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Rich Life with less? the movement started by the minimalist Joshua Fields Millburns

Have you heard of Joshua Fields Millburns? Me neither. That was before I started becoming unhappy with more and more stuff.

Many years ago, I was like everyone else. I was the perfect citizen. i have done the perfect thing, I studied hard, obtained my master degree, got a great job and job title. I was climbing the corporate ladder. I bought two properties before thirty years old. And with that I bought a lot of “stuff”. I have plans to be promoted, salary increment, buy the house and be set in life.

Health, relationships, values and satisfaction in life were not on my list. I was still buying a lot of things, to fill up my life. Because I was surrounded by malls and advertisements. I never thought of anything wrong with it.

I worked hard, and making good money. I thought $100,000 would make me happy. I was spending more every time I get more money. I felt overwhelmed.

And finally came the time for me to move apartment. I was so paralyzed by the things I owned, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t pack, I couldn’t discard any of my stuff. I realized my stuff have controlled me. I have strong attachment to my things, more than the people, my values, my health and it is almost an addiction I don’t know.

Then one day, I stumbled upon The Minimalist. I was so shocked they got rid of their stuff. I started following Joshua Field Millburns and his netflix show. I also read the book Marie Kondo. It helped me detox my life, my intention to consume.

In his interview, Joshua Field Millburns said that – Like many Americans, he too climbed the corporate ladder. He had a larger and larger salary. He had many credit cards, he was consuming more, to acquire more material trophies. He tried to pacify the void in his life, and buy more stuff. Everytime he buys something, it gives him a burst of pleasure. He said his health is important to him, but he was not spending time on his health. He wasn’t working out. He said his relationship was important to him, but he was not spending time with his wife. He was in his office or out with his tertiary relationships, co-workers, colleague most of the time. He was not allocating time to spend it with the closest people in his life. He continued to climb the corporate ladder. He has a whole plan laid out for himself, to be “set in life”. He thought more money, he would be happy. It was never enough. By the time he had 6 figure salary, he was more in debt.

He felt overwhelmed. He did what every American did, he accumulated more stuff hoping to fill the void. Unfortunately, it didn’t fill the void. In fact the stuff widen the void. He was overwhelmed.

He saw his colleague has his first heart attack at age 30. He told himself, he wouldn’t be the same. But if you follow the recipe you are going get the same pie they baked. He said to himself, he need to make some changes to his life, but he didn’t know how.

Until his mother died, and his wife left him all in the same one. He realized he was focused on the trophies of life. “Look at me, I have two Lexus, a house…I am successful” The problem is I am not broadly successful.

“There is nothing wrong with consumption. The problem is that we are sold this thing on compulsory consumption. For example when you meet someone, you get asked “What do you do”. It is a question about how much you make, what’s your social status, and what’s that compare to me. “

Instead of that, you can say “What are you passionate about?” It makes the conversation richer. Sometimes this can also be your vocation.

“We all have to earn a living. I was so focused on accumulating stuff, my whole life was focused on that identity.”

“I was spending more and more. I was full on consumer debt. Soon, credit card purchases, mortgages were adding up. Average American has 4 credit cards. 1 in 10 Americans has 10 credit cards that are active.”

What actually adds value to your life? What material possession augment your life, and make it better. By watering it down, to the less, it gave him perspective. His book “Everything that remains”.

Joshua Fields Millburns found that holding on to less stuff, gave him more clarity, more space. And that space was able to allow him more focus.

Over the course of 30 days, he let go of one item a day.

Even though he was a well organized hoarder, he manage this experiment of getting rid of 30 items. over 30 days, and it gain momentum.

Read about Joshua Field Millburns, he did an experiment where he switched off his internet, where he is writing. He is writing. He was forced to be with your thoughts and be with people. He said the whole experiment was like “removing your pacifiers”

He also spoke of this book ” Deep Work”. How have internet changed your level of concentration?

Investing for Beginners

Investing for beginners, a guide I wished I had when I started investing. How to get started in 5 minutes and what to look out for. All the basics of investing distilled into one article you can digest. Written from an honest point of view.

Investing for Beginners

So you have been hearing about the term “investing”. You may be clueless or have some idea. You may have some money saved or expecting some money or no money at all and want to get started.

This quick 5 minute read will help you get all the basics you need. This is the article I wished someone have written for me when I got started. You see years ago, I saw my friend lost their hard earned money to the Lehrman brother crisis. My uncle was the hardworking type who saved every penny, never eat out and kept all his money in fixed deposit or mutual fund. And he invested in an index fund that went down.

