How much is enough??

[Sonosailor]

Small boat, no time in marinas, no restaurants with table cloths, etc. You can have fun going cheap. Just make it your game. Beats working. I got the right wife and we're happy. We're leaving for the Carib again in 2008

[Steve Rust]

I just hit my nest egg target which we started from a small windfall in '93. I will be starting a contract job soon that will run for about 1- 1.5 years that will pay me more than I have ever made before. After than I am done and gone. I am 49.
One thing I have learned in the last 15 years is you have to be in the "market" to create wealth. Most of us cannot do it on our wages alone. Up to now I have never made more than 40k a year. Take an active roll in managing your investments and educate yourself about the market. The overseas markets have outperformed the U.S. market for the last three years. Don't be limited to the U.S. market. I have about a about a 50-50 balance which is more than the "experts" recommend but I alway march to my own tune and have always made my own decisions and have never used a finacial guru. It can be gut wrenching at times and may not be for the faint of heart but there are less stressful ways thru mutual funds, equity index funds, and using finacial planners. Just get in one way or the other. Over the next year and a half I will be shifting a large portion of my portfolio over to income producing investments that will be more self-tending.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Sonosailor

I got the right wife and we're happy

IMO that be the key to happy most things

Maybe someone should start a thread on finding the right one??

[ess105]

Now can you imagine the following thread starting in this board ......

"Hi - I'm new here. I've recently decided to go cruising and plan to go in five years time. I appologise if this has already been asked but can you knowledgable lot advise me on the right wife/husband to take with me"

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by ess105

Now can you imagine the following thread starting in this board ......

"Hi - I'm new here. I've recently decided to go cruising and plan to go in five years time. I appologise if this has already been asked but can you knowledgable lot advise me on the right wife/husband to take with me"

Might make for another "lively" thread

I met my Missus on the Internet......... E-Bay

[yona]

We plan on leaving in less than 3 years. At that time my guesstimation is that we will have 900K-1200K and after buying the boat we will have 600K-900K.
At that time my wife and I will be 37 and our 3 kids will be 12, 8 & 2.
I am very conservative, so we plan to start cruising in cheaper places - The Philippine and Thailand and spend 10-20K a year. I am sure I can get a yearly return of 20-30% and probably higher. So with the years we will increase our budget.

[Zeus]

20-30% yearly return, please do tell what you have in your portfolio.

[Whimsical]

I put a lump into property trusts, both Aussy and international, 6 months ago. Current return is 24.5% or anualised 49%, not bad!
Mike

[ess105]

20%-30% or even higher is not unusual for individual years or even a lucky break of 2-3 years. An example of this is someone who puts all their savings into a deposit on a home just before a period of sustained price rises. Even the stock market can give nice gains over short periods but the longer term averages are well below this.

Over the long term these sorts of rates on passive investments are questionable. The higher the possible rate of return, the higher the risk. At these levels you're usually looking at investments where your entire principal is at risk - not for the faint of heart.

I'm hoping Yona is not falling into the trap of having a good couple of years
and basing future life plans around the assumption that gains can be sustained at these levels.

[ess105]

Originally Posted by Whimsical

I put a lump into property trusts, both Aussy and international, 6 months ago. Current return is 24.5% or anualised 49%, not bad!

Mike - you may be pleased to know that 24.5% in 6 months translates into an annualized return of 55% due to compounding.

This is a very nice return over the short term - love to hear from you in 4.5 years time and see where this stands. The best news would be that you've sustained these rates of return and you're not so much sitting on a crock of gold but a nice beach somewhere. At this rate though you could stay flat for the next 18 months and still be beating the markets.

[Whimsical]

ess
I don't expect it to hold up for that time frame. I just parked it there temporarially while I looked for some other property. If I get a few more months at that rate I will have paid for the Cat. Maybe I should have called the boat "Happy as a Pig in ****".

Mike

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by Whimsical

I put a lump into property trusts, both Aussy and international, 6 months ago. Current return is 24.5% or anualised 49%, not bad!
Mike

Got a mate who work's in foreign investment for one of the big bank's on OZ who has had a result with these

http://www.am.australia.db.com/index...8600B0D068149B

I am about to put the slab down on a new house up north, and was thinking when it sells in 12 mth's I'll leverage up and look at a pile of these if my mate is still having a win.

Hopefully the return on that will allow me to get a couple of guy's in to help on labour for the boat, while I sit infront of the screen and make more $$$.

Mind you, i've had a 600% return on my dollar outlay on this house,on the current valuation and that is hard to beat.


Dave

[yona]

20-30% is not so extraordinary. More than 50 years ago Benjamin Graham already set a few simple ways to make more than 20% a year. There is no magic there, just buying assets well below their real worth.
Buffett, when he was young, made more than 50% a year. He claims that with less than 10 million dollars, he can guarantee such return even today. He would do that by buying micro caps and nano caps stocks, where there are more bargains. There are more than 10,000 listed companies in the US and if you look at foreign markets, the number is much higher. There are always bargings among these companies. One just need to look hard for these. You won't find them reading the Wall Street journal.
Less than a year ago I found a company in HK that had more than 130 million HK dollars in cash, it also had more than a few dozens of million in real estate. But the market value of this company was only 80-90 million HK dollars. It more than quadruple since then.
You can believe me or not, but there are more than a few people that can make a huge gains in the stock market.
O'Shaughnessy in his book "What works on Wall Street" shows a very simple technique to make 18% a year with Dow Jones companies, and how to make 28% a year with nano caps.
Greenblatt made more than 50% a year when he was young. And today when he has few Billions, he can still make about 40% a year. He also set a free web site with screener that historically made 30% a year.
I can go on and on…. But my 20-30% a year is quite conservative, and I will do it with taking very small risks.

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by cat man do

Mind you, i've had a 600% return on my dollar outlay on this house,on the current valuation and that is hard to beat.


Dave

Make that 6000% return

Dave

[GordMay]

The quickest way to get rich quick is to write a “Get Rich Quick” book, and sell it to poorer people.
The same holds true for gambling – write a “Foolproof System” book.

cat man do...
Please tell me where to buy a house for, say $50,000, and sell it for $300K, or better yet $3 million (6,000% return), in a single lifetime.
I thought I did Ok at about 380% over nearly 20 years. It still didn't amount to a hill of beans.