👋 Happy Sunday! Welcome to the WalletBurst newsletter for the month of January 2024.
🚗 How Much Is That $70,000 Truck Costing You? by a WealthOfCommonSense
- Before you go out and buy that expensive new car with financing, consider the opportunity cost of driving something more affordable and investing the difference in the stock market.
- The chart below shows Ben’s example of how much your money could grow if you bought a SUV or smaller pickup with financing instead of a $70,000 pickup, and then invested the difference in monthly payments in the stock market. Over 30 years, this could be worth $600,000 to $800,000, showing that the opportunity cost of an expensive vehicle is high, especially for young people.
📈 Should You Invest in Stocks at All-Time Highs? by Nick Maggiulli (OfDollarsandData)
- With US stock markets hitting all time highs recently, many investors may be wondering: is now a bad time to buy stocks?
- In the short term, investment returns are actually higher following all time highs compared to all other times, but lower over longer time frames. Nick compares the strategy of investing following all time highs with buy-and-hold, and over the long term the buy-and-hold strategy wins. No matter how smart you are, you can’t time the market consistently!
🪑 The 3-Legged Stool of Retirement by The Retirement Manifesto
- Retirement is a game of tradeoffs, just like anything in life. A metaphor for the tradeoffs around retirement is a three-legged stool, with the three key tradeoffs being time, money, and health.
- Ultimately, health and time are the scarcest resources in our lives, and these are things that we can never get back. So when forming your FIRE plan, always invest in optimizing your health, and consider that chances are, money will be the last remaining leg on your stool.
🏠 Ratio of home price to median income
(Source: longtermtrends.net)
📺 Side hustle idea: hanging TVs
My monthly spending
I spent $3,348 this month. Car registration of $360 in CA hurts 😕.
Get my Personal Budget Template for free here
New on WalletBurst.com
- How I lived on $39,000 per year in 2023 as a 28 year old engineer in the SF bay area
- Health Savings Account (HSA) Growth Calculator
End Note
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Have a great day,
Andrew ✌️
