Money situation

Everyone has one. Human's tend to associate value with currency, so much so that we think of money several thousand times per day and base real decisions solely on money. Empirically, this is mankind's greatest flaw. My past has been a struggle, a grind, so I'm human just like you.

When I was younger (I'd say 7), I was caught stealing baseball cards from a CVS when my brother told me that it was fine. After being spanked and sitting in the back of our white Toyota station wagon completely alone with my tears. I realized my parents and my brother knew something I didn't. We were poor. My love for baseball cards stayed, and I would work at my dad's construction sites sweeping sawdust in order to buy a few packs on the weekends. While my dad, my brother, and I were at the card shop, my mom was shopping her way into severe red numbers without looking back. My two older sisters quickly took up her habits; what chance did we have?

I wondered why my parents fought each other so much and through their words, I realized it was all about the vast debt that my mother had accrued that leveraged against most of a year's salary for my father's paltry construction salary. Fights got worse, and I saw my parents less and less and somehow isolated myself through cartoons and video games. From the time I was 10, I was left alone playing San Francisco Rush and sports games in a mostly empty house. My brother stuck to baseball and skateboarding. I was too young and different for my sisters to spend time with me. The divide grew greater, and just before my twelfth birthday, I asked my dad while we played HORSE what a divorce was. My mom kept the house, the kids (except my brother), and subsequently applied for every government aid imaginable. She forced ritalin down my brother's throat at times while she told me to take adderal. I felt like we were stealing, and I never knew how we had so many groceries each week.

I was 14 when my first niece was born into a house with me, my 2 sisters, their boyfriends, and my mother. I was driven crazy by the amount of money she still spent on useless shopping. We had 4 dogs in the backyard and a few in-house pets at one point in time. I was fed up with the mess, the stress, and the poverty that was needlessly created by each financial misstep. I began liking numbers and would give my mom advice at the age of 15, and she told me it was good, but she had too much to deal with to listen. Most of it was about her spending and about my sisters having ancillary income streams. I gave up. I began playing golf on the weekends and spent the week taking care of my niece and training my Collie. Dad payed for the golf and I saw that he wasn't as bad as my mom said. I spent the rest of my teen years with him and quickly moved away for college and then out of the state.

Now, I see powerful opportunity. I can lead people financially so that they don't have the stress that I had as an indirect but extremely substantial result of poor spending habits. My parents never encouraged me toward a career, so it took me until the age of 25 to find my calling. I still love my family for always being there; no matter if we struggled, we did it together.

To this day, my mom and dad can't speak to each other; not on the phone even. I attribute the impasse to lack of financial intelligence. I know that the divorce was because of the hole that mom was burning in dad's pocket. I look forward to a future where my wife and kids think about money in thousands of positive, creative ways each day instead of debilitating, stressful ways. This is also a goal for my community: save each dollar for the safety of family and future income streams.

People I want to Meet and other heroes

Alive:
Shaquille O'Neal
Tim Ferriss
Oprah Winfrey
Elon Musk
Barack Obama
Donald Trump

Deceased:
Jack Kent Cooke
Zig Ziglar
Ben Feldman

Wife Material:
Blair O'Neal
Blair O'Neal
Blair O'Neal

Financial Plan, 8/1/2013

Here goes. I turn 25 in 3 weeks. I always told myself that I would begin investing when I was 25. In the past year, I have evolved into an adult and with that I have more response-ability (not a typo). I am starting to anticipate more goals and I am motivated toward the finer things in life. Therefore, here are some of my investing goals and decisions.
My plan is to take each step very carefully. My ultimate goal: live with a family (3 kids) in the suburbs of San Francisco with 2 cars. My house will be 1 floor (basement and garage) with 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. I want to have 2 other properties in other cities to build equity and make profit simultaneously. Perhaps one is a condo that we use once or twice per month. I want to retire when I am 60 and join a country club when I am 40 years old. The steps I take will be the following:
1. Invest as much as possible into as many types of securities as possible to understand assets and diversification and ROI (2013). Spanish Fluency
2. Build credit and apply for a mortgage (2014), pass series 6 and 63. German Fluency
3. Get a full time job as a planner with benefits in San Diego (base + commission)
4. Work for 2 years (income over $70K, pay down mortgage, and buy an electric car (2017). Chinese Fluency.
5. Find a girl suitable for marriage, provide mom with assisted living community.
6. Have a total of $20K in investments (including equity) by age 30.
In my 30s:
7. Get married (2020)
8. Work on mutual funds, find a job assisting in operations.
9. Have first child (2023).
10. Purchase 2nd property in SF or foreign county (2025).

Finances

Invest in a traditional IRA (tax-deferred) when I turn 35
Invest 3% in stocks, 2% in bonds ($125)
5% in real estate (including my own house) ($120)
5% elsewhere ($125)
Bills: Insurance (car, renter's) - $100
Phone: 50
Wifi: 25
Gas and Electric: 35
Water: 30
Rent: 1100
Chamber of Commerce: 40

=1380
+
Investments: $370
+
Savings: $300
-
Income: $2500
=
Discretionary, food, car: $450

5 and 10 year plans

5 year plan:
Own property and live on property valued at least $500K
Own an electric Vehicle
Own a small 18' sailboat
Sail, tennis, and golf twice per month
Invest $10K in securities
Have clients in 5+ countries
Fluency in Spanish, Italian, with a working Mandarin Knowledge.
Stay around 10% body fat, eat well consistently

10 year plan:
Own additional piece of property and rent for more than mortgage; invest large sums of money into it after purchase
Become a member of a private country club (dues $2000 per month, initiation $100K)
Get married to a woman with similar goals and preferences, multi-lingual
Fluency in Chinese with a working Japanese Knowledge
Join a board/committees in city government
Put mom in an assisted living community, buy dad a box of diapers (haha)

Day to day:
Sleep at least 6 hours per day
Play tennis once per week (or twice per month)
Sail once per month in the ocean
Take trips to various countries and learn languages while practicing insurance
Host fund raisers for friends and startups, invest in startups often

Maintain a Garden
Workout 2-3 x per week
Blog 2-3 x per week
Spend 8 hours per week maintaining stocks and real estate news
Keep track of the stock market 2 hours per day
Cook twice per week with quality ingredients
Maintain my client list 10-20 hours per week and meet personally with them