It’s hard to believe that my last post was a month ago. Time sure flies when you are caught up being busy. I am grateful though for this business trip–being able to visit Bangkok, Singapore, Tokyo, Bangalore, and Delhi has been a privilege, and even more so considering the colleagues I otherwise would have never…
So the company that my wife works for is not doing well. To set some context, this is a small group, less than 10 employees, in a very niche financial services space. The CEO and founder has done well in the past, and grew the team along with office space, relocation, etc. However, it’s been…
QYLD: $3,887 Rental property: $2,600 SCHD: – VYM: – QYLD did even worse this month, not great. Rental property finally paid off the HVAC replacement, and netted $523 this month. Next month should be even better. New project in Asia this month = longhaul travel, getting sick, jet lag, and working both US and Asia…
QYLD: $4,071 Rental property: $2,600 SCHD: – VYM: – QYLD didn’t do so as well this month, so it went down a bit despite my $4K reinvestment last month. Rental property also netted $0, as I had an expensive HVAC replacement for ~$5K, so this month and next will be deducted accordingly. SCHD and VYM…
April has been a challenging month for my personal motivation. My 40 birthday marked entry to middle life, my toddler son gifted me with a long-lasting cold, my weight went up despite renewed attempts to be active, and my portfolio took a nice dip along with the rest of the market. The W2 path to…
This week I turned 40. Besides feeling extraordinarily grateful for all the love from friends and family, I also felt a bit reflective. 40, according to Britannica, marks the start of middle age. Personally, since I got off to a later start on the family front, having my first child at 37, I’m squarely in…
I have not been the best at keeping up the once-a-week cadence, my apologies. Life has been coming hard and fast; I know that’s not an excuse, but I’ll try to do better. This will be my first monthly passive income check in. For March, I had: QYLD: $4,100 Rental property: $2,600 SCHD: $1,100 VYM:…
“Have a core belief, gut-check it every day. Pursue it with all your might; pursue it for a very long time. Surround yourself with people you love, and take them on that ride” In his Stanford interview, this was how Jensen Huang summarized the story of Nvidia. Although simple at a glance, there are some…
One of the biggest things I continue to wrestle with is returns vs. income. Investing for the long run in a well-diversified, low-cost portfolio is such a well-established strategy. I mean, The Simple Path to Wealth can literally be summarized by “Buy & hold VTSAX”. That said, there’s something fundamentally attractive about passive monthly income. …
I remember this pretty well. I had about $140K saved up and kept talking to my wife about finding a rental property. In all those conversations, one person ends up playing the other’s devil’s advocate, and there’s always a good reason to wait. So one day, quietly, I got started. I was lucky to find…
An average Joe’s simple blog on his financial independence journey