Investments - ETF's

I'm excited - I just added a few new Vangaurd ETF's to my Daily Paycheck Strategy in my Rollover IRA account. I saw that I was a coming up a little short in a few sectors and stock types, so I ditched a few stocks to reinvest more heavily in Small Cap funds, International stocks and the Tech sector.

The stocks I ditched were making me dividend income, but were also losing value overall. I definitely want a "Daily Paycheck," but I also want my capitol investment to stay intact. Cash, can be a smart position to hold, in my opinion.

We'll see over time if these were good moves or bad! One way or the other, I want to be an active investor and never want to look back and say, "I don't know what happened, its just gone, all gone!" Gritty Entrepreneurs watch their money closely. We don't outsource our future, am I right?

Ditched:
WTR
COP
CSCO
O

Added:
VGT
VBR
VT

Bulk Trash Pick-Up Week - The Entrepreneurs Are Out!

Here, in our neighborhood, the bulk trash is picked up once a month. This week is pick-up week. Looking out my front office window, I saw that same Gritty Entrepreneur from a few months back! I was reminded of my past post about this guy and how I admired his grit.

This week he had quite the haul - looks like he hit the "junker" jackpot! Sometimes I envy the simplicity of his business structure as I stare at the multi-page tax packet my CPA just sent along. Sometimes, I'd rather sort through other people's trash than complete my taxes. Just going to have to "grit" and bear it, I suppose.

Retirement and the Magic Number

I want to talk about a topic that's been rolling around in my head since my post last week on earning the first million dollars. When an idea strikes, I mull it around a bit in my head and come up with a few tenants of my main argument and then set to writing it all down. At first, I had planned on writing about planning for retirement and the magic number one will need, which then leads into the magic number one still needs to earn and save before the golden years sneak upon us all.

But, having just spent several days with my folks, I wonder how many baby boomers like my parents are approaching retirement without a real idea of what it takes to retire. Which of course, begs the question, do they have even a fraction of what they need now with retirement only 10 - 15 years out?

I'm fortunate in that my parents do talk about retirement with my sister and I. But, I always leave the conversation having distilled and contemplated their version of things thinking, "I don't think that's quite right." So, when I got my first job at 22, I went to the Bank of America homepage and started clicking around, looking at the retirement calculators and savings charts. I was shocked at what it told me. If I continued to make $30,000 annually and wanted to maintain my current lifestyle I needed to save a minimum of 1.5 million dollars.

Bank of America Retirement Calculator

This kind of cash was not at all what was being thrown around in conversations with my parents. I realized then, that they didn't know how much cash it took to retire on schedule, between 62 and 70 years of age. From what we had discussed, I figured that what they had saved was probably going to run dry about five years in to their retirement or they'd never be able to retire.

That's probably about the time the entrepreneur lightbulb went off in my head. My parents did it "right." My dad has been a hard-working employee his whole life and my mom was a stay-at-home-mom that made some money on the side while my sister and I were growing up. Then, once we learned to drive she was employed for some years at a local university. Even still, taking the prescribed course in life, they're having a hard time saving and earning enough to retire.

It occurred to me then that retirement can mean something else entirely when you're an entrepreneur.

I still have a goal of saving a minimum of 1.5 million dollars by the time I'm 65. There's no argument for how great that would be for one's peace of mind. However, if I'm living on passive income, investment income and I own a variety of income producing business ventures - 65 is just a number.  I won't stop earning at 65 like an employee does, therefore there's not a deadline to have earned my "retirement."

My dad, very smartly, went to a financial planner a few years back. Unfortunately, he received a rather nasty shock. He was told in no uncertain terms that technically speaking, they don't have a retirement nest egg. I know my parents aren't the only ones with this mindset; thinking that the act of saving any sum of money in a traditional retirement account constitutes having adequately prepared for their non-working years.

My friend's father lost his job a few years back as a real estate broker. Her father is a few years older than mine, meaning he was truly staring down the barrel of retirement. Her parents were panicked to say the least. My friend was considering relocating so that she could purchase their house from under them to bulk up their savings. If one is just a few years out, wouldn't it be a reasonable assumption that perhaps they could economize a tad each year and still make their retirement funds stretch? It was such a shame that a couple so close to retirement didn't have the resources to simply adjust their plan and slide into an early retirement.

I think the baby boomers are at a strange disadvantage in terms of their retirement mindset. I recall my dad telling me when I was younger who of his friends would have a pension when they retired. Even though he knew pensions were dying out, I think it was still common to think that your employer had your back. Now, instead Bank of America suggests thinking about what you can do in your "second career" as a semi-retired person. Why not be an entrepreneur? That's what my parents did!

