Mr. MoneyMow recently reached out to me, and several other FIRE bloggers, to get our take on how the pandemic has affected our investment strategy (if at all). In short; my strategy hasn’t been affected by the arrival of a pandemic. Looking back though, I originally outlined my plan in one of my first posts…
What makes a good (retail) property investment?
Make a plan and stick to it! (Or change it?!)
In my Goals for 2020 I outlined my plan to boost my Total Balance in 2020, by diverting funds from my mortgage payments towards my Total Balance (investment account) instead. Unfortunately, “The Universe” had another plan. Sometimes it’s simply easier to “take the path of least resistance” (go with the flow?), than to “fight the…
If it sounds too good to be true
It probably is (too good to be true)… In case you missed the latest development in the Baltic crowdlending industry, let me give you a quick recap; Two of my (previously) best performing platforms have turned out to be fraudulent (nothing is proven yet, but I think the writing on the wall is pretty clear)….
Lessons from the past (analyzing my returns from 2007-2019)
As is the norm when we enter a new year, I like to look back at the returns of my (Pension) portfolio from the previous year(s). Is it time to change my AA (again)? I was quite conservative with my AA last year when I opted to move a great portion of my portfolio OUT…
Boy, was I wrong!
2019 is drawing to a close, and as is the norm on the Total Balance blog (easy now hot shot, this is only the first full year of blogging!) it’s thus time to take a gander back at this years major events – good or bad! My wife asked me yesterday, if I had a…
Crowdestor gets a facelift and adds 2FA – yay!
Quick update from your friendly neighborhood Total Balance guy! Crowdestor announced last month that they were gonna give their website an overhaul, and it has now arrived. Why should you care, you ask? Well, I think it’s noteworthy when a young company decides to completely re-vamp their website and add extra security features at the…
Crowdlending platform (in)security check
On Oct 14, I received a disturbing E-mail from one of the Crowdlending platforms that I currently have investments with. This was the exact message: Kuetzal website was attacked this Sunday, it was successfully reflected by Kuetzal, but for security reasons, some passwords may be deleted. If you can’t sign in your account, please use “reset password”, or…
Why consistency (and time) is the only thing you need to become a decent investor
That’s right. You heard it here first (not really), people! The main trait you really need to become a decent investor, is time and consistency. We’ve all heard (or read) the term “Time in the market beats timing the market”. I’m not a big fan of this saying to be honest, but I understand the…
Why you shouldn’t invest like me
I’m going to be the devils advocate today, and explain why I think you shouldn’t invest like I do. It might be a bit counter-productive, but I think it’s important to own your investment strategy, and in order to truly do that, you need to explore alternative options. My (current) strategy is based on two…
Why I invest (heavily) in properties
Faithful followers of the Total Balance blog will know that I mainly invest in properties. I recently sunk the better part of my nest egg into a single property. It is not uncommon in the FI community to invest in properties, but most FI bloggers that I follow, tend to be more invested in stocks…