July – July will be over soon and with it comes the reminder that we are already a month through summer. What a hot summer it has been. The brutal Texas sun shining down on me, giving me sunburn after only 2 hours of exposure. As intense as it is, I also love things this time of year. I go biking, walking, pool, take beautiful pictures of nature. Yesterday I grabbed a beer with a friend, only my 2nd time at a sit down place since March.

I did have the unfortunate mishap of riding over a strip of metal near White Rock Lake. I started hearing a loud hissing noise coming from my front tire. Within a minute or so it was completely flat. Luckily the nearest bike shop was only a 2 mile walk from where I was at. Wasn’t expecting an $87 repair bill, but they fixed it on the spot and gave me a more durable tire than what I had. I’m tempted to order an extra one online and just keep as a backup in case this happens again.

So let’s talk finances for a bit…

401k: $81,450.93
Roth IRA: $4954.67
HSA: $661.87
M1: $485.98
July 2020 Total Retirement: $87,553.45
(up $5,889 or 7.2% from last month, up $29,247.65 or 50%! from July 2019, up $75,760 or 736% from just 5 years ago.)

iPhone 11 Pro : $786.40
Credit Card: $420.00
Total Debt: $1,206.40
(my debt a year ago was $11,896.36!)

I will likely be upgrading to the iPhone 12 Pro when it comes out as part of the Apple upgrade program. Credit card will be paid off Friday when I get paid, don’t want to pull from my emergency fund to cover. Mostly food, had cable / cell phone bills hit and other miscellaneous items. So still basically debt free. 😀

I did make a small shift in my 401k investments. Sold my us treasury bonds and am now 100% in equities. Prior to that I was an a 95/5 split The ROI on Investing isn’t sexy, sometimes it feels like you’re going nowhere. Then you look back a year later and think damn I’m not doing so bad after all.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe out there! Remember comparison is the thief of joy, just be the best version of you possible.

In mere weeks I will be turning the ripe young ish age of 37. Some realization I’ve come to terms with:

• The quarter century crisis is far, far in the rear few mirror. Anyone over 30 knows the nagging voice in your head that says these are things I must do by 30 or I will end up an absolute failure of a person.
• Most of my biggest fears in life have come and gone. In a word, ‘perspective’. A lot of my fears stemmed around people who later I realized either didn’t care about me nearly as much as I thought they would. Or a unhealthy mismatch between living a lie and being an openly gay man. I came out 16 years ago,
• Nothing compares to my general skepticism of politics both left and right is a filter for which I view any single word uttered by a politician. The older you get, the more the bullshit meter goes up.
• I’m no longer the new and upcoming generation. Millennials aren’t a lost cause yet, but some have dug theirselves so deeply into a hole, hoping the government bails them out or provides UBI, etc. is their best shot.
• My body is not necessarily able to catch up with my mind. I think of being able to accomplish superhuman or computational type feats similar to an android. I can’t just load a program into my brain and pick things up like that. It all takes time and energy. My brain after 8 hours of work, a few hour of downtime, and 1-2 hours of exercise just isn’t able to easily pick up complex tasks.
• It’s okay to be “normal”-ish. Not everyone is capable or would excel at becoming a multi-millionaire. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try out different revenue streams, and stay on top of all my investments.
• It’s not over until it’s over – See guys like David Goggins and Graham Stephan others who stayed driven and beat the odds. It’s a reminder that great things are possible if steady actions are taken. Everything else is a waste of time beyond some basic research and planning if you ask me. It’s easy to fall into a self help trap, thinking you’re achieving huge accomplishments when really the opposite is true.

I am thankful to earn a middle class salary, which is more than a lot of other people in America can say right now. My health is mostly good, I can walk on two feet, have a paid off car, no consumer debt, and can aggressively invest. I don’t have insomnia thinking about how to pay off insurmountable levels of debt. Also it looks like the pay cut I took a few months back will be reversed soon, so that’s always a good thing. I do want to branch out and live life at a higher level once all this COVID mess is over.

Last but not least I’m a fighter. It’s in my DNA. Lots of people in my family have been faced with obstacles far greater than mine. Almost bedtime again, apologies if there are a bunch of grammatical errors. I’ll end it with this….

