what to do with money-becoming rich

thanks, I'll have a play with those moving averages. but with a initial look, they seem to get you out to late, and in to late... thats if I'm reading it correctly.

sorry if I understand you correctly, you need to use a daily and weekly chart combined?

 

You can always use shorter MA including Multiple MAs and/or variety of other indicators (it’s your choice).
As I said – I do not use indicators - (55/60 weekly MA is just an example).
I would say that there is always better to have something in place (like 55/60weeks MA) rather than nothing and seating on the 20%+ loss hoping for a brighter future.
Yep...First use weekly chart (trend conformation) and next use daily to tune entry/exit.
Do not be obsessed with a perfect entry/exit.
You are not a daytrader but rather long term investor (hmmmm I may be wrong on this ).

Trend-Following Indicator Moving Averages - StockCharts.com

“Moving averages can be effective tools to identify and confirm trend, identify support and resistance levels, and develop trading systems.
However, traders and investors should learn to identify securities that are suitable for analysis with moving averages and how this analysis should be applied.”

Also: Introduction to Technical Indicators and Oscillators - StockCharts.com

 

hi
thanks alot guys
been really helpfull
im not a big fan of school yet i am probably the most finacially independent and knowlegeable in my year
i am currently in year 10 and not sure what to do next year
should i leave school and trry to step up my import export scene

or stay in school and finish VCE

i just really don think its offering me much to tell you the truth

 

If you do quit high school, you should follow it up with some tafe or other training.. not having any formal qualification may make it very hard to get a job.. should your business not work out. key is diversification, not only in investing, but as for employment as well.

 

Mate, I will tell you - I am about the biggest opponent of formal education you're ever going to find. I personally think school is an enormous waste of time and unless you want to become a higher paid wage slave, Uni is just a waste of your time and money. At the same time, I'm glad that my accountant and solicitor didn't think the same way *wink*.

Having said that, I would stay at school and finish your VCE, unless you can find an apprenticeship or something. If I had my time over again, this is what I would have done. Maybe - if you're willing - you could get work at Hungry Jacks or Macca's working 40+ hours a week and plow most of your salary into investments. I don't know how that's going to affect your ability to run and develop your business, though.

People say that you need a good education to get ahead and have choices. Well I personally think that's nonsense. I'm a good example - I only just scraped through VCE (passed by one point, not because I didn't have the ability, cause I'm quite intelligent, it's just that I didn't give a rats), but I now have a job making more than most Uni grads ever will - without the hefty Uni fees. I also know plenty of people on 6 figure salaries who never went to Uni. It's possible to have the choices without the education. In fact I would go so far as to say that education is more likely to hold you back.

I feel that people just automatically say 'oh, you should get an education' because it's the done thing. The way I look at it is like this:

Take two people, both 16. They're about to enter Year 11. One decides to leave school, get a job at Macca's and invest as much of his earnings as possible whilst he is living at home. The other one decides to stay at school and go to Uni. His parents help him as much as they can, but any money he earns from now until he graduates Uni at 22 will go towards study.

So giving the Uni grad a chance, let's look at their situations in 10 years' time, at 26. The dropout has been investing for 10 years and really, done quite well. He's got an extensive portfolio and will be financially independent by 30 at the latest. The Uni grad, the one with all the 'choices' is working just above an entry level position making about the average wage, feeling disillusioned because he's come to realise that all the guff he's been fed about formal education is a lie, paying off his HECS bill and still saving a deposit for his first property.

Question: Who's better off in this scenario?

I posed this same scenario on SS a few years back when discussing this with people on there - all Uni grads, of course - and not a one of them answered the question. Silence speaks volumes.

Essentially, ask yourself 'What is best for me?'. Make the decision, understand the consequences of that decision and take responsibility for the outcome. It might work, it might not, but at least you gave it a go, whatever it is. You've got time on your side, kid. You might as well take some risks and jump in the deep end with a blindfold on. No remorse, no regrets!

Mark

 

Actually it's not the education that makes the difference but its the ambition.

The problem with education, as I see it, is that it can nullify ambition and worse it instills a false ambition based on the learning received.

