It took me a little less than ten years to cross into the millionaire category in March 2019 after first graduating with $75,000 in student loan debt. I became a millionaire the “old-fashioned way” by getting a bunch of degrees, getting a good job, being frugal, saving and investing. I have never inherited any money and likely won’t in the future either.
My topics will go beyond index fund investing.
Index fund investing is no longer a secret. I don’t think there is much else to write about that hasn’t been written before, but people keep rehashing the same articles time after time as if it is a new and exciting concept.
Don’t get me wrong, I invest a portion of my funds in index funds too. But index funds now create a crowding danger where the largest companies get larger for no reason other than being already large enough to be in the index. The top 5 companies now represent 17% of the index and all of them are tech companies. I see many problems in the future because of this crowding.
My style of investing is predominantly cash flow investing.
I’m looking for passive income that I can retire off of. I’m interested in businesses that generate a lot of cash flow and return a decent amount of it to shareholders. I don’t want to rely on P/E expansion in the S&P 500 to fund my retirement and requires me to pick times to sell to finance my future lifestyle. P/E’s can expand and they can deflate just as easily from the whims of the animal spirits. When you’ve been paid a dividend, it’s yours forever and if you bought it for a good value, there won’t be much P/E deflation.