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1.) Started my retirement investing (IRAs) 5 to ten years earlier. My IRAs are doing fine now but those extra 5 to 10 years of contributions will make a difference in the future (eating beans and rice at home vs. eating a good steak once in a while in nice restaurant when I retire )
2.) Bought more 2 acre lots ($7,500 - $8,000 with utilities out front) right before the housing boom started in the High Desert, So Cal, about 2005- 2006. Those lots sky rocketed up to $60,000 to $75,000 24 months later. I still own a few lots today all paid for but building is dead now. At that time I was a partner in a construction company and we were buying our land and building semi-custom homes. It was CRAZY busy then. Until this day I feel like I didn't take FULL advantage of that once in a lifetime opportunity. I did good but could have done MUCH better.
3.) There are many stocks I had on my watch-list when the financial collapse happened. Ford was like $1.50 and Sands was in the mid-teens just to name a couple. There were many stocks. I wish I would have bought these stocks. These opportunities only come once or twice in a lifetime.
4.) Related to #1. I had a lot of cash in my savings accounts. I wish I would have invested in stocks or mutual funds. This would of been before the crash, too. I did invest in CDs (remember those) and did OK but should have taken a bit more risk.
Other than the obvious 'gee, I wish I had gone all-in on Apple when it was $6 a share', I wish I had become a hardcore Boglehead in my early 20's. If I had done that, my life would be very different now.
For fun last year I went over the numbers if I had bought gold every month instead of putting money into my 401K retirement plan at work. Gold was selling for the same as my monthly 401K allotment. back when I started and over the years, one ounce of gold was almost always worth about my monthly withdrawal to my 401K. After 30 years of buying gold, I would have been several 100 thousand ahead and in retirement I would have been selling the gold without owing taxes.
I was stunned by the results. Even if I was starting today I would do the same thing and buy gold instead of investing in a 401K. As a side note, a 401K has numerous government regulations that would not apply to owning gold.
Looking back, is there something you would've done differently to increase your wealth now?
First I wouldn't have gone to college. I would have taken a manual labor job and then worked on getting into my own business. I see people with street smarts who make it far and then see so many with college degrees who can't find a job. I got *trained* into the "job begger" mentallity and struggled like so many others.
Don't get me wrong the accounting, and finance, and marketing, etc. are all nice to know. But, those things teach you how to be an employee. I prefer knowing how to build a business from scratch (aka street smarts).
If you had to do it all over how would you invest/spend your money?
In light of the fact that usury is mathematically unsustainable in a finite money token system, due to the exponential equation used for compound interest, I would avoid “investment” to “make money.” All usury based economic systems suffer periodic booms and busts.
And since 1933, Federal Reserve notes (aka “dollar bills”) have been repudiated, and therefore are worthless, and only underwritten by the 300+ million “human resources” signed up via FICA, again, I would avoid trying to acquire “money.” It has no par value, and loses buying power by the clock tick. Saving money is a fool's game. Frankly, I’d just trade away the money for that which I need or want.
Knowing then, what I know now, I would have endeavored to construct an autonomous home, disaster resistant, and secure. Once one’s domicile is established, a vocation that produced surplus usable goods and services with which to trade for my other needs would come next.
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