This false ambition then becomes a straight jacket with those who are educated people constrained to try or venture into any other fields or even try anything entrepreneurial because in one way or another it doesn't line up with their 'education'. In other words they can only think in a particular stream or channel and are then blind to opportunities.

I guess the one aspect of having a good education is that you can hide more easily in a job where you can deliver mediocre results simply because the letters behind your name indicate that you should be able to do the job. the classic example is govt jobs where they ask for the world as far as qualifications to then pay lousy wages and meaningless work which just encourages a lack of performance (a vicious circle).

Personally I left school after the HSC (year 12 in todays speak)_went into the computer industry and never looked back. Ended up running my own company where we employed graduates to earn the dollars for us.

Cheers

 

That's one point of view. The other point of view is that a career working behind the counter at Maccas would be mind-numbingly boring, intellectually berefit, soul-destroying, and about as challenging as flushing a toilet.

Some of us - ie, me - aren't driven by a relentless quest for cash and want more from life. I'll be the first to admit that my uni courses hold little relevance to "real life work", but they're not meant to, nor should they, and I wouldn't trade my time at uni for anything. Education is about teaching someone how to think, not what to think (or at least, it should be, that aspect of education was severely degraded during the previous government as they tried to turn schools into job training centres, but that's another story).

Education is about more than just racking up a list of letters after your name; if that's all someone is after then they indeed may well feel disillusioned afterwards when the year 10 dropout, who inevitably has at least 5 years in the workforce head start, appears to be financially better off. But again, that's not the point from my eyes. For me, learning is an end in itself and not merely a means to an end.

Another thing that I find interesting - and this is going to sound elitish and snobby, but it isn't - is that there is more often than not a distinction between somebody who is intelligent and someone who is intelligent and educated. I enjoy conversing with the latter; I often do not enjoy conversing with the former. A good education seems to open up the mind of people in ways that somebody who hasn't had the same experience, no matter how smart they are, rarely achieves.

So by all means leave school if you wish and start saving and investing your socks off. But that's a waste of life if you ask me. I work to live, not live to work. Maybe it'll take me a bit longer to achieve financial independence, but I'll be a lot more satisfied with my journey.

 

I dunno about you, but that sums up perfectly most employment, whether you went to Uni or not. Only with Uni, you get the benefit of having a huge debt to pay off. In the scenario above, the two people have these prospects:

- one works a dreary, boring, mind numbing job for about 14 years, then has more choices than 99.9% of people at 30 have.

- the other one continues with school, leaves Uni and has a dreary, boring, mind numbing job for at least 15 years (keeping in mind he (probably) doesn't live at home anymore with the attendant expenses, has a large HECS debt to pay off as well as saving for investments) and might be able to stop working at around 40 if he's lucky. Most likely it's going to be around 45 before he has the freedom to choose.

Do you see the irony in your 'work to live, not live to work' statement here?

So one person has had the freedom we all on this forum aspire to for 10 years when the other one might achieve the same. Now I don't know about you, but that extra 10 years of freedom and choice certainly makes working a dreary, boring, mind numbing job at Macca's worth it.

Mark

 

Does that mean 15 years of investing is enough to make one financially independant ? (surplus money from a macca's job)

And at what level in terms of standard of living ?

Also what about say at age 60 or 70? I know that the effect of compounding will have given the dropout a very large lead, but would 25 years of higher surlpus income being invested have an impact around age 60 and after ?

Again how would the standard of living stack up against each other over the years and post retirement ?

I agree

I don't agree with that. It depends on the person. A person who does a mediocre job, will do so with or without an education.

Its the same with ambition and entrepreneurial flair. Education or lack of it plays no part in it.

It all depends whether the person has the courage to take the plunge and swim. Ofcourse learning how to swim in a school would diminish the chances of drowning.

A wise man once said 'Intelligent people work hard to achieve success, Geniuses hire intelligent people to achieve success for them'

 

How long is a piece of string? Depends on what sort of standard of living you require. 15 years is more than enough time for this kid to achieve a very nice standard of living using the example I provided. I would say with utmost confidence that a passive income of 100K is very achievable in this time frame.

Mark

 

Not at all. A year 10 dropout will have no choice: they will only get mind-numbing jobs. Someone educated has the choice to choose a mind-numbing job if they so desire, but the door to so much more will be open to them.

