Over the next few hours, four or five generations of the family are descending on my house where we are preparing for my mom’s 50th birthday celebration tonight. Before everyone gets here, the spouse and I are getting the chocolate covered strawberries ready. The brownies were baked last night, my sister is picking up the…
DetailsInteresting fact: Do you want a financial “A” in life? To achieve it, and rank in the top 5% of households (making you richer than 95 out of 100 families), you and your spouse need a combined pre-tax income of $205,300 and a net worth of $1,864,100. [mainbodyad]That is according to the triennial Survey of Consumer Finance, which was…
DetailsIn some ways, I am my father’s son. In other ways, I take after my mother. When it comes to travel and an affinity for technology gadgets, I definitely take after mom. In fact, in these two areas, my dad and my personalities are so far apart, it is almost comical. It rarely comes up now that I’m an adult with my own family, but occasionally, we are involved in a joint project of sorts that requires us both to be in a city. This happens to be the case this morning and booking the trip was like Iran and Israel trying to agree over peace terms, only a lot friendlier.
DetailsThis weekend, I traveled several hundred miles to visit one of my grandmothers, who hosted a family dinner. On the drive, we went through some extremely poor communities; places where a family of four or five might live in a $22,000 house. This caused me to think about poverty for the past couple of days.…
DetailsWhen Peter Lynch was 33 years old, he was put in charge of the obscure Magellan fund, which had $18 million in assets. This was 1977, so today that is about the same as $63 million. The amazing thing about Peter Lynch is, it would have been effortless for him to raise billions of dollars…
DetailsI was reading an argument earlier about how Europe needs a “Lehman Brothers moment” to scare the member nations into swift action. It reminded me of one of my favorite passages from Barbarians at the Gate that discussed the merger of Lehman Brothers and Shearson.
DetailsIf you were going to take a family vacation, you would never just get in the car and start driving, picking random turns at intersections. If you did, you would be lucky to end up anywhere meaningful. The chances of stumbling upon a Disneyland or New York would be remotely small. Instead, you decide where…
DetailsWith the season premier of True Blood upon us, I began thinking about how lessons on life, money, and success are all around us if you just pay close enough attention. If you understand how compounding works, it is so easy to get rich if you have enough time. Consider Sam Merlotte, the Bon Temps bartender and resident landlord. His character is around 30 years old, give or take several years, when the show began.
DetailsIt’s a fairly consistent thing that I get messages asking about the morality or ethics of investing in a certain type of company. Right now, there is a mail bag response I’m working on that deals with this topic. We’ve also talked about the fact that the Bri Institute thinks Jesus hates my portfolio. Though,…
DetailsI once read somewhere that you should measure the success of your day by the seeds you plant for a better future. Over time, you keep planting, your life radically changes for the better. I came across a perfect illustration of that concept through a bit of serendipity.
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