wolf's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
Forskaren
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by Forskaren »

Perhaps it would be good to write a list of rules for 95% of the investments. Removes the emotions, just follow the rules. Including rules about when and how rules can be changed.

Use 5% in a separate account as play money with no rules. Compare to results after a significant time, like every 5 years.

wolf
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by wolf »

Yes Forskaren, I need to build rules into my investment strategy eventually. And my investment strategy must be valid for mid- and long term. The good thing is, that I made some valueable experiences in the last few weeks. I am currently starting a lessons learned. Fortunately the recent crash didn't hurt too much in regards of NW. Of course there is regret of selling too low and not buying at all. One important aspect is for me at the moment, how to enter the market. I am going to stay at the sideline. I'm probably certain that whenever I'm totally in the market I'll dca until I reach my goals.

classical_Liberal
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

@wolf
I think determining an investment strategy should:
#1 Fit with your personality, way of thinking, and risk tolerance
#2 Take into account any personal weak points in your lifestyle/system
#3 Everything else

It seems to me most people tend to focus on the everything else first. Which creates problems as they are looking for the most technically correct way to invest, or most efficient, or getting the most value, etc.

So with #1 I mean you need to determine what you are psychologically comfortably with. Some people like to focus on income and mostly ignore net worth/current market value of capital. Some people like to take risks and focus on growth potential of capital. Some people focus on net worth and want to stabilize current market value of capital as much as possible (this is me). Here it's important to understand, not investing cash equivalents is actually an investment choice. It can put your capital at risk.

#2 Is taking a good hard look at your situation. This is something you excel at! Where are the weak points? How can your financial capital work to best plug any holes in your system. What are your largest risk factors? If you are mostly in cash, and still earning income, I would think inflation and low yielding returns are the two points you need to address (or maybe something else?). How could you modify your portfolio to help address these weak points? This will change over time as your system changes!

#3 Now that the first two points are covered. Refine your strategy to maximize its potential as knowledge/experience increases and macro economy changes.

Anyway, not sure if this helps, I thought I'd just take a shot since you've been so helpful to me in the past.

wolf
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by wolf »

That helps cL, because it gives another view on investing in life overall. I didn't include explicitly #1 and #2 into my investment strategy. Of course I was aware of those aspects, but I didn't focus on it as intensely as I did with AA, SWR, stock/ETF screening, country diversification, etc. (#3). I mostly looked into investing from technical aspects, and not personal ones. There is room for improvement.

wolf
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by wolf »

Since the beginning of a new project at work, I work pretty much. The project at work began last year in November. Since then I worked many more hours, than contracted. Of course I get paid to work overtime or I could take them to work less in the future.
Unluckily due to so many hours spend for work, I couldn't progress in my ideas of becoming a renaissance man. Becoming a renaissance man has been focused on my time and activities outside of work. Then started the project. Instead of focusing on activities outside of work, I focused on the project. What is pretty good though, the project itself is like a "becoming a renaissance man at work" program. It is almost completely based outside of my comfort zone and knowledge. I have learned so much in the past six months and probably will learn much more in the upcoming months. And what is very interesting, that kind of project work is challenging and makes fun at the same time. I had so many flow moments, I sopped counting. And I get paid more, so I could save more and so I can over-fulfill my annual financial goals. But the financial side of it is only half of the story. The other part of it contains processes and goals of the project work. I'm pretty happy with it and it supports my satisfaction with work.

wolf
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by wolf »

I reviewed my investment strategy. I'm focusing on creating a buy and hold portfolio. And I don't want to try market-timing again. Asset allocation of invested money should be: 15% gold, 25% bonds, 60% stocks. That's the asset allocation I want to achieve, whenever I stop earning a salaried income from work. I already bought gold and bonds. I'm only invested with a small amount of money into stocks. I find the current increase of stock prices insane. Whenever I think it couldn't increase more, the market proves me wrong. If I have invested also my cash into stocks two weeks ago, it would have increases >10%. Crazy. Well, as already suggested, I created a few simple rules, how to invest into the stock market. And I'm willing to follow those rules.

Forskaren
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by Forskaren »

Perhaps making a career as a salary man feels more rewarding than being a general renaissance man for you? It can be a good path for some.

What path are you going? Often you have to be either a specialist or a leader (or both) to climb high on a career ladder.

Salary man career:
-Specialist (Often decent pay and can be rewarding in other ways)
-Management (leading people, pay can be insanely high at top level)
-Other (I suspect you will sooner or later become either leader or specialist to climb over a certain level. Unless you happy to stay at a certain point on the ladder)
- Retired, living of investments after a career (Can be boring, unless you find things you like better in the long run than the career)

I am following the specialist path so far. Big and broad investments stabilizes the risk associated with being narrow. I need to buy more services and items than a renaissance man, but keeping it at a low/ medium cost compared to the general population.

wolf
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by wolf »

So far my career path alternated between being a specialist and being a project manager every few years.
First I started on the path of a specialist in a certain field of work. Second, when team leader saw and trusted into skills, they placed me in project management roles. It has been twice so far in my career. And it has been very rewarding, because of pay increase and increase of skills and knowledge.
They (management) wanted me to try team leadership, but I refused, because I don't want to do people management. Alternating between a specialist role and a project manager role is very interesting. I haven't felt bored, because I was able to go either deep or broad in my work. Right now I am again in a project management role. I got to lead people during a limited time frame. That is okay for me. I don't like to go into management positions and roles. I don't like people management and I don't like the political topics. Without going into management, I could see a potential growth in my salary/wage of about 20% in the next five years, without changing the company. The potential growth, the very good job crafting conditions (work-life-balance), and my overall high job satisfaction make the path of a salary man career very satisfying to me right now. If it wasn't the case, I would change something.

