Hola ERE

[dulce]

I’ve been a lurker for a while and feel this community is a great place.

I’m a late 30’s M expat (from USA) currently living in Guadalajara, Mexico for the past couple years. I became FI after receiving an inheritance a few years ago.

I’ve been investing in equities for the last 10 years or so, and as such I’ve found owning individual stocks preferable to index funds. Since I have a long runway ahead of me, I am 100% equities. I only give myself permission to spend effectively the dividend yield on my assets, (most months I end up reinvesting any extra surplus if names I own get cheaper). I think you could say I have a SWR of like 2.7%, when I measure the dividend yield against current equity values.

I understand the arguments against investing for dividend yield, and do own companies which don’t pay one at the moment (i.e. Berkshire) but I tend to prefer a coffee can approach http://csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploa ... io.pdf/url to stock ownership where I basically never sell a position. I currently have a portfolio of about 70 names diversified fairly evenly across all sectors.

By living in Mexico, I can take advantage of a reduced cost of living via geographic arbitrage. And while that is certainly a benefit, I found my personality messes more with the locals/culture here (or other parts of Latin America/SEA) than in the USA. I guess even since high school I kind of saw through the hollowness of the materialistic/work obsessed ethos that permeates America life. As such, deciding to become an expat has worked out great for me, but the negatives for some others might outweigh any cost savings benefits by living abroad.

Glad to introduce myself to you all.

[mathiverse]

Welcome! Happy to have you here. It's neat to hear about folks who have been long retired. How do you spend your time post-FIRE?

Also I'm curious about how much time you spend on your investment portfolio? How long did it take you to come to your current approach?

[Stahlmann]

I guess even since high school I kind of saw through the hollowness of the materialistic/work obsessed ethos that permeates America life.

Probably your bequeather had a little bit different perspective BTW, this isn't about shaming or starting argument, but to see things in higher orders. Glad to have you on board, have fun.

[Western Red Cedar]

Bienvenidos Dulce.

I encourage you to start a journal. I'd love to hear more about your life in Guadalajara! Did you try out many other communities in Mexico before settling there?

[dulce]

Thanks for the welcome, mathiverse. Time wise, I do about 4-5 workouts a week, enjoy reading, watching series/movies (great passive way to learn a language), hiking at least twice a month, visiting friends/spending time with GF. I can't say I ever find myself feeling bored to be honest, but I tend to be a bit naturally curious and enjoy investigating points of interest.

The construction of my portfolio was mostly done over about 6 months – 1 year. Slowly putting a lump sum to work and it has been mostly on autopilot since then. I try to invest with the values of a boomer (I mean that in the best way). In other words owning boring, stable companies. Nothing sexy so to speak (i.e. Plantir, Uber etc). A viewing of my positions would probably make certain individuals shun me for being heavily anti ESG (I own positions in energy pipelines, tobacco, defense contractors). To me those businesses have excellent moats along with inflation protection, and ironically because they are anti ESG are comparatively a better value than they would otherwise be.

I lack the knowledge, dedication, and confidence to be very heavily concentrated in say less than 20 names. This is why I own about 70 names, in the event I’ve selected a loser (I am looking at you LUMN) I should still be fine given the diversification. I’ve long enjoyed reading about good businesses and found fund letters and podcasts a great resource. It may be of use to visit this free website to see what positions the best fund managers own, if you are looking to build out your own portfolio. https://www.dataroma.com/m/managers.php

On a related note, during the peak stock euphoria of 2020-2021 when those tech names were going nuts, an acquaintance became a paper millionaire via plowing his 401k into Tesla. It was something to behold first hand witnessing how greed and hubris took over. He was dumb enough to buy more Tesla stock on margin when it slipped from it’s all time high to down 10%. In his mind, it was on sale, so when that bet didn’t work out he was forced to cover a 100k+ loss. To my knowledge, he has yet to sell his Tesla position which is likely now barely 300k.

That acquaintance, encapsulated so much of what kind of investor I don’t want to be. Yet, I must admit I did have thoughts about being slightly out of step, as I am sure many value investors were then, if I was betting on the wrong horses. When I told him what I owned and why, his response was effectively that there was no way to get rich following my investing strategy. In his mind, just having a million dollars would do nothing to support his very high spending lifestyle. Getting excessively rich is not my goal. I seek a perpetual, diversified stream of income, that tilts more towards capital preservation than growth via risky bets (Hat tip to Howard Mark’s “The Most Important Thing”).

[dulce]

Bienvenidos Dulce.

I encourage you to start a journal. I'd love to hear more about your life in Guadalajara! Did you try out many other communities in Mexico before settling there?

I traveled around before settling in Guadalajara. It is blessed with very temperate climate which is a big part of the appeal. It's also a big enough city that you don't experience some of the small town/closed off culture smaller cities tend to have. Most younger expats tend to elect to live in one of the many beach cities and Mexico city, so those spots can be appealing as well, but I'm not much for beaches and find Mexico city too hectic for my tastes.