This post is all over the place, so I’ll just jump right into it.
2024
Money: Best Year Yet!
This blog is supposed to be about money, so let’s start there. 2024 was slow going until November. Then, Tesla put the accelerator to the floor and SpaceX took off.
Tesla: Clearly this stock went full-on frothy because of expectations that the new administration will come up with federal regulations for autonomous cars. Currently, a manufacturer wishing to deploy an autonomous vehicle has to go state-by-state. Federal regulations that supersede states would make it much easier to get autonomous vehicles on the road. However, Tesla has to solve autonomy first.
I have version 13.2.2 (v13) of the software and it’s amazing. It is – by far – the best version of the software Tesla has ever deployed. It’s so good that I’ll probably pay the $8,000 to have it on my car for life.
Note: I’m a car person who enjoys driving, but the experience of not driving is better most of the time. It’s very relaxing and I don’t think one can appreciate it without experiencing it firsthand.
As good as v13 is, it’s not ready for robotaxis. Tesla fanboys will enthusiastically say things like:
It’s sooo close! It’s 98% there! It is almost solved!
But those last problems are the very, very difficult ones to solve:
- It’s easy to train a car to stop at a stop sign.
- It’s very difficult to train the car to figure out a complex traffic situation in heavy rain at night.
I believe that there is a chance that Tesla is able to deploy driverless vehicles this year in certain areas under certain conditions. But I think it will be at least a couple of years before Teslas will be able to operate without a driver in most areas of United States.
SpaceX: I’ve loved all things space my whole life. As a kid, I was always playing with rockets and watching shows like Star Trek (Side note: Is 2001 not the greatest science fiction film of all time?!??). One of my most vivid and saddest memories was when my 6th grade teacher told the class that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded. I also clearly remember driving down the Eisenhower out of Chicago when I heard that the Space Shuttle Columbia had disintegrated during reentry.
I’ve followed SpaceX with great curiosity and interest. In December of 2015, SpaceX landed a rocket for the first time. It’s on display at the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne, so of course I went to see it:
I teared up in 2018 when the Falcon Heavy completed its first launch, successfully landing the side boosters simultaneously.
SpaceX was way ahead of the competition and I knew I wanted to invest in it. It took me a couple of years to figure out how to do this comfortable. But back in 2022, I bought shares. SpaceX is now my second biggest holding after Tesla.
Just because a company is doing awesome things doesn’t make it a good investment. But if I had to guess, I think that SpaceX will work out very well for me this decade.
Best Year Yet!
We started the year with investments worth $4,562,750 and ended at $6,060,794 for a gain of $1,498,055 or a 28% increase. Since we sold investments to fund our lives and lent out $650,000 in private lending (12%), our stock portfolio performance is actually much better than 28%.
Investing is f***ing amazing! At my first job, I worked hard for 2,000 hours per year with people I didn’t like to earn $37,000 ($70,000 adjusted for inflation) before taxes. Now, 25 years later, our money is working far harder than we ever could:
$1,498,055* / $70,000 = 21.5 years!
*with little work
The past 10 years of market returns have been phenomenal. Consider that:
- There have only been 2 down years
- In 5 of those years, returns have been over 20% with 1 year over 30%!
The party won’t last forever. But those in attendance have done very well.
Getting My Ass In Shape
2024 was the year I went to the gym and didn’t quit. I started eating better and strength training aggressively. I’m still have a lot of work to do, but I’m in the best place I’ve been at in years. Money means nothing if you don’t have your health.
I also walked. A lot. I took 7,645,171 steps. I believe that I’ll do at least 8,000,000 in 2025.
Too Much
I think that most early retirees would tell you this:
Life is so busy! How did I ever have time for a job?
I keep nights and weekends freed up for our teens. So during the school year, I have about 7 hours during the day to exercise, pay the bills, fix stuff around the house, work on personal projects, practice guitar, do laundry, and whatever else comes up. It’s hard fitting everything in.
Daily routine aside, we traveled too much. We went on two cruises and took a couple huge roadtrips. Going to Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Germany, Mexico, and Los Angeles (twice) was great, but it was too much.
Perhaps all of my current adventures are a reaction to my childhood when we didn’t travel much. I was on a plane twice (going back and forth to Florida) in my first two decades of life. If our family went on vacation, it was usually going to Wisconsin (we lived about 30 miles south). In any case, I have it out of my system now. We’ll hang around Colorado for the most part in 2025.
I also quit the Mile High FI podcast. Even 3 hours per week was too much.
2025
More health: In the new year, I look forward to getting myself in even better shape. 19% body fat is still too much. My dad would probably still be alive if he had been in better shape. He was overweight which led to high blood-pressure with led to a burst aorta. Game over. I don’t want to suffer the same fate.
Another house?: We visited a couple of friends in 2024 who live in really nice spaces. I started thinking about the houses that Mindy and I have lived in over the course of our marriage (2 decades!). We’ve been in fix-and-flip mode the entire time. Even before we closed on any of our homes, we were thinking of how much we’d be able do sell them for a couple of years later. We never bought a home or fixed one up for us. During one of the visits, our friend Shaina said:
Your house should reinforce the behaviors that are important to you.
We have never lived in a home like that because we’ve only bought homes for investments. I haven’t even really liked the homes we’ve lived in. I’ve been a big fan of architecture from my days as a kid when my parents told me about Frank Lloyd Wright. Most of the homes we’ve lived in have been Frank Lloyd Wrong homes. To be fair, they have all been perfectly fine. Just not up to the standards of a design snob like me.
And it was never our plan to stay in our current home. It has 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, so seems like a ridiculous house to stay in post-kids. It’s also a split-level with 4 different floors, so not the best space to grow old in.
We may change up our home situation sooner than later. If we do what we’re thinking about doing, it would be a very big project. The only thing holding us back is finding competent workers to complete it. The past two decades of my life have been consumed by never-ending home projects. I don’t want this to consume my life. I don’t want the project to end like one of those reality home remodeling shows where people are yelling at each other.
More details soon should we decide to move forward.
More 1500 Days!!!
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