Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

A million dollars now

This video of how to become a millionaire on a low income came up on my YouTube algorithm. The obvious too long didn’t watch is to spend less than you make, and consistently invest that difference into the stock market. After a few decades of that, a person will generally have a million dollars in net worth.

That’s all well and good. I’ve been doing a version of that since I’ve started working. However, I don’t think being a millionaire at retirement is what people are looking for. What we all want is to be a millionaire now. It cannot be argued that it’s better to have a million dollars in our thirties than in our seventies. The opportunities to use that million dollars is vastly more in our youth than in golden age.

Take traveling, for example. A younger person will have more energy to tackle a European grand tour, with many hikes and arduous transit days, than a retiree. What about home ownership? A millionaire retiree likely already has a home. An early working adult could really use that million dollars to secure a roof over his or her head.

A restaurant recently opened near me that operates until 2:00 AM. I remarked to my friends that this would have come in handy during our college years. Then I realized we wouldn’t have the money for it then. We have the money for it now, but none of us are staying up late into the morning hours voluntarily anymore.

It seems the timing of money and when we can best use it has an inverse relationship. Warren Buffet would surely trade in all of his billions to reverse his age (hypothetical, of course). Parents who are able to give money to their children should not wait until they themselves die to leave an inheritance. The children need money the most when they are starting out in their careers.

Marketing on Youtube

A pain point for us car guys is finding a trustworthy shop. Now obviously the dealership is the prime option. And if they screw up, you can always complain to the manufacturer. But for those of us not made of money, we’d like something a little less costly. After the initial warranty period is over, of course.

I think a good way for auto shops to advertise their quality is to start a Youtube channel. Putting it on video will show potential customers what to expect. Are the mechanics knowledgeable? Are jobs done in a timely manner? Is there excellent attention to detail? Think of it as marketing cost. Pay an intern minimum wage to produce videos. The cinematography doesn’t matter as much as being able to show what the shop is capable of.

For example: after watching a few videos of Tyrrell’s Classic Workshop, I can judge the quality of their work to be the highest. If in another multiverse I was endowed with the monetary ability to buy expensive classic cars, I would readily commission Iain Tyrrell Classic Cars to perform maintenance work.

With my BMW M2 nearing its end of dealership service plans (first three years were free, then I bought two more years), I will be looking for an independent shop to continue the car’s maintenance sometime next year. In lieu of running into a local BMW shop’s Youtube videos on the algorithm, I will have to troll the BMW forums on where the local owners prefer to take their cars to.

Ideally, I would have the space and do the maintenance myself. However, as we know, none of us live in the ideal world.

Gamble to rumble

One of my frequent YouTube channels is Tyrrell's Classic Workshop. The latest video shows the proprietor going over to Paris, France for a car auction. In that very car auction is a Ferrari 250 LM that sold for 28 million euros. An unfathomably large sum - to spend on a single car - for a broke person with meager means like myself.

A tremendous amount of money for a thing that will largely sit in an air-conditioned garage for many years. Until the next supremely rich car guy pays even more for it. Heck, the buyer might not even have to pay taxes if the car is stored in a free port. Vintage Ferrari race cars: the only time a car is an “investment”. Your paint-to-sample Porsche 911, sadly, is not. That money is better thrown into an S&P 500 fund.

The pain from being a broke car guy is that I don’t have the means to sample the variety of cars out there. I can only do so in the virtual world of Gran Turismo (the only way I can “own” and “drive” a Ferrari). A large garage full of automobiles is not in the cards for me, in this life time. I’d have to first afford a garage.

Then there are cars that’s wholly out of my income range. As a former owner of a 2015 Porsche 911 GT3, I currently cannot afford a 2025 Porsche 911 GT3. The starting MSRP has ballooned from $125,000 to $200,000. My incomes has not kept up with that inflation. And that’s before ticking a single option box, and paying extortion money to the selling dealership.

I can see why people gamble their whole money into specific stock options and/or crypto. There are so many nice things out there (it’s not only cars) that if we can just get a huge sum of money very quickly, we’d be able to buy and enjoy them all. They don’t want to wait the many decades in working hard and accumulating wealth slowly. Because a 911 GT3 won’t be brand new on sale for that much longer.

In lieu of getting extremely lucky in a gamble - not that I would in the first place, I hugely temper my expectations.

Strategic egg reserve

In this current battle royale climate for eggs, the trick is to get to Costco (or your grocer of choice) soon as it opens in the morning. You will then be among the lucky few to snag from the limited stock for the day. At least Costco now limits three items of eggs per customer. Hoarders and re-sellers can go die a furiously fiery death.

I honestly don’t think there is a need to hoard an egg supply. I eat two eggs a day for the protein gains (some would say that’s not nearly enough per day), and I’ve yet to run out of my supply. That’s with resupplying only every few weeks (when I go to Costco). These pictures of customers filling up entire carts with eggs: how big of a fridge have they got? Unless there comes an avian flu strain that kills off chickens into extinction, I think we’ll be alright.

