Its Good To Be Back
I’m finally back in the States after a 6 week trip to India, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Singapore. It was long and expensive (even more so since it was mostly leave without pay) but it was worth it. Its good to remind yourself why we work so hard during the rest of the year. Here’s a picture of a bottle of BinTang Beer I enjoyed at Tanalot, Bali. It was quite a good pilsner (if you like that sort of thing).
Tons of stuff to do in the remaining 11 months of this year. I just got my tax refund for ‘05 so I guess the first order of action is to file an extension for ‘06!
Also need to work on beefing up my passive income. My goal to reach $5,000/mo in passive income to achieve financial independance. I’m still very far from that goal. Private trust deeds have proven to be pretty good in the past so I’ll pursue that avenue. Prosper is also coming along well. I have $1,500 lent out over 28 loans with an average rate of 18.24% and so far I have had any defaults. I’ll probably put more money into it. However its very very time consuming. You spend 2 hours and lend out $200 and then 4 days later you find you were outbid and you need to restart the process. (Or someone outbid you and is willing to lend to a person with lousy credit at 12%. No thanks, I’m not competing with that)
I also want to invest in a commercial property and a buy a piece of land somewhere. Taking of land, here’s an interesting tidbit.
Collectively, the nation’s ten largest landowners own 10.6 million acres (worth more than 5.5 billion dollars), or one out of every 217 acres in the country.
* Robert E. (Ted) Turner -1,800,000 acres in Colo., Fla., Ga., Kans., Nebr., N.M., Mont., Okla., S.C., S.D.
* Colvin Irving -1,600,000 acres in Me.
* Archie (Red) Emmerson- 1,500,000 acres in Calif.
* Henry Singleton family-1,200,000 acres in Calif., N.M.
* David Pingree heirs- 960,000 acres in Me
* Richard King family heirs- 900,000 acres in Fla., Tex.
* William Reed family- 770,000 acres in Calif., Ore., Wash.
* Allyn Ford-750,000 acres in Calif., Ore.
* Howell Lykes family- 640,000 acres in Fla., Tex.
* Dolph Briscoe Jr.- 560,000 acres in Tex.
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January 25th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Hi Adventures,
interesting post. Land used to be a major source of wealth in the USA. Now that we’ve switched to a service economy it seems less important. that said, there is still something comforting about owning land, its somehow more substantial than stocks of bonds, which only seem to derive value because of sociological reality (e.g. they have value because everyone says they do).
Best,
James
January 25th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
I haven’t tried it, but Prosper really doesn’t look worthwhile unless you are willing to put substantial money into and make much larger loans, like $1000 a piece or so.
January 29th, 2007 at 5:27 am
Sounds like a great trip. The local beer always tastes better when you are there
.
Singha!
January 29th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I still think it’s possible to invest in Prosper quickly. In theory, if you were to invest randomly within a credit grade, you’d do as well as their average for that grade (if you invest in enough of them). If you look at Prosper’s default averages it’s pretty decent.
Perhaps your time is well spent combing through loans, but perhaps it’s better to think of it like a small cap mutual fund. Some will succeed, some will fail, but on average you’ll tend to do okay over time.