Back to Work

byoscope

I’ve started interviewing a bit more, but still living a pretty chill life. The past five days my brother and I played pickleball in the mornings, got good food, and did a lot of chatting and reading. On Saturday I head off to Austria again. It’s hard to believe Friday night will be my last night in the US as an unmarried man. With that let’s get to the numbers, but first take a look at the next journal I’m coming out with, which will be available soon:

10-day BS Refresh

Analysis Intelligence

The Opening NW in the 12/10/2020 column is the closing NW from the 11/30/2020 column. The green numbers represent estimated changes to my net worth in those categories (green numbers in 12/10 column are the changes that I estimated on 11/30). The white “Gain from” rows show how the actual numbers turned out compared to my original estimates, ten days prior. I was expecting to get reimbursed for a few things that I haven’t yet and I haven’t received my Michigan rents. My property manager says the checks are in the mail but this has caused me not to pay down my credit card bill as anticipated. The rents and payments will be reflected in the next ten day forecast.

I paid off the Michigan properties because 1) I wanted to focus on studying and thought it was the best use of my money 2) I could and 3) It is a way to protect me from frivolous spending. Now that they’re paid off though I would expect my return on equity to not be as great as before, as my equity in the properties has gone up.

I would anticipate over the next few months I will do some investigating whether I think I can convert that equity, that I now have in the MI properties, into another income producing investment property or some other business venture.

I heard an an interesting take on Bitcoin this week. While I’m a big fan of Bitcoin if it really were to become a true store of value there is a high likelihood that many current store of values would dramatically go down. Now what do people use as store of values currently? I can say for myself I’ve viewed real estate as a store of value. Others look at art this way. I looked at houses this way after I read a brief history of Germany book that described the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic. When the Weimar Republic started printing a lot of money the people that were least affected were those would didn’t have much to begin with and those that possessed real assets like land, as those adjust in nominal terms of whatever currency is used.

However if we switched to a Bitcoin regime it is a fixed supply (no printing allowed). The most Bitcoins that will exist is 21 million. If people don’t have to worry about their Bitcoin losing value over time would there really be a reason to own so much real estate?

I heard there are many Chinese who purchase houses in Vancouver, and just let them sit without ever placing renters in them, just to preserve their buying power. More of the same in California. And personally I would say maybe I wouldn’t have been so obsessed with acquiring real estate if I had believed my buying power would be preserved. Thus I’m taking a bit of a more pragmatic approach going forward. Is real estate all that great of a play now, especially if one believes Bitcoin could change how the world operates? I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this.

Crystal Ball

My presentation on December 2nd to the International Association of Black Actuaries (IABA) went well I thought and I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback. Here’s the link: What Studying to be an Actuary Teaches You – Jack Allweil – YouTube

Book sales continue to be, while small, relatively stable and did see some sales after the presentation. I was even told that a professor at Ohio State would include my book on their recommended resources for actuarial students.

Ideas for increasing NW

  • Start analyzing how affiliate programs really work.
  • Learn about Salesforce
  • I’ve had a friend ask me multiple times now to write macros for her. I was able to help her again last night and maybe should keep this idea open for as a way to help people and make some good money.
  • Seriously considering taking out my liquid trading account to put all into Bitcoin. More analysis to come.
  • Instead of relying solely on Amazon to sell my book I’m thinking to sell the books on my website as well.

Notes:

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