of not having a mortgage!

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SeanP
The problem is, I have no idea where to invest money that will give me a passive return. Nor Cal is overbuilt for rental inventory and a $200K house will only rent for $1350 or so. My 401k/IRA has barely the principle I have put into it over the last 14 years. Bernake/Greenspan have fucking ruined the bond market.

Just curious - what sort of diversification scheme have you followed?

I'm guessing I'm a bit younger based on our "age identifiers," but I've been steadily contributing (and attempting to up it year over year) to my 401k and Roth IRA since 2000 and at the end of October I was only about 5-7% below my all-time highest account balances and well above the principal I've put into the plans. I did get bit in the ass when I was just a year or two out of school and shifted investments at the exact wrong time. Lucky for me, the lesson was relatively cheap since I didn't have much saved yet. Since then I've tried to avoid making any big changes to my allocations, aiming to just ride out the storm. I will add since I didn't have much confidence in US markets that I've been more heavily invested overseas than most models recommend.

Dave

I am 43. I lost a bunch of my early money in 2000 meltdown. Some up and down years since then. I guess I am still up, but it doesn't seem that much and is so far off from where our goals need to be. I feel far worse for my parents generation in their 70s who have lived off of safe treasuries and dividend income. 10 year treasuries are at 2%. Dividends are way down. So in order to just have $50K a year in income, you will need $2.5M in assets. It's depressing, really. (thanks Helicopter Ben and Alan Greenspan for completely fucking the US dollar).

I am diversified in all equities with 35% overseas funds. 30% large caps and rest mid caps. I also use a Schwab target date funds (2030 date) for my Roth, which have low expense.

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SeanP
I am 43. I lost a bunch of my early money in 2000 meltdown. Some up and down years since then. I guess I am still up, but it doesn't seem that much and is so far off from where our goals need to be. I feel far worse for my parents generation in their 70s who have lived off of safe treasuries and dividend income. 10 year treasuries are at 2%. Dividends are way down. So in order to just have $50K a year in income, you will need $2.5M in assets. It's depressing, really. (thanks Helicopter Ben and Alan Greenspan for completely fucking the US dollar).

I am diversified in all equities with 35% overseas funds. 30% large caps and rest mid caps. I also use a Schwab target date funds (2030 date) for my Roth, which have low expense.

Geebus, with all that stocks and investments you'd think you'd have a nicer rally car, something that handles.
Like a Volvo 240 turbo with a real trans and real brakes and an axle with some final drive that is for acceleration instead of Em Pea Geee.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

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