I understand how anxiety inducing the talk about money and investment can be for some of you. You might be thinking I might lose my money. The truth is not doing anything, you are definitely losing money. Here’s why

Let’s say if your mother had $10, in 1960s. She kept it. If she kept the $10 under his pillow or he could have walked out and bought something to eat for her family of 5?

In 1960, you can buy 47 burgers. With just $10, you can fit your whole family of 5, for several days. In fact, 8 dinners. Because in 1960, an average burger cost only 21 cents.

In 2022, you can barely buy 5 burgers, at $2.29 each.

With the same $10

1960 – you can have 8 dinners of a hamburger each for family of 5

2022 – you can have 1 dinner for the same family

IF you kept the $10 for retirement in a bank, you will need to have grown and invested your $10, to an amount of $91.60 to afford the same lifestyle or goods you have in 1960, that is to have 8 dinners for your family of five. Else you only get 1 dinner for your family with the same $10 in 2022. So you lose buying power, but you still hold on to the same $10 note.

Therefore if you kept $10 under your pillow, and did nothing with it, you will still have the same $10 note, but it will be worth a lot less, 7 times less. That’s in very simple terms, inflation and how inflation is invisible and how it robs you of your money without you knowing.

So you are going to lose money, you lose buying power even if you did nothing with it.

You want to learn about investing because you are worried about inflation, or you have heard of Amazon or Tesla.

In 2018

2018 – Tesla $67

2022 – Tesla $1100

So that means if you put in $67,000 in 2018, you will have $1,100,000 – 1.1 million, making you a millionnaire.

2018 – Amazon $1305

2022 – Amazon $ 2799

If you left $13,050 in Amazon in 2018, you will have $27,990 today

There are many many other examples of Netflix, Google etc.

So you decided you want to learn about investing but like me many years ago, you are afraid of losing your money.

If you are new to investing or is not from a finance background, investing can really make you turn back and just do nothing about it. I get it. When I first started, I asked myself

“How do I buy a stock?”

“Do I just go to Amazon.com and click buy?”

“Do I need to buy a minimum of 1000 shares?”

“How much is one share?”

“Do they require a minimum amount?”

“How much money do i need to get started?”

“What if I lose all my money?”

“Isn’t investing only for finance people and I should leave it to them?”

“Isn’t investing risky and I can lose all my money?”

“Can I just leave it in a bank and earn interest?”

“How do I get started?”
“When is the right age?”

If you started working, you will know your employer has asked you about 401K, or hear friends talk about ROTH IRA. Is it too young for you to think about this when you haven’t even have the money to pay rent or save up for a house? When is it a good time? Or if you are already indebted with a mortgage, you have a family to feed, and you have little savings, you wondered if you can even think about investing?

The answer is simple, start small but start. Learn early, but take action now.

Even if you don’t have any money to spare, you can start learning.

The earlier you start, the less likely you will become a victim of what i called the “evil system” set up to rob all of us, or the people who worked hard and know nothing about finance.

Because we are in 2022, the unfortunate time when banks no longer pay interest of 17% and we can sit on bank deposits to beat inflation and earn a handsome return.

“Can I just leave it in a bank and earn interest?”

Today, banks are only paying about 0.02% to 3%. Real inflation, is between 6% – 10%. This means your money worth is losing value faster than what you are earning. No banks will pay you more than the inflation. If they do, they are probably another Lehrman Brother, selling you junk bonds. There is no free lunch, there is no sit back and do nothing type of investment that gives you good return. You have to learn and read. It’s painful I know. But I have seen friends and family lost all their savings during the Lehrman brother crisis and now in their 70s are still struggling and working to pay back their mortgage. You don’t have to be that person who loses money the “system”, even though the “system” is designed to rob you, the hardworking person.

What is an investment?

In very simple terms, it is something that put money in my pocket.

My mother always have urged me to invest in property and not stocks. I did and I learnt investing in property, you can make a lot of money and you can lose a lot of money too. Not everyone makes money.

For example, my friend bought a house in Chicago for $200,000. He paid 10% down, $20,000 before subprime. The bank lent him $190,000 which he paid $1000 monthly over time.