What have you learned as you got older that has had a profound impact on how you see the world, relate to people, or handle things from day-to-day?

It’s just after midnight on Monday July 20, 2020… I really wasn’t going to write anything about my experiences over the last few months since COVID turned many of our lives upside down. On the other hand I don’t really feel like I have many friends around to really talk to. I’ve been dealing with some difficult items outside of my professional life.

Mostly recently I was on vacation all of last week. Yes it was a paid vacation, more of a use it or lose it scenario. I couldn’t travel to New York due to the self-quarantine requirements and not wanting to get caught up in any of that mess. I had a full week of vacation  in June and stayed home due to the protesting and rioting that was happening with basically every city within driving distance of Dallas.

From a responsibility standpoint I feel like I have been doing the right thing. It does sting a bit when I see others who are socializing way more then I am to begin or with their significant others are going to places like Cabo, Puerto Vallarta, or Aruba. I’m happy for them but also wonder in the back of my mind why not me… I had that time, I could easily pay off such a trip in under a month. I also would really hate to go on such a trip by myself.

Dating hasn’t been great either. In March I was chatting with someone for over a month who lives about 1600 miles away and was supposed to visit. That never happened. Then in mid-May I met someone I was starting to have feelings for but only saw a total of once and chatted with for weeks. He’s with his family a few hours drive away even though he lives only 30 min from now. I haven’t seen him since even though he’s always super friendly and accessible  via text message. More recently talked about potentially moving to the east coast for a job opportunity.

Fast forward to today… I matched with someone on Facebook dating, but then saw his profile on one of the apps and his profile said he’s hosting guys to come by his place and follow reckless behavior… So unmatch. Before that I was supposed to go to hang out by the pool with a potential new friend. We texted for a good two hours back and forth, we joked about the swim trunks I would be wearing. Then he flaked out. This wasn’t really the first time either, we had chatted back in 2015. He wasn’t looking to date anyone and kind of disappeared then too. I message people I know and get one words answers back if that. I then start to question why I should bother…

I wonder when things will return back to normal again. My social life was almost non-existent before, now I wonder if people around here still consider me a friend. It feels a bit like I’ve disappeared and simply don’t rank anymore. I’m trying really hard not to sound bitter and jaded, it’s just been a difficult time for me. I should sound more grateful that I’m in good health and not hooked up to a ventilator or struggling with labored breathing / blood clots / other related health issues somewhere. I’ve read too many stories about people who were in fairly normal health, then they went went out to an event once without a mask on and got infected…

One of my closer friends who lives out of state has said maybe I’ve simply exhausted the dating pool here. Things also slow down with age. The ideal guys in my age range and older get in relationships, partnered, or married. Or they are open and looking but there is no possibility of things going anywhere. The younger ones are immature or just looking for a sugar daddy.

In the meantime since I’m focused more on solution vs the problems. I am going to keep trying to stay busy, working on my skills, staying open to the idea of potentially meeting new people, but putting a cap on exactly how much time I spend on apps to meet people. Also taking myself out on a socially-distanced date at least once a week. I do want to have a close circle of friends again and feel loved by another guy romantically who doesn’t just want to hookup. It’s been close to 6 years since someone said I love you to me in that way and it seemed to actually mean something. I guess we all have our own set of issues though. Money, early retirement, etc. are significant but it all feels empty when you are 95-100% by yourself all the time. Maybe I’m overly dramatic. Just want to fix it and move on.

Thanks for reading if you got this far. I know it’s whiny, unpolished, not really what the blog is about. I should go to bed now. ❤

I’m learning quite a bit more about how I operate. I’ve learned I need a creative outlet in order to feel like things are in balance. I also feel that I am still relatively young and you can teach an old dog new tricks.

So the conclusion I’ve made is to re-create the YouTube channel I deleted proximately two months ago, providing monthly updates on my portfolio instead of weekly or mid weekly, and having it be a lot more personable than it was before.

In the grand scheme of things this is very much an experiment, who knows what the end decision will be. I want to be authentic, educated, non-scammy and truly helpful to the people who decide to view my content. I also I’m thinking of doing a channel completely unrelated to the world of personal finance or health, maybe focused more on gaming, but we’ll see if those plans pan out. Debt Free Alpha channel.

