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Great stories - so glad it worked out and best of all, may @galaxyhi have a long happy life.
I've been with the same company for 35 years. I always kept way more of my 401k in our stock than I should have and for years, I was glad that I did.
The 2008/9 recession changed all of that. I watched the stock, which had touched $100 previously sink like a marble in a cold, cold lake. I did move everything into cash in late 2008 so not all was lost.
On March 5th, 2009, the stock closed under $7.00 a share. Prior to the market close that day, as in keeping with the 401k rules, I moved everything back into the stock. When I went home that day, I told my wife that we'd either have a good retirement or it'd be tough.
Over the next few years, it quadrupled well into the mid-20's. Then, for the next 5-6 years, I'd sell high and buy low taking advantage of small changes in the price. At 59.5, I moved everything out of the company's funds and gave it to a financial manager to manage. I grew X into 8X in about 10 years. It was a hell of a deal and yes, I'm the first to admit that I was extremely lucky. Foolish & foolhardy, but fortunate. During that same period, we became debt-free also.
Now, as the market fluctuates, I sleep well knowing that our financial guy is managing it nicely.
I'd say that on the day you get married you are "betting the farm" in a much more significant sense than money. You are betting your life on the integrity of another person. If you go bust, you can't get those years back, while plenty of entrepreneurs have bounced back from a resounding failure to make millions or billions on their next venture.
To have as many years of freedom as I lost on a sham marriage, I would have to live to 94. Seems a bit unlikely.
Yes, I am getting a settlement, so I'm not asking for pity. But I'd trade every penny of it for a do-over.
When I retired, we extracted all of the equity from an apartment complex we owned, and we used that cash to buy and build a farm.
Fifteen years later, we received an inheritance and we decided to buy a commercial building that includes a bunch of apartments. We selected one that needed a lot of work. So we bought it with cash and proceeded to remodel it. It has an old cast iron piping fire sprinkler system [built in 1903]. Getting certified pipefitters to work on it has been slow, and they have a tendency to crack fittings every time they change things. The delays have dragged on and on. Eventually, we ran out of money. So we decided to get a mortgage on our farm.
Our farmhouse was owner-built [by me], it had never had home insurance before. So it was an interesting experience as I went through finding an insurance company to cover it. [my house is a faraday cage and it is heated with a woodstove].
We have tenants lined-up but we can not move them in until we first get a 'Certificate of Occupancy'. The taxes, insurance, and on-going repair work have drained us. We have spent all that we had, including the equity on our farm.
Our household budget has been reduced to half of my pension income. As the rest of it is going to this property.
Now we wait. We have another inspection scheduled next week. Maybe we will get our C of O then.
I feel that I have 'bet' the farm on this investment.
I was fortunately never in a position where I felt I had to “bet the farm” to be able to retire.
I guess you could say leaving a Wall St. career for a Silicon Valley career was “betting the farm”. I never saw it as that, just leaving cold weather for warm weather in my early thirties.
It worked out well, but many Wall St. colleagues are currently in the C-suite. Still don’t regret my move.
We bought our current house sight unseen - all cash - three years ago as we were moving from out of state. It was a good chunk of our liquid assets. It all turned out just fine. Getting ready to do it again as we are moving back home. Unnerving but hoping it all works out.
When I was younger I would love to bet the farm on living on a farm, off grid, self sufficient kind of lifestyle. My husband and I are both city people, maybe that’s why we like to dream.
When I was younger I would love to bet the farm on living on a farm, off grid, self sufficient kind of lifestyle. My husband and I are both city people, maybe that’s why we like to dream.
I am from California. I got married when I was 21, during our courtship we decided that our vision for our future was going to be the off-grid farming, self-sufficient lifestyle. We had a goat dairy in Northern California for a couple years, and we learned that we would need an off-farm income to support farming. And we wanted to get away from those droughts.
We saved and invested to have enough money that when I retired to allow us to buy land and establish a farm.
I am from California. I got married when I was 21, during our courtship we decided that our vision for our future was going to be the off-grid farming, self-sufficient lifestyle. We had a goat dairy in Northern California for a couple years, and we learned that we would need an off-farm income to support farming. And we wanted to get away from those droughts.
We saved and invested to have enough money that when I retired to allow us to buy land and establish a farm.
I was thinking of a parcel of 3-acre in the Big Island, at the 2000/2001 time frame it was $$22k. No water to the house but just to the street.
I was thinking of a parcel of 3-acre in the Big Island, at the 2000/2001 time frame it was $$22k. No water to the house but just to the street.
Is that a bad thing? All you have to drop is drop a line to the house, correct?
On our little retirement land, we’re looking at drilling a well, 400-500 ft deep. The costs, last time I checked, is $1,800 per hundred feet plus the cost to install a pump and cover. I’ll budget $12k and hope for $10k. Lol
Then there the cost to bush-hog the land, thin out the pines and hardwoods (while hoping for a walnut tree or two), push in a driveway, clear a spot for the house, perform a pert testa and install a septic tank. This is probably just the beginning. Lol I’m hoping that the thinning won’t cost anything- and maybe make a little from the trees. We’ll see. I’ll leave enough to maintain the tax reduction for the trees.
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