-Grit Don't Quit, folks.

Great Forbes Article: "5 Warning Signs You May Have Entrepreneurialism"

This is the best, comical article on the disease sweeping the nation: Entrepreneurialism Disease. I found this piece to be spot on! Gosh, the constant urge to work for oneself coupled with all of these crippling symptoms really does feel like a disease sometimes! I thought the author showed a great deal of insight. I love that moment when all of things you've been feeling are finally capture perfectly!

I particularly liked this happy quote:

"A natural optimism and a cheery, cooperative personality could, unfortunately, spell entrepreneurial success as you age."

The only cure to ED… start your own business. Plain and simple folks!

Enjoy!

5 Warning Signs You May Have Entrepreneurialism

- Stay Gritty

Sarah Gilbert: Human Love and Stubbornness

I very much enjoyed this talk by Sarah Gilbert on "Your Elusive Creative Genius." Not having a creative business that relies upon my own creative abilities, I couldn't relate to this talk entirely until the very end.

Loved her gritty sign-off! Poignant and motivating.

To Have One Million Dollars

So, my mom and I have been keeping each other motivated to keep on entrepreneur-ing by saying we're going to make one million dollars. Each new investing idea, sales outlet or general business-like epiphany results in some great e-mails back and forth, keeping each other chugging along.

But there's this thought that nags in the back of my mind when I say it. When I say, I want one million dollars. Whenever I type it out or say it out loud, I have to admit that I imagine one million dollars plopping down in my lap. Its not that I want something for nothing or that actually I think one million dollars should or could fall from the sky and be directly deposited by ACH into my back account. Its just that I wonder what it really means to have or earn or make one million dollars.

I think...what counts as a million? What kind of one million dollars?

If mom and I are going to use the power of positive thinking to convince these million dollars to come on by and stay for a while, what is it that I really want? I need to be specific in my goals, here.

Naturally, one million dollars is 1,000,000 one dollar bills. But, really... I've done the retirement calculators online and I know that it takes about 1.5 million for the average American to retire. So, do I want one million dollars or do I want one million in my retirement account now, to earn interest over the next 35 - 40 years? Or do I want one million to spend on additional entrepreneurial goals? Or, it is enough to have one million in net worth? Maybe five hundred thousand in my retirement account and five hundred thousand in my savings/spending accounts.

I don't know what I mean when I say I want one million dollars. How odd is that?

What I do know is that I want to work hard now so that I am comfortable for the rest of my life when the time comes to retire. Even though, I full well know that I'm never going to retire in the sense that I stop earning money and start spending it all.

Maybe I really want about five million dollars...

Hobby as a Career?

There's a pretty mangled and misquoted piece of advice out there being distributed by a number of actors, entrepreneurs and philosophers which says, in essence, "Do what you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life."

So, I researched the quote a found a few variations. There's a strange evolution of this somewhat wayward inspirational quote:

I take the above quote to mean that you should take your favorite hobby and turn that into a living. Well, there are a few problems with that - if you love to play video games, very few people can truly make a lasting, long term career at playing video games. That's not to say that you shouldn't reach for the stars and really make a go of something you love if you have a good plan to monetize your hobby. But, I think there's something to be said for being realistic.

Marc Anthony says something very similar, "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Again, I think this is a little backwards. I don't think turning what one loves to do into what they do for a living is sage advice for the masses. Trying to eek a dollar out of your pastime, your creative outlet, your coping device can be a steadfast way to kill your spirit. My mother loved to sew until she started her own upholstery and drapery business. What she once loved to do became a chore. It became a job. It became work. 

Now, this one I liked quite a bit better. I have a feeling that this idea of doing what you love everyday began with the all-knowing Confucius's original quote, "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." So, its saying instead that choosing a job that's well-tailored to you, that you enjoy is a great way to infuse happiness into your life.

You don't have to necessarily to turn what you love into a job - you just need to find and choose a job you love. Which, a-huh, in this economy can be hard enough! Its not exactly simple to know what you'll love until you're in the thick of it. But, all the same, I think this is better advice for the everyman. Just find SOMETHING that you love to do. The best part is, I don't think that it has to be any one thing.

Steve Jobs takes it a step further and says that the only way to do great work is to do something you love. He urges us not to settle in some field of work that we don't love. Being in "like" with your career or profession is not enough!

So, in all, I believe in this whole loving what you do thing - it just has to happen in the right order! The truly gritty will try and try again until they find what they love to do and the rest will sort of just happen!