OK, I promised myself that after my March Fools Day joke-with-a-message (you know, the horse racing system one) that I would NOT do an April Fools day post …

… apparently, promises are made to be broken 😛

So, yesterday’s April Fools Day Post was another joke-with-a-message: no matter how much you have, you can always spend more.

Yesterday’s post is actually (slightly) rooted in fact; I have made some errors recently, and the market has turned, so let me come clean:

– We bought our current home for about $1.6 Mill.; naturally, we paid cash.

But, after we cashed out on the second part of our 7m7y journey (the part that I have NOT yet written about on this blog, because it’s a business success story, not a personal finance success story like my 7 million 7 year journey), things took a turn for the ‘worse’:

– We upgraded to a $4.5 mill. home (plus $1 Mill. renovations to come: house/swimming pool/tennis court), and again paid cash … unfortunately, the market correction has probably wiped $500k – $1 mill. of value … but, this is ‘value’ that will only be realized when we sell (hopefully, we’ll be there for at least 10 to 15 years).

– We bought $300k of cars (for cash) but also managed to sell the Maserati

– I did indeed lose $600k in the stock market; this is the ‘cost’ of my experiment in letting somebody else manage a small part of my portfolio for me, and trying to time the market (bad AJC … bad boy!)

– And, I was due to receive a $3 Mill. ‘bonus’ from my ex-employer, that was to be delivered in cash, but ended up being delivered in now-reasonably-worthless stock (that 30 pence to 7 pence slide is real).

The two mistakes that we made were:

– We tried to time the market … however, $1 Mill. represents a small’ish % of our total portfolio

– We spent money on a house that we assumed that we would have, but didn’t get (i.e. the UK cash-to-stock thing).

So, right now, we have broken the 20% Rule … but, I counted cash, and after all of this (including completing the renovations) we still have a LOT of cash in the bank, plus the houses, plus equity in a number of apartments / commercial property, not to mention a ‘passive’ business or two floating around … I won’t have to ‘downgrade’ my $7 million 7 year mantle anytime soon [AJC: because, say, $3 million in 11 years just wouldn’t have the same ring to it, would it?] 🙂

Still, how are we going to ‘correct’? After all, we have broken so many Rules, it hurts me to think …

Well, exactly the same way that you would:

Some of it will come from simply waiting for the market to correct (that $600k stock loss will partially reverse, as will the 30-pence-to-7-pence UK stock slide) … some of it will come from making long-term buy/hold investments in this soft-to-recovering market over the next year or three … some of it will come from applying a large portion of the equity in the home (and selling the old one, when the market recovers) to investments (thus bringing us back within the 20% Rule).

But, the lessons are clear: always obey the Rules … do NOT speculate … and, heed Rick Francis’ Making Money 301 advice:

You really should [not] have to worry about affording needs anymore- you just have to control your wants. Also, you can afford to be more conservative in your investments. Making Money 301 should be a lot less risky as you only need to maintain your principle against your spending and inflation.

Where were you when I needed you, Rick? 😛

PS: In case you didn’t get to see the masthead that went with yesterday’s post, here it is … I’m particularly ‘proud’ of the by-line (something to do with noses, white powder, fast cars/girls) … unfortunately, all-too-true for too many people (but, definitely NOT me! Well, the fast car – singular – maybe). I don’t even know who the photo is of? Do you?

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