A few weeks ago, I rescued an abused and abandoned mountain bike and quickly set about putting it back into service. It's been very educational as I know next to nothing (Jon Snow) about bicycles. So far, the replacement parts list includes a rear wheel, two tires and tubes, rear cassette, chainset, chain, saddle, grips, brake pads, cable inners and outers, and bottom bracket. I definitely need new front forks and may require derailleurs and hanger too. In the end, it may have been easier to purchase a new bike to start with, but where's the fun in that?
Finished reading
A Random Walk Down Wall Street recently and started in on
The Millionaire Next Door. Malkiel's Random Walk book was interesting in how he presented so many theories of playing the market in a basic, understandable way, but ultimately the takeaway was bland. Stanley's
Millionaire Next Door was a real page-turner, filled with interesting stats and focus group findings that further reinforced that the primary difference between rich and poor is how they view money, but unfortunately there was a problem with my digital copy so I couldn't follow very far into the book and doubt I'll pick it up unless I get a copy at a bargain. I got about as far as comparisons in behaviour between what they call PAWs and UAWs (stands for prodigious and under- accumulators of wealth). I think this type of book would appeal to people who are interested in how 'the rich set lives' and the shocking truth is that they tend to live just like the rest of the planet, spending nearly all they earn regularly without a lot to show for it. The truly wealthy few are those who are frugal to the bone (probably not a good Thorogood cover song) and conserve their earnings. Both groups spend a lot of time thinking about how to spend their money, but the PAWs chose to spend it in ways that make that money an asset and the UAWs spend it accumulating liabilities.
Going ahead with the job/location change and still lacking a lot of details, but the date has been fixed for start of Q3. We'll see if that sticks since I still haven't received a terms sheet for my new job yet, although I am currently in the process of recruiting a replacement for my current role. It's really an exercise in managing my own anxiety around losing control of working methods that I've been carefully setting up over the past 8 years.
--March Spending: $4,227 or 6.2% (of 01-Mar's invested assets on an annualized basis)
Breakdown:
--Mid-April'16 Assets: $863K; up another 40K thanks to rising stock prices
Breakdown:
I've tweaked the assets chart this month. Bedrock real estate at the bottom and then two layers of tax-deferred sludge covered by an ocean of investment assets that rise and fall with the tide. At the top layer is a warm, blue topcoat of liquid (ha, get it?) cash reserves. SMH, I probably need to get out more.
Finally, I'm a little discouraged that the £/$ exchange rate has persisted in staying low for as long as it has. I'm really hopeful that it picks up after the Brexit vote in June and then I'll convert everything around then.