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?
5 (free) ways to keep in touch during a lockdown
Hello dear readers and followers of the Total Balance household! While we all try to practice safe “Social distancing” these days (to break the chain of infection from the dreaded Corona virus dubbed Covid-19), there are ways to remain social, without being close to one another! Thanks to the great invention of The Internet (and…
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…
A lazy mans guide to budgeting
I know. It was bound to happen eventually, right? – “How to do x-y-z” is the most boring blog posts of them all. I do believe we even refer to them as “filler posts”. Something we use to fill the void between the good stuff, right? – But not this guy! I’m here to tell…
To Stooze or not to Stooze
I know what you’re thinking; WTF is a Stooze!? I’d never heard the term before either, until I started researching a nifty little trick (that I’ve been using for a while), in order to deploy “free leverage” that I used to purchase Property #1. It turned out that the little trick had a name: Stoozing….
How to diversify your crowdlending portfolio
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…
The secret to becoming (or staying) wealthy
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,…
A night out – with Rich Dad (Property investing)
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…
How to hack your charity donations
If you’ve ever walked down a busy shopping street, odds are that you at one point or another, have been solicited by one of those annoying street “sales-people”, who will try to convince you to support <insert worthy cause here>. When I was living in the city (in my 20’s) this happened to me quite…