Unfortunately the value of the house went down, in 2008 and the house was worth just $150,000. The bank now wants him to top up $50,000, the difference in the value he borrowed against versus the actual value. He couldn’t get anyone to rent the house, and pays $1000 for mortgage plus property tax and have to fork out money to repair the house for leaks. So it is not always that you win in property. In the end, he couldn’t afford the $1000 monthly payment and the bank foreclose his house. They fire sell it (meaning to sell it quickly), and it was sold for just $80,000. Now without a house, he still owes the bank $110,000 ($190,000 he borrowed less the sale price $80,000) and all the legal fees.

So what if you have a great house that you rented out and receive more money than you pay the bank? That’s what I have. But I have to say, I wasn’t ready to be bombarded with maintenance calls, property tax, lock change, tenant viewing, liaising with agent for rental. It’s a lot of work.

Therefore, I favor share investing.

What is share investing and why would companies or the market give you money for it?

Basically imagine, Steven Jobs, he has apple inc. He needs money to hire engineer, marketing, pay for ads and rent. He runs a great company, in 1980 called Apple. You invested in his company by buying shares. He has 10 shares. He offered you 1 share at just $2 a share. You paid him $2, and now you are a 1 share holder. At the end of year, he sold many MacBook and made $1000. You have 1/10 shares of profit, so you get $100 of dividend. Because many people believe Apple will continue to grow, they want to buy that 1 share from you for $20. You sold your share at $20. You paid $2. You made $18. That’s why people want to invest in companies. For dividend (profits distribution), and capital gain (when price of the share go up and you sell).

So why are people so afraid of shares investing? Well, at some point, Apple was doing very badly. They couldn’t sell any computers and Microsoft and Dell computers beat them. They nearly bankrupt. And their shares that was $2 each, could be worth only 1 cent. So you lose all your money if they go bankrupt.

And we have all heard of that one Uncle who invested in shares and lost all his money. I should say, gambled or traded instead of investing. Investors normally put their money in for 5-10 years and gamblers or traders, buy high and panic sell when there is a crisis.

What I wish someone had told me before i started investing?

Size matters.

You don’t want to invest in tiny companies with little capital, that can easily be manipulated. The companies I invest in, are big Standard and Poor 500 companies.

Why size matters? Bigger is like a bigger ship, can withstand larger storms. It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t collapse, but they have that much more of capacity to take on big storms.

Bigger means it is harder for one or two players in wall street to buy up everything and dump shares, driving prices down using derivatives.

And of course, bigger means, they may most likely (not always the case), have institutional investors. These are investors who are not your mum and dad investors. Why is this important?

In time of a crisis, big ships with big institutional investors, don’t get their shares dumped. Mum and dad investors tend to panic and dump their shares, resulting in the shares of the company plummeting out of purely retail investors sentiment. However if you have Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet company as your investor, they hold on to their investment even during bad times. This makes the ship more stable.

US only shares

Investing only in high quality stock with a good management culture and governance, and not getting distracted. That means US companies running in New York Stock exchange or NASDAQ.

Although no one can predict which company will not have fraud, chances of that in a good quality US company is lowered by a set of high quality regulation (say the SEC as a regulator). High quality stocks have real profits, they are audited and they are so big, they have controls and systems in place so fraud is much less likely. You don’t want a company that is from China, or anything China. Yes you see they make big profits but will the profit ever surface to a little investor like you or get siphoned away? I choose an American company, run by americans that has real products and services in US, than any other companies because historically, a lot of bad stuff has been cleaned up and transparency of profits is there. So remember, just because a company is profitable, doesn’t mean you will end up with the profit through dividend or increase in share price. The culture of the management and system of policing these companies matters. Do not invest in companies you have never bought from, or never heard of.

Think Long Term

This one is very simple. Do not become a trader or gambler of the markets, think long term. Hold your investments for a good five to ten years, do not panic sell. Recessions come and go. If you hold on to good quality stocks, it will bound back.

Here’s a quote from Warren Buffett

You’ve got to be prepared when you buy a stock to have it go down 50% or more and be comfortable with it, as long as you’re comfortable with the holding.

Warren Buffett

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY CEO

Invest only in things you bought or know.

I invest in the things I use everyday.

Let’s make it simple –

I wake up with an alarm on my iphone (apple). I turn on my Gmail, (google) to check my emails as I have my coffee.

I open my macbook (apple), check the markets and type some thoughts out.

I walk to a nearby cafe, swiped my Visa card (VISA) to buy a bagel for breakfast.

I remembered I have a friend whose birthday is coming, I ordered something on amazon prime (AMAZON) for my friend as a gift over my phone.

