Millionaire that lives in a Van

[taketimeforlife]

Hey everyone,
This is an incredible story...living in the van is one thing but the rest of the story is what is really awesome.

I've posted a video and photo of the this incredible man on my blog.

 

[WriterMs]

Hi, Dan,
Yes, that baseball player got tons of publicity -- even saw a little feature on one of the national news channels.

Some of the stories have had links posted on this forum before, too.

I like the message that it is fine to live small even if you have the bucks to live big.

 

[offroad]

There are lots of paper millionaires that do not get recognized as such by most. Think of the math for interest rates. Most people who have a retirement savings account can always expect 5% per year. So if you have $1,000,000 how much is that per year in interest? 10% is $100,000 while 5% is $50,000. Bet you know plenty of couples living on $50,000 a year that do not think of themselves as millionaires. Yet math says they are exactly that

 

[gcal]

There are lots of paper millionaires that do not get recognized as such by most. Think of the math for interest rates. Most people who have a retirement savings account can always expect 5% per year. So if you have $1,000,000 how much is that per year in interest?  10% is $100,000 while 5% is $50,000.  Bet you know plenty of couples living on $50,000 a year that do not think of themselves as millionaires. Yet math says they are exactly that

I dont know of any bank offering 5% interest. If you do,let me know. I am going there.

 

[offroad]

Yes I know a few Mutual Funds and ETF that are getting good rates. Though nothing consistent this year, so you will need to buy in and get out (timing - which is a nasty investor word). You eventually will learn how to do it right to get above 5% per year constantly. It's a job to make that happen, when you start creating your own self generated ETF strategy.

 

[gcal]

Yes I know a few Mutual Funds and ETF that are getting good rates. Though nothing consistent this year, so you will need to buy in and get out (timing - which is a nasty investor word). You eventually will learn how to do it right to get above 5% per year constantly.  It's a job to make that happen, when you start creating your own self generated ETF strategy.

The market is risky. What goes up can go down, just when you need to sell for some cash. I dont always have wifi, so that makes it tricky to keep track of what is happening.

 

[dhawktx]

This is not really that far fetched to me. The main thing is that he's just SMART college boy who got a chunk o' change for signing up, not a 'real Millionaire' as in Wall Street Big Business. THOSE are the folks that I'd be shocked to see in a van. Except for Inflation. We still think of Millionaire as something special, but like offroad said, Paper Millionaires are much more common today than most of us think.

This keeps looping through my head:

Now, if it was a BILLIONAIRE in a van, that's newsworthy!

 

[IGBT]

A million dollars provides you with around $40,000 a year for 30 plus years in most economic environments (you can use a program called firecalc to investigate historic scenarios).

Bogle is now saying we should expect a lower real return from stocks and bonds because the prior PE expansion of the 1980s to present is likely to end.   He predicts a 0% to 1% real return, which technically would make even a million dollar portfolio fail in under 30 years withdrawing an inflation adjusted $40,000 a year.   I think he is a little bit wrong, because I think we are going to have deflation (except in healthcare), with many items getting cheaper.   Thus if stocks maintain even half of the historic 11% nominal growth and intermediate length bonds average 2%, the combined 50/50 or 60/40 portfolio will be just fine at a 4% SWR.

 

[offroad]

I am surprised that most with a $40,000 pension do not realize they are millionaires. That many with just $20,000 pension (like some combined SOCIAL SECURITY) are half millionaires (they have the equivalent of $400,000 in the bank). --- but that's all that math stuff. Lol.