Total Balance - Ignite your FIRE

How to diversify your crowdlending portfolio

June 15, 2019 That Guy Comments 2 comments

We all know the famous quote from Warren Buffet: Diversification is protection against ignorance.

Well, admitting ignorance can also be a strength…So there! – I admit it: I’ve invested in 10 different crowdlending platforms, in hundreds of different loans to hundreds of different people/businesses of whom/which I know very little about. All I know is what the platforms (and the community) tell me. How much of this information can truly be trusted? I’m hoping the majority, but I’d be a fool to blindly trust “strangers on the Internet” 😉 – And so would you!

So don’t take my word for it! When investing in crowdlending, you need to protect yourself against (your own) ignorance. How can we best go about that, then? Well, I’ve got a few ideas that I will share with you today, dear readers 😉

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Monthly Update #9 (May 2019) – Taking the plunge!

June 1, 2019 That Guy Comments 13 comments

Another month in the Total Balance household has flown by!

As per the standard; it’s thus time for another riveting update, on my quest towards Financial Independence.

I’m joined today by my trustworthy friend, Russel the Total Balance mascot, who in the spirit of this months headline is Taking the plunge (into a pool! – Of Money!). I apologize for the poor picture quality, but I was in a hurry – and 2 seconds after this picture was taken, Catzilla dropped by and destroyed the whole scene – so a re-take was rendered mute! HAHA!

Anyway, Catzilla and Russels shenanigans a side, this month was a pretty eventful month – so let’s get to it, shall we?!

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Finding your purpose

May 26, 2019 That Guy Comments 3 comments

It’s no secret that a lot of us (humans) often struggle to find our “reason for being” – our purpose in life.

Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going? These are some of life’s hard questions, and we’ve been (probably – we can’t really know for sure) searching for the answers since the dawn of man.

As I alluded to in my last post, I too have been (still am) struggling to find my purpose. It seems so spoiled to say this, when I have everything a man could ever ask for; A nice home, a loving wife (for the most part), a beautiful daughter and a well-paying job, in an industry that keeps screaming for more employees.

This is supposed to be the dream, but somehow it’s just not enough. I feel guilty for saying it, as I know there are people around the world, who can only dream of having what I have.

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Oops, I spent all my (FU) money! What now?

May 19, 2019 That Guy Comments 6 comments

After I spent 8 months hoarding cash, I finally found Property #1 and now find myself in a strange vacuum.

I have yet to transfer the full amount due for Property #1, but since the money is now ear-marked, I’ve been having these strange feelings; Regret? Anxiety? Excitement?

I transferred the down payment for Property #1 last week (approximately 1/5 of the total cost), and felt nothing but excitement at the time. Now that it’s had time to really sink in, I find myself wondering: What now?!

Worst of all, it just dawned on me that while I might have gained a decent asset to my portfolio, I’ve lost something extremely valuable in the process: My F.U. money (you know – the money that would allow me to say F*CK YOU to my boss, and not worry about any sort of work for a while).

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Say Hello to my little friend (Property #1)

May 7, 2019 That Guy Comments 15 comments

It’s been more than 6 months, since I first introduced my plans of purchasing a chunk of real estate, via a real estate development company. 37 posts later (!), and here we are! Of all those posts, this one is by far the most exciting one to write! 😛

I’ve spent countless hours reading numerous prospectuses and other investing material (I even spent quite a few nights out with the various developers). As fate would have it, Property #1 is not acquired via any of the developers that I have introduced on this blog (I suppose I’ll have to write a kind of “inside the walls” review now, won’t I? 😉 ).

I have been following their movements for a while though, so when a “hot tip” landed in my mailbox from an old friend (thank you, old friend!), I was ready to jump on the opportunity (what do you know, maybe I did learn something from my night out with the Rich Dad company) 😉

This is so exciting! Are we ready to meet Property #1?!

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Monthly Update #8 (April 2019) – The waiting game continues

May 1, 2019 That Guy Comments 10 comments

Hello dear readers and followers!

Guess what?! – You guessed it 😉 Another month has gone by, and it’s thus time for the obligatory monthly update that we all love so much (I personally love both writing them and reading them).

As you might have already noticed, this month debuts a whole new character to the Total Balance universe! Inspired by Marc from financeyourfire.com (thanks, Marc!), I decided to build a physical representation of my Total Balance progress (together with my 4 year old of course). Being Danish, I could not think of anything more befitting, than to build it out of: LEGO!

Give a warm welcome to Russel – the new mascot of the Total Balance blog! I’m sure we will do great things together! Be sure to follow his shenanigans every month going forward 😉

Anyway, enough mumbo-jumbo – let’s look at the numbers for April 2019!

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Why I rarely get on a scale

April 29, 2019 That Guy Comments 5 comments

We’ve had a lot of “money talk” lately. I feel it’s time to dig into a little “personal wealth” as well, if you catch my drift!?

Part of the journey to FIRE is also a spiritual journey, in where you (most of us) try to find your inner balance along the way. What makes you happy and fulfilled? – Find out, and use FIRE as leverage to get more of it/spend more time doing what you love!

Society today dictates that we be skinny and fit, wear designer clothes and drive fancy cars, while we vacation on sunny islands and drink tropical drinks all day (while staying fit!). The youngsters today get more stressed and more depressed than ever, trying to keep up with the perfect instagram lifestyle(s). I’m here to tell you, to FUCK all that!

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New Pension provider!

April 23, 2019 That Guy Comments 17 comments

Hello, new pension provider!
After waiting for about 3 months, my pension funds have now been moved to a new provider (chosen by the company that I work for).

I have been anxiously awaiting this move, as the new provider allow me to create my own custom investment strategy, in that they have a number of different funds, where you can choose to place your money (rather than just place them in an index or an actively managed fund with a certain stock/bond split, which is typically what most providers offer).

Since I started tracking my Net worth (which my pension currently constitute 40% of), I figured it could be interesting to write a post about the pension part of it, and get everybody to chime in, how they invest their pension funds. The general consent among “the mortals”, is that pension is an extremely boring subject – but not here! Not in the FIRE community! Here Pension is hot stuff! And so it should be!

So let’s get to it, people!

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The secret to becoming (or staying) wealthy

April 20, 2019 That Guy Comments 10 comments

Today, I’m going to let you guys in on a little (big) secret (it’s really not that secret…).

Here goes: The secret to becoming (or staying) wealthy, is to stop paying your taxes…

But Nick, If you don’t pay your taxes, you’ll go to jail!

Precisely! And what do you get in prison? Free accommodation, free meals 3 times per day, free education – and even a free membership to the gym! Granted, you might have to share the dumb bells with a real badass mofo, but beggars can’t really be choosers, can they?…

All kidding a side, I don’t mean you should stop paying your taxes altogether. – I just mean you shouldn’t pay more than the law requires…

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A night out – with Rich Dad (Property investing)

April 14, 2019 That Guy Comments 18 comments

This week I attended a 2-hour (free) seminar on property investing, from the Rich Dad Education company.

I didn’t really know what I was going into (the agenda was very sparse), so I tried to keep an open mind (I already read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, so I was pretty sure I already knew the gist of it).

What I did know however, is that nothing is free 😉 I was sure that they would try to convince me to purchase something after/during the seminar.

I was right.

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