I pass by an electric car, parked along the road Tesla, (TESLA) and stared at it.

I bought an accessory for my work online using paypal (Paypal).

I ordered shampoo from P&G (Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio The Procter and Gamble company), some Kraft Cheese (also Berkshire Hathaway).

Walked to my bank and withdraw some cash (Bank of America held by Berkshire Hathaway).

Back to my place, watched the news on my FIRE amazon tablet as I finished my bagel.

Before you invest consider the following

Debt

Pay off your credit card debt that is 20% – 30% interest. No matter how you invest, you cannot get a return of 30%. Even Warren Buffett consistently is only getting 10-20% per year.

So if you let your credit card run on interest, it will balloon out of control.

Emergency Fund

Save up 8 months emergency fund, so in case you lose your job, you don’t have to liquidate your shares at sometimes the worse market conditions. Yes, when it starts to rain, it pours. When the stock market sinks, it is normally the time you lose your work and insurance, and can’t pay rent and have to go to hospital with out of pocket. Things can happened fast.

Risk

Don’t risk money you cannot lose. For example, if you borrowed from relatives to gamble on the stock market. Or if you have to access the funds within the next five years. The way to make money on the stock market is not to time it. Timing market is bad. Buy and hold for a good five to ten years, and your chances improve significantly.

Investment rules

Do not time the market. Yes there are dips but even the most prolific investor, cannot predict the trough. But as common knowledge, when everyone is in euphoria, market is going up, it’s not a good time.

Do not invest for short term and panic sell.

Invest only things you actually use and is a good quality blue chip stock.

Hold your shares directly if you can, instead of going through a fund.

The Problem with Investing with S&P Index Fund

I have a personal philosophy of not handing money to a fund, as far as you can.

If you buy into VISA, you own a share in that company. You can attend the Annual General Meeting of that company. You can vote. But when you invest through a fund, even if it is an index fund, you own that fund.

Fund managers managed your money. They invest and assign the percentage of shares in shares you cannot really see even if you read the financial statements.

Can the index fund go bankrupt?

Yes. the fund can go bankrupt, and you can lose all your money. Of course if you hold individual shares, you can also lose all your money if say VISA go down, or if Coca Cola go down.

But I am not for fund holding fund, investing your money.

Who is investing my money in the index fund?

You wouldn’t know. You handed your money over to a fund. The fund hires an investing manager, that will invest in the S&P 500 (major 500 companies) and allocate the percentage of investments. Of course you will get a report.

You lose 1-2% in fees, considered low fees in performance fees, management fees, administrative fees.

How do I get started?

To get started, you need simply a phone, ID, and a brokerage.

Fill in your address, your ID, upload a photo and identify yourself.

How much do I need to start investing?

$50. You can start with as little as $50. It’s important to start early to get to try the entire platform and understand the process yourself.

You need an app on your phone or a computer to get started.

Top Brokerage firms in US

Vanguard

Charles Schwab

Fidelity Investment

Etrade

TMAMERITRADE

Etoro

Interactive Brokers

Charles Schwab is a leading U.S. stock brokerage firm with $4.04 trillion in client assets and 12.3 million active brokerage accounts.

Fidelity Investments has $11.1 trillion in total customer assets, 38 million active brokerage accounts, and is a good choice for customers who want to invest in Fidelity ETFs and mutual funds.

E*TRADE is an online brokerage pioneer, well-known for its full-featured mobile apps, top-notch options trading tools, and customizable user experience.

TD Ameritrade is our best overall choice for beginners, strength in providing investor education, and ease of use.

Etoro is an online platform, that allows you to copy trades and operate it over an app.

3 ways to Earn Extra Income (Part 1)

3 Ways to Earn Extra Income

There are many ways to earn to money and each of them requires effort. There is no such thing as “passive income”. Even Passive Income requires initial work and some running around to maintain the “passive income”.

Here’s 3 ways I have seen millionaires do it.

Number 1 – Warren Buffet Investment Style – Pick Quality Stock

Like many investor, I am a follower of Warren Buffett. And I read profusely the Benjamin Graham investment strategies. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of any of them, that’s why you are here. Or if you have, here’s a summary to remind you how money is made. Benjamin Graham was an American Professor, who was a wall street investor first with his own firm, Graham-Newman, before he became a professor at Columbia.

Benjamin Graham’s book on Intelligent investor is the bible of many value investors. Of course there are day traders, and a lot of other type of investing. But can we focus on Value investing today, because that’s easiest to follow in my opinion.