It reminds me of the toilet paper panic back at the beginning of the pandemic. Do people expect to wipe their ass more often when they are stuck indoors? The only thing hoarding toilet paper saves you from is having to make a trip when you run out. And even then, there’s always the shower…

What’s hilarious about the egg shortage is that it is coinciding with a new President that ran on a platform of lowering grocery prices (was never going to happen, obviously). January 2025 inflation numbers are unexpectedly high, too. Maybe what America needs is a strategic egg reserve, like the strategic oil reserve. President Trump can increase the egg supply to level out the price shocks.

Forget breakthrough medical research - the Trump administration certainly has by freezing NIH funding; what we need is to research a new method for storing eggs for years on end whilst preserving initial quality. I personally think that’s a great idea.

Don't blame the system

This video popped up on my Youtube feed talking about how credit card companies are criminals for charging such high interest rates. But that’s a bit disingenuous. People aren’t forced to deal with credit card issuers. You absolutely do not need a credit card! Cold hard cash will always be king. There’s also the debit card too, if convenience is what you are after.

I’ve had and still have many credit cards, and never have I paid a penny of interest. (Good move by President Trump in directing the Treasury to stop minting pennies.) Credit cards are a fantastic financial tool, so long as the monthly balance gets paid in full. The issuers can charge the most usurious interest rate, and it wouldn’t affect me one iota. That’s how everyone should be using the cards. Visa and MasterCard more than make enough money on swipe fees.

It’s wrong to call something predatory when both parties came to an agreement. The customer borrows money from the credit card companies, with the promise to pay it back. Interest will be charged if payments are late. It’s not the issuer’s fault if the customer did not read the APR fine print. The issuer is not evil because the customer cannot fully pay the balance in a timely manner. It’s hugely infantilizing to obviate responsibility from fully grown adults.

Again, credit cards are not necessary to living. People did just fine before their invention. Whatever life emergency that people use the cards to cover should instead be covered by an emergency cash fund. Don’t have one? Eat only rice/beans/chicken/lentils (a completely nutritious meal for very cheap) until you’ve saved enough. Sorry, DoorDash is no longer in your vocabulary.

If you’re in credit card debt, it’s time to reevaluate your expectations of what is truly necessary in life. The Amazon habit is too difficult to quit? Better increase your income, then.

I know. Right to privilege jail. Right away.

Can you DOGE this?

I am glad I finally got new tires on the M2, right before another pair of rain storms is due to hit the San Francisco Bay Area. Not that I will be doing any driving during that time. It’s just nice to know that in an emergency, I don’t have to treat the accelerator pedal with the smoothest of care. The original set of rear tires were truly at its end of life.

It’s been interesting to see Elon Musk’s DOGE running through Federal agencies looking for redundancies and waste. Legalities aside (I’m not a Constitutional lawyer so I’ve no idea whatsoever), any fiscal conservative worthy of the claim should welcome a culling of the largesse. (Please don’t forget the Pentagon, Elon!) Indeed, why should billions in taxpayer money still go to other countries, when the referendum for last year’s election is the ill economic feelings of Americans?

President Trump wishes to cull the actual number of Federal workers. He probably saw Elon getting rid of 80 percent of the Twitter workforce, and what is now known as X doesn’t seem to be worse for it. I’ll take some of that! DOGE probably can’t go that far with the Federal workforce, but there’s stuff to be cut for sure. The stereotype of the lazy public worker who does nothing but collect a paycheck (and protected by a union) is based on some reality, no? We all either know a person (raises hand), or know a person who knows a person.

With San Francisco facing a fiscal cliff, the new mayor might need to pull the layoff lever. Some in the San Francisco subreddit hilariously wrote the city can use a DOGE-like makeover. Surely our weathly scion of a mayor can ask some business tycoon friend of his to spearhead such endeavor.

Actually, an entity that we can all agree that needs to be way more efficient: the Department of Motor Vehicles. Elon is more than welcome to get his team of twenty something software engineers to hack into the DMV system.

Ready for some football

It is Super Bowl Sunday. (I think the NFL will send me a bill just for using that term.) An American tradition unlike any other. Except in other countries during their team’s matches in the World Cup. I’m sure the Argentinian television station responsible for broadcasting the World Cup final sold some significant advertisements in Argentina.

One day last week I forgot to bring my own coffee. It’s been awhile since I’ve purchased from Peet’s, and wow has the pricing gone up yet again. This particular franchise seem so embarrassed about the prices it’s charging that they are only displaying the price for medium size. How much for a large cup of vanilla soy latte? Spin the wheel to find out.

There’s been this age old battle between two camps. One side says buying the daily coffee from Starbucks is keeping you poor. The other side says (what was) $3 per day is but a drop in the ocean in the face of immense housing cost. There’s truth to both sides. In areas such as our San Francisco, you definitely cannot save your way towards buying a house by abolishing store-bought coffee.

On the other hand, many little things can indeed compound into significant sums. What makes the high inflation of the past years so pernicious is that it’s kind of death by a thousand cuts. It’s fine if only the grocery haul is (for example) 10% dearer. But when everything else went up also, it’s really easy to look at your monthly statements and wonder where the money’s gone. Five dollars extra here, five dollars extra there, five dollars extra everywhere.

And so it is with the Peet’s medium drip coffee I bought for nearly $4. The Keurig life is for me. I rather have the $1000 ($4 x 21 workdays in a month x 12 months) extra at the end of the year.