June – What a month. I’m a mixed Black gay man from New York living in Texas. I had written a super long post but decided to leave it in the draft folder as it doesn’t tie into the purpose of this blog. Short answer – systemic racism is still a problem in america, Black people had it difficult in this country for centuries, it’s great to see whites, corporations, organizations all rallying together to bring about progress, consider all options on the table to end police brutality, and encourage equality under the law. In the dawn of everyone having a recording device, many of these injustices are now being brought to light. Social struggles lead to economic struggles which if not corrected leads to generational poverty. So it’s all connected.

I also believe individuals play a role in determining their fate. Just because someone else has the same skin tone or upbringing as me doesn’t mean I need to take responsibility for their poor decisions and the reverse holds true. I don’t expect the government to bail me out unless it’s for a short period of time while I get back on my feet.

In a capitalistic society it’s challenging to force equality. On one hand you should hire based on merit / would they be a good fit. On the other many people from disadvantaged backgrounds may have had a lot more obstacles to face, be the only minority on the whole team, and one could argue why should they get special treatment when everyone is working their ass off to get ahead. No simple answer here but these steps are definitely an improvement over where we were even 3 months ago.

Onto finances….

401k: $76,223.30
Roth IRA: $4,536.63
HSA: $561.65
M1: $342.78
June 2020 Total Retirement: $81,664
(up $7,596 or 8.8% from last month)

iPhone 11 Pro : $842.56
Credit Card: $145.90
Total Debt: $988.46

I made a couple of good choices in my M1 taxable stock investing app. Not a lot of money but sheer insanity that the Tesla stock I bought 2 months ago already is up a whopping 66%. Even Amazon up 27%. I know these numbers are insane. When I started this 3rd investment portfolio I decided to just put in some “play money” to see what would happen. It could drop like a rock tomorrow but I’m still putting minimum $25/week in. If the market takes a dip on a particular day I buy more and schedule buys in my pie to happen the following morning. By the time I turn 38, a little over a year from now I hope to have $100k in my portfolio. By 50 I want to have at least $500k and a $1MM by 60.

I made a large dollar ticket purchase during June. I bought a Cannondale CAAD 13 Road Bike for $1800 plus tax, and sold my Fuji Roubaix 1.3 for $600 cash on FaceBook Marketplace. The old bike sold within 3 hours of me buying the new one. My original listing price was $800, then knock it down to $720 and negotiated down again. It had some light wear and tear, probably needed some new tires in a few months. Supply and demand never fails. During the month of June I’ve ridden over 200 miles of it. Yesterday I popped an inner tube and a friend was kind enough to give me a ride. The old bike wasn’t bad but I did pop a few spokes on it. Changed my riding technique a bit and that problem has esssentially gone away. The rims on the new bike are a higher quality and I haven’t had an problems so far. The bike was paid for the last time I got paid.

I haven’t worked with other people in an office since March 13th give or take. Still thankful I have a job when the unemployment levels are so high. I know a lot of others in this country aren’t so lucky. The days really have been flowing together. At times I do get lonely and I haven’t had nearly the amount of interaction with other humans as I should. Still working through the best ways to work through it. My “friends” are often extremely difficult to make any type of plans with. I’d have better luck with a complete stranger… 😀 I won’t let that discourage me though.

What is currently on my mind from a money standpoint?
1 – Does it make more sense to continue going guns blazing with retirement or should I look at Real Estate. A 401k has a lot of pros but also may be the slower path to wealth outside of Covid.
2 – Should I focus on having more fuck you money? I don’t have that much money sitting in a bank account, mostly because of inflation and I’d rather delay paying taxes now to get a break later on. So at least I’m deliberate about not having months and months in an emergency fund. Maybe 3 months and I’d sleep a little easier.
3 – When do I leave Texas? Is there a better place to live? I just renewed my apartment lease for $890/mo. The new complex several miles away I considered was closer to $1435/mo plus a month free, but with a $200 pet deposit, $300 pet fee and $10/mo pet rent. Really not worth it for zero equity.
4 – Will I get another stimulus check? Would be a nice buffer but in no means am I banking on that happening.

Brainstorming other topics that aren’t related to politics. Have a couple of ideas. Be healthy, safe, and have a happy 4th of July weekend!!!