“Bible of Investment Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham”

Well I must admit, Benjamin Graham wrote a book that is not so easy to read. I wouldn’t expect you to digest it without a tummy ache at the end of it. So here’s basically what it says:

Imagine you are investing but like a business owner. You own the company, you own the business. It doesn’t matter what the share price is today or tomorrow because that’s market sentiment. What you care about is the value of your company the true value of your business. What value your business occupies in the market place, and what are the assets really worth? How much money the business owes?

Graham singled out the passive investor who doesn’t do a lot of day trading, or exceptional analysis, should focus on the business. Is this business generate cashflow, is this business giving customer satisfaction? More likely nowadays, is this business managing tax?

This is in contrast with the active investor who deep dive into insights and analyse the financial state of companies. Value investor invest buy and hold of good value business. Graham profess that the true value of a company will be reflected by the stock price in the long run.

So that said, what are good business that really have a good a business system going?

Decide if you are a trader, that gambles in the stock market or an investor, who buys and hold a good investment over a period of time?

VISA – remember every day when you tap or swipe your card, it is a VISA card. And no VISA technology is not a bank. Some may worry that VISA will lose out to rivals like paypal, or bitcoin, but what makes VISA a S&P 500, is its ability to absorb competition and collaborate with the latest technology. VISA has also collaborated with bitcoin. Basically this shows this giant of a company is not a dinosaur but one that can adapt. What a lot of people like about VISA is capitalisation. At about 400 billions dollars, it has a large capitalisation that makes manipulation of this stock by single party unlikely. There are also a good mix of many institutional investors.

S&P 500 Index fund

The S&P is Standard and Poor, features 500 leading US companies that are public traded companies.

The important point about the S&P 500 is capitalisation. Basically S&P is a floated weighted index.

The S&P is considered by many the best gauge of the large US stock and entire market sentiment, because it has wide enough depth and industries covered.

The way to invest in the S&P is through a fund that is tagged to the S&P as a benchmark.

Because of this indirect ownership of a business, this is not a preferred method but one recommended by many.

I am always for ownership of the shares in a a real business, if you can.

Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares

Good news for those of us who don’t understand everything about Value investing, Warren Buffet got it for you. He has this company that he frequently attends the annual general meeting, in person. The company is named “Berkshire Hathaway”. Berkshire’s secret is really cashflow, from say Geico, an insurance company and other business that everyday americans buy and consume. For example, they own a substantial percentage of Kraft Heinz. That means every time you buy Kraft Cheese or some products owned by Heinz, you are giving a couple of cents of profit to Berkshire.

Berkshire also has ownership in both Visa and mastercards. So everytime you swipe, think of Berkshire, they probably made some pennies off that commission merchants paid.

Every time an American or even someone in Australia using Visa card, drink coca cola or buy Kraft cheese, they are giving money to Berkshire. And who doesn’t love Warren Buffet who play games and address his shareholders?

Here’s a portfolio by CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/berkshire-hathaway-portfolio/

Warren also has the habit of keeping the management that runs the business well, intact after buying the company. Google finance will show you how well the company has performed.

Having said all the good about Warren. He is known to miss out on hot stock like amazon and apple.

He buys grocery items and telecommunication, stock he is familiar with as you would expect with his age, and he does not gamble with his shareholder’s money. If you are looking to take risk and make or lose big, then maybe you need to look at technology stock that he is not. Warren is about stability.

Warren admitted that he missed out on google because he does not have the business insights to certain business. True hero to admit he has flaws and he is not everything. Still Berkshire Hathaway performed well above the market over long run and that’s the branding for Warren Buffett.

Another thing about Berkshire is that, it is all about Warren Buffet and his friend Charlie. They have not been able to or did not want to find a successor. They are well in their late 80s or 90s, so successful succession is a question for me.

Verisign Inc

Verisign Inc. is an American company that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including root nameserves, for “.com”, “.net” and backend systems for “.jobs” and “.gov” and “.edu”

Warren Buffet company has investment in Versign Inc.

And like properties, a domain needs to be renewed yearly and usually at or above inflation prices. So this company generates cashflow tagged to inflation.

When a company is available on the market at a price which is at a discount to its intrinsic value, a “margin of safety” exists, which makes it suitable for investment.

Watch out for Part II on 3 Ways to Earn Extra Income, or follow me on Tiktok @iwantyoutoberich