Missed life lessons - making your money work for you

[Gabriel Suarez]

Mine

I get it. As I've looked for ideas I found that about 99% of everything I read is just BS.

I've looked into everything from app development given my skill set to real estate to retail.

So far about the only thing I've determined is that retail is for the birds. Profits on almost anything that's being sold are frankly razor thin even with dealer discounts.

Amazon destroyed retail. If others can get what you sell elsewhere, they will spendcan hour to getca dime off the price

And based on that it also seems money is really in services or selling things you create. In other words, selling the things you know how to do and selling the things you know how to make.

Yes...but. I suggest reading Purple Cow. Look at the Glock market. We werecthe first withbred dots, slides, triggers, and just about everything else. Fact of history. Now everyone is doing it and making money on Glock is like trying to make money on ARs.

In business you always need to be moving, innovating, abandoning, and grasping and moving

Alternatively I believe real estate to be a good income source but it has a relatively high cost of entry and in the short experience I have with it can be as unprofitable as it can be profitable.

I have a rather pessimistic view of the stock market in general. I trust it about as much as I trust sleepy Joe.

Depends how you do it.

But then again I'm not well versed in these things by my own admittance. Perhaps I'm simply wrong on all of this.

[Gabriel Suarez]

Agree 100% on Ramsey

Stay away from Dave Ramsey. Doesn't encourage critical thinking and pushes some crap products. It's good for people who need a 100% rote do and don't think system. I'm sure that jesselp will tell you the same, but structured products or anything with a large upfront fee or commission is going to bite you.

With the caveat that everything Tony does is a marketing funnel ( in this case both for some structured products he has a stake in and for his financial planning co), his book does a good job of explaining what most of the options out there are, how they work and, where the product, salesperson or broker are going to get you. It's IMO worth the $20, coming from a guy who's in finance, and who grew up with two parents who both worked in finance.

https://smile.amazon.com/MONEY-Maste...s%2C129&sr=8-1

[BB82]

A basic life money lesson starts with understanding income.
There are three types: earned, portfolio, and passive.
Earned is what you make at a job...doctor, construction worker, etc.
Portfolio are capital gains made on stocks and investments.
Passive income is income that is recurring such as having rental properties (notice not neccessarily "owning"), or royalty payments, or anything that has people sending you money on a regular basis.
Understanding the tax system as applied to your prefferred type of income is essential. Understanding that you dont typically pay tax on borrowed money, and using that money to make money is a smart concept as well.
Multiple streams of revenue define most successful people that I know, but I also know a handful of single-stream multi-millionaires who just beat every dollar out of their 'cash donkey'.
Equally as important as making money is keeping that money. With exceptions, many of my filthy rich friends live middle class lifestyles. They wear clothing from Target and drive Toyotas and vacation a couple of times a year at the beach. Nothing wrong with enjoying the finer things in life, but keeping an eye on the bottom line is essential to maintaining your comfort levels until your last heartbeat. I know several people who ran out of money before they ran out of life. That scenario circles back to how you make your income. Having a passive income stream always working for you is a time-tested preventative to running out of money.

[UNO]

Years ago in a discussion here on warriortalk Gabe made a comment that has stuck with me.

I honestly don't remember the actual words he said. But it was something along the lines of "I made sure to teach my children how to make their money work for them". It may have been "I taught my children to turn $1000 to $10,000" or something like that.

What a brilliant lesson. And one I'm missing.

My parents were upper middle class - in the early 2000s as a software engineer for the defense industry my dad was making 6 figures. Good money.

They are in no way ready for retirement. They have failed to build their own wealth. And since they didn't know how to do so, they didn't teach me.

Today I'm also a software engineer. I make 6 figures. I have a chunk of money saved. I'm a fairly intelligent person.

But I have no idea how to make it work for me: how to use it to build wealth.

Nothing is free, I know. Not knowledge and not wealth.

Tribe, educate me. How do you build wealth? And I'm not just talking about end of life retirement wealth with a 401k or IRA.

I'm asking about now - using my money to make me money. What would you do with $10k? $20k? $50k?

Gabe maybe you need to start a "Suarez Financial" venture.

I have dabbled some in the stock market. That's what I do when I want to "make my money work for me". I don't really know what I'm doing with it though, is the issue. I would seek out a solid financial/stock advisor, personally. I've only put a few thousand in to play with. Took some out, put some in, etc.

You can see I stayed out for some time, after my initial go at it, but have since put $1000 in to play with some more.

Back in the beginning of this graph, a friend had $10K and I told him to invest with me. He refused. I put in $2800 and pulled out $9200 a year later, so he would have been quite happy, had he done it, I believe.

The main thing I do is just turn money into assets, because land and so forth tends to be a solid investment even if you're dumb to those things somewhat.

stonk.jpg

I used it to buy myself some night vision, got it for about $2800, lol! (2650+ fom L3 filmless w/0.5 and 0.7ebi and clean tubes, custom speced)

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Also...all of my rich friends recommend a tax sheltered investment. Vanguard total market, etc.

[Winchester67]

My parents drummed into me to stay out of debt. Of course, you will have to borrow sometimes, like for a house, but avoid anything that has a monthly payment. I lived like I was still in college when I graduated and got a suit and tie job. All my friends bought a new car. Not me. By the time I was 22 I bought a new house. Driving a "classic" car was much cheaper than buying a new car, so the 1967 Fastback Mustang I drove was actually saving me money. (this was the late 80's, probably tough to do that now) And I didn't look like a hobo schlepping around in a junker car. Live modestly and most importantly, marry the right woman. The wrong woman can spend it faster than you can make it, no matter how rich you are.

