How are your investments doing?

[Tpondel]

Compound interest is fascinating. Someone mentioned the S&P500 at 10% for the last century. Here's $1,000 invested in 1925 then adding $100/month reinvesting dividends and capital gains. After so many years adding $100/month doesn't have much effect but notice what happens after about years 80...the rocket launches.
So it goes from 100s to 1,000s eventually $Millions/year in gains. This explains the "old money" wealthy families. As my Grandfather once said if someone invested properly, leaving it to heirs, within the 2nd-3rd generation no one would ever have to work again.

Wealth is often poorly managed by second and third generations, with studies showing that approximately 70% of inheritances are depleted by the second generation and 90% by the third. This dissipation is often due to a lack of financial education, poor decision-making, communication gaps, and a failure to plan, though the youngest generations may also have different investment priorities like growth-oriented or sustainable strategies.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

To those saying the market is too expensive…you realize it always appears too expensive at the moment .. for a given day, and circumstances?

Tomorrow, today’s prices will look like a bargain.

Here’s the S&P 1925-2025. 100 years of some people saying somewhere, along that timeline, on a given day/month/year, it was too expensive.

View attachment 4327471

I learned my lesson in 1982, when stocks were dirt cheap and I was flat broke. I wanted to buy so bad my teeth hurt, but I had no money. When 9/11 shut down the NYSE, I was in a better position and spent every cent I had on stocks. I made a killing. Rinse and repeat in 2008-2009. You can bet that any time stocks lose 50% of their value they are not too expensive. Your graph does not show anywhere near the massive dips that a panic causes. In 1982 the market lost 60%

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Historically, the markets always rose again; so those who were liquid enough to hold, came out ok.
Those Buffet types, who cannily had extra cash to hand, bought bargains and profited greatly.

So remember to stay liquid; preferably the capacity to not touch your stocks for a few years, just in case.

If the real armageddon comes and it all collapses, only the bunker equipped preppers will have an edge.
For a while. Maybe.

You don't need a bunker, but my debt free home on 90 acres in a low property tax area certainly had a lot of prepper thought put into it. Wood heat. Gravity feed water. Lots of deer and turkeys. Ranch style house with no steps. Wheelchair accessible master bath. Multiple income streams in addition to savings. Shop building for cottage industry. If the whole country falls apart, I will be better off than 90% and considered wealthy by comparison.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

When money forgets time, society forgets motion. When money relearns gravity, value becomes real again.

I never confuse money with wealth. My first investment is always something that that I will actually use, like my house and shop.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I added all my retirement accounts up again yesterday.

From 9/25/25 to 11/3/25 I'm up a little over 4.5% That is huge!

I occasionally add them up and keep the tallies in a book. The closest I have to a year on the random dates I pulled was 12/10/2024 to 11/3/2025 and I'm up 23.6% in that time! We have been blessed so far.

Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. Rural wisdom.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Compound interest is fascinating. Someone mentioned the S&P500 at 10% for the last century. Here's $1,000 invested in 1925 then adding $100/month reinvesting dividends and capital gains. After so many years adding $100/month doesn't have much effect but notice what happens after about years 80...the rocket launches.
So it goes from 100s to 1,000s eventually $Millions/year in gains. This explains the "old money" wealthy families. As my Grandfather once said if someone invested properly, leaving it to heirs, within the 2nd-3rd generation no one would ever have to work again. View attachment 4332153

That time frame is for immortals, like corporations and dynasty trusts. Returns like that are not available to humans.