@forskaren: Have you been only in a specialist role so far, very straight forward?

Forskaren
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by Forskaren »

I also sometimes have to lead projects or work on things outside of my main specialization. Normally those things are reasonable similar to the broader part of my University education, but no real specialist there, but I know where to start. The R&D part of a company often ends up with very odd assignments and questions from other parts of the organization in some instances.

classical_Liberal
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

@wolf
You're getting paid to do something that you enjoy, creates flow in your life, and lets you learn new things you're interested in. Just enjoy it, and never tolerate less from paid employment again. Sounds perfect to me.

fingeek
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by fingeek »

Agree, sounds like you are finding meaning and challenge in work which is great as you're getting paid for it too! I'm in a similar position right now, enjoying being a salary man again

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Seppia
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by Seppia »

wolf, if I can ask, what is it that keeps you away from wanting to manage people?
If it is just the politics (which I absolutely hate too), you can sidestep 90% of it by being assigned to a subsidiary.
In my experience, most of the politics are at the HQ level. If you gain the trust of the company and succeed in being sent elsewhere to lead people, you will have all the benefits (salary, learning a new skill, possibly relocation package, get to experience the world on the company's dime) with very little of the BS.

wolf
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by wolf »

What hold's me away from wanting to manage people?
Well, I guess, my experiences so far within my company, within the last 10 years. Those were not great at all. Team leads had to manage topics either they had resources or not. That leads to a lot of responsibility which could influence the time off-work a lot. I felt/feel it when I have to manage projects. If projects (topics) are running smoothly, all is easygoing. But when projects (topics) ran off-course, I think of them a lot in my hours off-work. I sleep worse than usual. Leading a critical and stressful project has negative influence on my time off-work. A project is time-bound, there is a end date. If I had to manage stressful topics, I would be stressed by them all of the time. So far, I didn't want to manage people because of the potential negative impact. In addition to that, managing people, who would be almost all older than me, could be stressful, because some (most) of them could be motivated very difficulty. Most of them dream from retiring, although they have to work a few more years. I just can't imaging managing people with the current circumstances at my company. There were several layoffs during the last 20 years. Therefore people are very unmotivated. And the future is not so bright either. I work in IT and it is very changing and fast by nature. Everybody talks about agile working, but people at my company are used to work "old style". In short, I'm too much an INTJ, in order to want to manage people.
I understand your point. And I admire your career and the possibilities it hold. Sometimes I wish I could work abroad as an expat but without team leading.

wolf
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by wolf »

I've downsized from a Smartphone to a Dumbphone for a week now. I started to switch the words. So the Smartphone is now the new Dumbphone. And the Dumbphone is now the new Smartphone (in my understanding). Therefore I started a Dumbphone Detoxing challenge. I'm aiming to get an awareness of the usage of my Dumbphone in the past. Slowly I'm changing habits now. It feels like a buy-nothing-challenge, only with a phone. You only can "see" the difference if you change it. In this case it's got to do with my phone. One first impression is that I think/feel that I have more time. And life is less stressful because I don't read so many news anymore. For important things/activities with my Dumbphone I've planned for workarounds, e.g. pen and paper, notebook, laptop, mp3player, short term memorizing, computer, etc. Let's wait and see how it develops in the next few weeks and months.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Did you get an SMS/Voice-only phone? If so, which model? I've been wanting to downgrade, but I'm running into the problem where a lot of these devices are just smartphones with all the features turned off.

Comparing a phone-free challenge to buy-nothing is very apt. It forces you to consider options that you weren't noticing before, as well as planning ahead with maps etc. It's totally worth it though. I've done it before and found it to have enormous mental health benefits.

classical_Liberal
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

"Smart" phones are the bane of my existence... that being said I have one :roll: . Luckily I decided many, many years ago that I would use it as a tool, not let it use me. Never had a social media app installed, limit my other apps to things like GPS, weather, ect. Things that actually have some use in a mobile device, but do not demand your attention. I even keep mine in do not disturb mode 95+% of the time, unless I'm expecting a call or text. I've also never gotten one with a large screen, since my old man eyes have a hard time reading on it, I rarely do any web browsing on it. It's been a reasonable compromise for me that's worked out well. My GF is the opposite, probably spends 3 hours a day staring at her phone.

wolf
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by wolf »

Yes, I bought a sms and voice-only model. It's a Nokia 105 and cost 20€

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fiby41
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by fiby41 »

Did you reach the switching decision gradually or did something trigger it?

wolf
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by wolf »

I saw a documentary about smartphone / internet addiction. It was based around consumerism, advertisement, thought/feeling manipulation, etc. Then I reflected my smartphone behavior. And then I gave it a try. After some days not using the smartphone, I switched it on again in order to watch a video during my high intensive interval training. I opened the youtube app. Then I scrolled down, scrolled further down, and further. And then I realized than I'm in the exact endless loop, which was described in the documentary. And only then I questioned myself "What am I really looking for?" That was some kind of realization, that until now I used videos (and maybe other stuff) in order to distract myself. And the distraction in my life due to a smartphone build up in the recent months, also due to work from home, because I have much more free time now. That's the story in short behind my Dumbphone Detoxing experiment.

Will
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Re: wolf's journal

Post by Will »

Hi Wolf,
What is the name of the documentary? I have the feeling that I could benefit a lot from watching it, smartphone use is really one of my weak spots.

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