Rich inheritances aside, everyone will have to work for a living. But who will look back at the end of the day and be more satisfied: the kid who slaved his guts out from 15 working crap jobs and never having the time or spare money for anything enjoyable, or the person who worked for 10 more years but had interesting & challenging jobs and was able to go home at the end of each working day in a nice car to a nice house and eat nice food.

Sure, we could all get richer a lot faster if we drove a $500 dunger, ate nothing but baked beans and home brand oatmeal and lived in a tin shed with nothing but yesterdays discarded newspapers for company (exaggerated, but you get the point). But at what cost?

That's why I see danger in encouraging someone along the path of "drop out of school, get the first manky job you can and save your butt off for the next X years". Do that and it's the only thing you can do, because the alternative is being unemployable at 40 with no skills and a retirement that's going to consist of those baked beans and oatmeal. And either way, would you look back at 40 and say "where did my life go?"

Life if the longest journey you'll make. It's worth considering how you want to travel it. Not just what you'll do at the end of it.

For every Lindsay Fox there'll be ten thousand people who didn't make it. Great if you're the next Fox, but if everyone was like that we'd all be billionaires.

 

This is where we'll have to agree to disagree. And I'll illustrate my beliefs with a personal example so you can see where I'm coming from.

My wife has been married before; her previous husband had worked hard and continued to do so, he'd built up to an impressive income level, they had numerous investments, an enviable house... by most measures, they were rich. But she left him. Why? Because there's more to life than just money, it's a cliche but its true. All the possessions and financial freedom in the world yet it was hollow and meaningless. And he'd been so caught up in it that even after she'd left he didn't understand why. Or the little tale I use to describe such things: "He crossed the deepest ocean for her, swam the longest river, walked the widest desert, climbed the highest mountain for her. She divorced him. He was never home."

 

I understand where you're coming from. But if you gave me the option to have a mind numbing job and retire at 30 or having the door open and work until I'm in my mid 40's I know which option I'd take. 15 years of my life is a lot to give up for the 'benefit' of being forced to work, even if I do like the job.

Did you stop to think that the guy that achieves financial independence at 30 could go back to school and do some courses at his leisure and get a job he enjoys, not just take whatever he's offered? He can then work when he wants as long as he wants, knowing he can stop working anytime he wants because his investments take care of his income.

Mark

 

Mark, how is someone working at McDonalds going to be able to build up a investment portfolio? Do you really think such a wage will support a house loan? Do you think such a wage will allow someone to save any significant amount of money each month?

I agree with what your saying in regards to it being a waste of time spending 7 years in UNI, but to say not to get any education and looking at mcdonalds type jobs certainly not wise. You should complete your VCE, and get a traineeship or do a tafe to get some formal education, cause if your investment dream fails, you have something to fall back on. Plus your larger income will allow you to build wealth faster.

I for one did not finish VCE, but I did a IT course which got me into the industry after 6 months, allowing me to gain experiance and then earn big dollars... but I failed to utalize this money correctly, as I was a big spender.. This will also explain to you why I have trouble spelling stratergie.

I wouldn't recommend a 16 year old to quit school to start a business.. sure do the business on the side while studying, but don't think its as simple as registering a business name and putting a open sign on the back of your van.

 

bill gates? Wasn't bob hawke a high school drop out as well?

 

whats a Maccas job pay? $150 per week? IF you could save the whole $150 a week, do the sums and see if it can compound into any sizable amount..

I think not.

 

very good point. I know someone who is almost 50, worth 10 million dollars, never had a girlfriend, lives alone, drives a Nimbus van, buys cloths from the opp shop, is the worlds tightest ass.. He rents because its cheaper to rent rather than buy a house..

He will never change, regardless of how much money he has, as he has always been tight to save for those millions, and now that he has them, he wants more and thinks its a sin to spend money.. no chick will go for him, he will die a lonely rich man, no kids, no family, no wife, no life experiences.

Money isn't everything...

 

Do you read SS? If so, I'd suggest you pose these questions to Kristine. She may not answer for a little while - she's in England taking care of family business.

Mark