90%+ of net worth in one stock seems excessive to me.

Also, I think your decision to buy a property within your means was correct. You cannot say you made a mistake just because a difficult to forsee real estate bubble occurred without you anticipating it, and people who took insane levels of risk benefited more (and are now suffering more). In any bull market, the people who make the most money are not the best investors, but the ones who take the most reckless levels of risk. However, these big risk takers, just like in 2000-2002, and 2007-2009, always get massacred during the down phase of a bear market after the bubble is done. The correct investment strategy is one that earns acceptable returns (or better) over a *whole market cycle* whilst keeping the down swings to an acceptable level. Not the one that maximises gains in the bull phase and then loses a fortune on the down phase.

In my opinion, your decision to purchase a property clearly within your means was a wise decision. I am interested what you think now in 2009 after real estate has fallen in many areas. Do you still regret not over-reaching for a big home? What happened to your colleagues who did so?

I don’t want to ban you here. But one more post from you will do.

Unless you show the exact verifiable proof of such return, you are not welcome here. I am going to delete your comments here. I don’t want anyone to accidentally fall into such trap.

Regards,

I’m sorry but PPMs are not allowed to be solicted/advertised to investors by law, unless they know for a fact that the investor is accredited.

Posting the website address is a breach of SEC regulations and is ILLEGAL. Ask your lawyer. Oh thats right, you don’t have one because you’re a scam artist.

I have to agree with the consensus. I honestly can’t believe that a 10k investment will be worth over 8 million in 10 years. Even an awesome 20% annual return couldn’t produce those results. I wish making money were that easy.

otherwise remember the motto, “A fool and his money are soon parted”. good day to you sir.

I don’t know who Uncle Rico is but I do know this, Warren Buffet does invest in high yield programs because some of these are the same platforms that he does his 90 day charitable trades.
Its funny how people, because of ignorance and fear, will bash the very thing that they wish was true, without ever making the effort to investigate or invest in it. Most people are too afraid of looking stupid or having someone call them a foll, that they miss out on all of the opportunities that are presented to them. That is why 3% of the people control 95% of the wealth in this country. It is only a small percentage of people that are willing to take a risk.

I seriously doubt whether the company will be around when your daughter is 32 because these are never “guaranteed”. Warren Buffett does not invest in High Yield Programs, ALL of which are usually located offshore and usually only have email contact info.
They tell you the reason for being offshore is for tax reasons, but really its so they are exempt from US regulations.

good luck with you investments

I live my life fairly similar but without owning a business. I save roughly 50% of what I make and drive a 10 year old truck.

When I do reach a certain milestone in my savings I know that I can slowly transition into a more relaxed lifestyle and begin to accumulate assets that I have always wanted.

In the meantime I plan on being frugal and will try to stay clear of the $30,000 millionaire mentality.

Matt

Stay frugal, live below your means and save 10%-20% of your PRE-tax earnings and you’ll never have money troubles. In the U.S., we have a spending problem, not an earnings problem.

I am pretty conservative financially and have never spent more than 50% of my earnings each year. In fact probably spend less than 20% — I know I am a freak! Anyway, I had started a small business and needed to bank cash for its ups and downs….and had employees. In 10 years I never missed a payroll even by 1 minute. A small business has to be a passion or it’ll never do well for most people.

I have endured a lot. Had a paper networth of $1M at 25, $2M at 30, $3M-$3,5M at 35, and now at 40 it is over $5.5M even in this stock market. Unlike others, my problem is now to spend some money. I still spend like I have $1M on paper even though I have literally millions in cash in high yield FDIC bank accounts.

So I guess why I’m writing is, try to live substantially below your means and you’ll accumulate wealth for the long-term.

Good luck and best wishes.

I’m actually borrowing from a Chinese saying (not in exact words): “Small riches can be achieved by personal efforts. Big riches require some element of luck.”

Anyway, it’s something to think about (but doesn’t make it right or more right in any way).

“The gift of Millions was up to God I believe.”