[LawDog]

marry the right woman. The wrong woman can spend it faster than you can make it, no matter how rich you are.

That lesson goes way beyond money. The only decision in life more important than your wife is choosing Christ. Your wife will make you or break you. Whether it was luck or brilliance, I am fortunate to have chosen wisely. Left to make my financial investments alone, I would have an impressive arsenal but a poor portfolio. But I realized early on that I was better served by delegating a lot of the financial decisions to her, and she has far exceeded any expectations that I had.

When you are a lawyer, everybody assumes that you are raking in the dough. The reality is that my income is pretty modest. I do fine, but lawyering in my area is still working for a living. My wife--working in real estate--has made more than me through most of our marriage. She has also had the opportunity to work with a lot of people who are making LOTS of money, and to learn from the things that they do.

We have also seen a lot of bad decision making. She audited one guy's business to help him identify areas where he could cut expenses. She discovered that he was spending over one-hundred dollars a day on alcohol (as a business expense, of course), and he tried to justify it. In his mind, taking clients out for drinks was part of the job, and it would be poor form to not pick up their tab. That is idiocy. She finally put it in terms he could understand: if he stopped buying everyone's drinks, he could use the same amount of money to hire a full-time assistant.

In my own field, I see lots of guys who always wear the slickest suits, and they have the fancy watch and the newest Audi. They convince themselves that you need to do all of that in order to get clients. I am very aware of the reality of the image game, but I also know that a fit physique in a Men's Warehouse suit will beat a fat belly in an Armani every day of the weak. And I'm confident that I've never lost a client because I drive an aging pick-up truck.

In order of importance, I would say the simple financial rules are these:
1) Choose your wife well.
2) Tithe.
3) Don't go into debt for non-essentials.
4) Own your home.
5) Save for retirement. (Current wisdom is 7%.)

Those are the basics. The question posed in the OP is about more advanced strategies, once you've got these covered. But it is worth pausing for a moment and reflecting, to ensure that we are genuinely covering all of the basics first.

[Herbert West]

In reference to Lawdogs' comment, an old joke comes to mind. I became a millionaire after marrying my first wife. What were you before? A multimillionaire. In retrospect, I made money fairly easily, I worked hard for a few years mind you, but I went from worker bee to dept chairman, then obtained contracts at other hospital departments, eventually selling my corporate group of several departments to a large investment firm and never had to worry about money ever again, in this lifetime and generations to come.

[UNO]

Being unmarried has definitely afforded me many benefits and advantages. ^^^^

[BillyOblivion]

The first thing is to pay off *any* credit cards, and don't carry a balance unless it's an emergency.

There's nothing wrong with credit, it's useful, but the credit card rates are absolutely usurious.

Have enough money for a month or two in a savings account, then start to pile cash in some sort of account/instrument where you can get to it in a week or so if needed. Money market, certificates of deposit, anything that makes more interest than a savings account, but is relatively easy to get at if things go south. Having 6 months + worth of expenses in the bank eases the hell out of the mind. All my cars are old and paid off. If one of them blows up and burns down I can buy a similar car on my credit card and pay it off on the next statement.

There's tactical reasons for having cash ready to hand as well, but we won't go there in this post. Just consider, things have gone pear shaped and you have to do something you don't want easily traced back to you. How could 10 or 15k in cash make that easier?

As a software engineer you are probably working for a company that does 401k matching. This is the first thing you should investigate, as the money you put into a 401k is tax deferred, and if your company matches it that's an immediate gain. One cannot predict the future, but over *decades* the stock market beats inflation. This isn't how you become "rich", but 30 years of putting 20k a year in means you have at least peace of mind when you retire.

Then buy a house. Doesn't have to be much of one, but if you rent you lose 100 percent of that money every month AND your rent goes up. When you have a mortgage a certain percentage of that stays as equity, and the longer you live in the house the more equity it is. Don't jump homes every couple years like some people do, unless you can buy "distressed" properties and fix them up. The goal, as I see it, is to hit retirement age with either NO house payment, or a very low one. Then you have a property that you can either sell if you want to move into a "retirement home", or you can rent the house out while you move into a smaller (more easily cleaned/maintained) residence.

The rest of it is dependent on your personality and how you want to live. Some people want to live 100 percent for the future, shopping at Aldi, living in a tiny home and squirreling away money like mad. Others want to live ENTIRELY for the present, and if you've done those things above (6 months expenses, 20.5k a year into a 401k, buying a reasonable home) then you've got *some* decent retirement, live how you want to. Even at today's interest rates you're saving *some* money.

I am not temperamentally suited to "flipping" houses, I don't want to spend my nights and weekends doing maintenance work or building cabinets. Some people are, if you like working with your hands and fixing s*t, save up 50 or 60k, buy a "distressed" house (get it THOROUGHLY inspected so you know what is wrong), fix it up and sell it or rent it out. Done right, this is a great way to pile up cash.

Other people like to "play" the stock market. A couple of my relatives did, and continue to do very well. One of my cousins has done well, but he spends a lot of time on it, and it sort of eats at him.

I just stuff my 401k money in no-load mutual funds and keep half an eye on them. Rebalance occasionally.

[UNO]

One trick I utilize is cash-back CC's. I have all of my bills except house and car note coming off of a "desk drawer" card. It lives in my desk, and ONLY is used for recurring bills. Instead of my checking account. This automatically applies what amounts to 1.5% off of every bill I pay, from the gym to jujitsu to my internet. Also, if anything happens to me, I have a long run-way before things start getting shut off, and hopefully by that time whatever happened has un-happened, or I'm dead and don't care.