In 1981 a researcher named Ola Svenson asked a series of students in Sweden and the United State how they would rate their driving ability. The result — a full 93% of the U.S. students rated their driving ability as “above average”, and 69% of the Swedish students did the same.
Clearly it’s impossible for the entire 93% to be above average…
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When you read blogs or news articles about geoarbitrage, it’s almost always the childless couples that travel the world. They leveraging the lower cost living of regions like Southeast Asia, Central or South American, and even Eastern Europe.
These “nomads” will stay in a location for a couple of months, enjoying that locale to its fullest…
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As a child of the 1980’s, I was among the generation of kids that grew-up with the first really affordable home computers and game console systems. These early computers and game consoles taught us all the important skills we needed to succeed in life — Stomp on the bad guys to win. Eat the dots and avoid the ghosts…
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If you remember back from high school history class, the Luddites were a group of English textile workers in the 19th century who smashed textile machinery as part of a labor protest. The Luddites were unhappy with new machinery taking their highly-skilled (and decently paid) jobs, and replacing them with low-skill, low-paid jobs operating modern textile machines.
Now days, the term luddite is more often used to refer to “someone who is opposed or resistant to new technologies or technological change.”
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It’s been said that there are two certainties in life — death and taxes. With February nearly upon us, I’m starting to seriously think about paying my federal income taxes. That can certainly feel like death.
In the United States, paying taxes can be a pretty complicated affair — with hundreds of possible deductions, credits, write-offs, and tricky maneuvers that can be used to avoid paying taxes…
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If I ever write a book, I think I might title it, “The Nature Of Compounding”. Afterall, I spend more time writing and thinking about compounding more than I do almost any other topic on this blog.
Compounding itself is a fantastic thing — A magical mathematical force that allows for very small amounts of money to grow into a much larger nest egg. Interest built upon interest, where it grows in an exponential curve towards infinity…
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Every year right around the end of January, I try to plan out my dividend income and capital allocation goals for the year. I started doing this in 2017, continued the process in 2018, and still find the process useful enough that I’m doing it again in 2019.
At the most basic level, my planning process amounts to putting excess cash to work from our Big Fat Cash Pile AND trying to put that cash into smart places that generate a growing stream of dividend income. The devil is in the details of course…
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I’m not going to sugar coat the obvious here… the Tako family net worth declined in 2018. The year 2018 turned out to be a perfect showcase for stock market volatility.
Most of the year the stock market was in a happy place — The economy was growing, consumers were borrowing and spending more, and unemployment was also super low (all of which are important ingredients for a rising stock market).
It looked as if 2018 was going to be yet another year of positive stock market returns…
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December is gone and a new year has begun! Now that 2019 is here, it’s time I did one of those final “tally-up” blog posts which detail all of our annual numbers. I’m usually just as curious as you guys to see how much we spent … and earned in dividends for 2018!
This last year was just a blur of activity…
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