I find it hard to believe God would take a personal interest in making anyone rich or poor. In fact, if God took any real interest, I would be to help distribute wealth more evenly, to have the rich share with the poor, help the leper, yadda. I personally am not religious. But if you’re going to lust after money as a goal in life, I find it difficult for that to coexist with a true belief in most religions — which tell you to give up your worldly possessions to live a life devoted to God and others. I have no problem with believers or non-believers … I tend to meet a lot of hypocrites though. There are many examples of benevolent sharers of their wealth, which do very good things … I just see of lot who seek after wealth, money, cars, posh lifestyle as their life goal, to benefit themselves, while still claiming to have a strong “faith”.

It’s each person’s choice, but we can be fairly certain God doesn’t take a personal interest in whether or not you will amass wealth, in the same way God has no impact on whether a football player makes an amazing catch…and I’m guess God might even prefer those who life a humbe lifestyle, as wealth tends bring people further from religious teaching, yadda yadda. Just wanted to hear people’s thoughts on this.

john

Your portfolio and your paycheck should not be in the same basket. Because if your employer goes bankrupt, you lose both your paycheck and your investments. You’re done.

Much like you, imagine someone who worked at Enron who happen to also have most of their stock in Enron. When the Enron went belly up they lost everything.

Keyword: diversify.

My options were worthless when vested. From a high of $345 they were now worth $65(my strike price was $70).
I was later given some grants at $9 but then the stock went to 70 cents. the execs all bought millions of shares at 70 cents. meanwhile, i sold mine and netted about $2,500 before tax. today the stock is trading at $50 and instead of frustration or heartache, I think its incredibly funny how it played out.

but i’m happy to have gone through it. i now know how money works and can generate my own wealth!

Long term wise, stocks have a higher return than real estate. Controlling risks required money that I didn’t have, nor was I allowed to do it due to company policy.

I was not willing to take such risk through cross-bets. Besides, to short the equivalent amount of my option values, I had to have close to 1 million (which is what I didn’t have). I tried shorting with about $60K, and I got a margin call within a month. The value of stock that I could short was insignificant compared to my options at that time.

Not sure how you had so much money as colateral for shorting?

Yet I made my first million by late 2001. How? I was shorting many of the post-IPO lockups,
telecom bust companies and other ‘bubble’ companies, include a few outright frauds. Companies like RHAT, LNUX, Covad, Copper Mountain, GENI, and many others were excellent short candidates.

So, 20/20 hindsight for somone in a startup. You could mitigate your own company exposure risk by shorting or buying puts on competitors in the same industry, should you get the sense that the industry as a whole is over-valued.

you were “more wiser”…? hmmmm…..

Let’s say I have 5K shares of OPTIONs of XXX which is trading at $1000 per share. The market controlling value is $5M. But because I got into the company 1 day late after the 20% run-up, my option price is set at $1200 instead of $1000. Option price is the price that I will need to pay when exercizing the option. So if I got into the company 1 day earlier, my price would be $1000 instead of $1200. In that case, after the first day, my option value will be worth ($1200 – $1000) * 5K = $1M. But since I got into the company 1 day late, my option value will be ($1200 – $1200) * 5K = 0.

In such example, my networth changes by $1M in 1 day.

correct me if i am wrong, but if 21% of what you had was $1m, then you should have been worth more like $5m not $2m at 28. am i missing something in the maths?

- s.b.

You got to feel lucky.

Even I had the foresight, I could not doing anything about it.

Regards,

Frugal

Sadly, it soon became evident that certain early investors were not at all interested in making a successful venture, but only to get rich quick, and then it became obvious that our company was cleverly being ‘used’ by our JV partners (we had several at this point) who used our business to keep short term losses off the books of their own primary listed vehicle. Despite having some very talented and devoted employees, the whole operation was a shambles and also utterly mismanaged. Broken deals and lawsuits were commonplace and after a few more years the company’s true destiny came to fruition and was liquidated for a few cents per share. I only have myself to blame for not cashing in my chips when I could have — I, stupidly, actually believed in my company….

Well, they say the first million is the hardest, so I’m back at it, this time a hellava lot wiser.

My net worth is a bit misleading (for one thing, some of it is in after-tax dollars). I also made no mention of donations to charities and the educational institutions that raised me. My $1M after-tax house is probably worth $10M in current-year pre-tax dollars, and my luxury car is probably worth $1.5 M on its own, but I’d still make those same purchases given the same situation.