What Is Lifestyle Design?
November 24, 2008 by Vagabond Investors · Leave a Comment
Times have changed. In the industrial age one needed to be a millionaire to enjoy the millionaire’s lifestyle. Back then the two could not be separated. How much you had money greatly dictated your way of life. Today, you can have the millionaire lifestyle without first having the million.
As analogical world became digital, much of the old rules became obsolete. Something disturbing emerged as the young generation became adults. Something fascinating and striking called Lifestyle Design began to take place.
What is Lifestyle Design?
Lifestyle Design is like tuning a car or tweaking a computer only that it is done with life itself. For example, you can tune a car to run faster with less fuel and look cooler. You can tweak a computer to make programs run smoother and crash less often. No more system resets in the middle of something important.
Similarly, you can tweak your life. You can make your life run smoother, eliminate unnecessary loopholes and have less often those “system crashes” that require you to reset your brain to be able to function again. You can tune your life to be cooler, more fun and more exciting.
Consider the following examples and analogies:
Car Computer Life
Consume less fuel Consume less disk space Consume less time
Run faster Smoother performance Less headache
Turbo charger Assistant application Personal virtual assistant
Automatic gears Automatic virus scan Automated income streams
More horsepower More processing power Massive action
Fewer engine crashes Fewer system crashes Fewer mental crashes
Transportation Computing Excitement
Many people run their lives without any Lifestyle Design whatsoever. They’re like a computer with tons of fragmented files on hard disk, too many simultaneous applications, not enough processing power, no virus scan, no firewall, slow internet and no manual. They then try to consume their way to happiness through useless stuff which they cannot afford. No wonder so many of us feel empty inside.
Lifestyle Design reverses it.
The purpose of Lifestyle Design is to make life much, much more exciting! It is actually a tool by which we can become wealthier. Wealth, in this context, refers to having income, time and mobility. It’s not just about money, although it’s fun, but excitement and time for the things we really love.
So how is it done?
It’s quick to apply and disturbingly easy to understand. In this category of our posts, we will share with you the experiments of our Lifestyle Design. You will find more and more ways to do less the things you do not want and more the things you do want. Yes, this applies to our work as well, although you might not readily believe it.
This category is a collection of Lifestyle Design tools ready for immediate use. We’re sure you’ll find them just as useful and enjoyable as we and our fellow vagabond investors. Let’s get started to tweak your life!
Jaakko & Matias
An Inconvenient Truth: I.O.U.S.A.
November 18, 2008 by Vagabond Investors · Leave a Comment
As our frequent readers know, one of our central themes is responsibility over finances. This applies to both individuals and governments (and their agencies). While many politicians are touting fiscal responsibility, the truth of the matter is, many governments are not acting responsibly.
Many mistakes have been made on the side of central bankers, namely Dr. Greenspan and Dr. Bernanke. The most important mark of the 21st century economic history is likely to be the demise of the dollar. Such is has been their response to the cycles of economy.
This time instead of us shouting about fiscal and monetary responsibility, we let Addison Wiggin from Agora Financial explain in simple terms what is going on in the USA these days. He and his colleagues do an excellent job in their free 30 min video entitled “I.O.U.S.A.”.
We highly recommend you take 30 minutes of your life and watch it. We know, we’re the first people to tell you to be frugal about your finite time. Trust us, this is well worth it! Reuters called it “To the US economy what ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was to the environment”. We think it’s amazing for average people like you and us.
Matias & Jaakko
The Likely Outcome Of The Crisis (Plus: Tools For Future Prediction)
November 6, 2008 by Vagabond Investors · 1 Comment
Insights are part facts and part opinions. The opinion part has to be based on facts, but an insight always has uncertainty. Despite that many people state their insights as facts, even though the future is very difficult to predict.
How is it possible to have a relatively accurate insight despite uncertainty? It helps to realize that there are two things we can use to estimate the future:
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The direction of change
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The speed of change
In our speed-addicted society most people are good at recognizing quick changes. When change happens gradually, even most experts do not see it. This is because they are still watching the daily or monthly charts. They are too close. They recognize changes in speed but they don’t identify changes in direction, when it happens slowly.
For example, what is the likely outcome of the current credit meltdown? Most academics are keen to point out that it is deflation. Prices will fall, they say. Central banks around the world are lowering key interest rates and pumping money to the market. Nobody invests in commodity production anymore. The price of oil has come down. Deflation it is, they say. We’re heading down. Right?
Hold on! Let’s back pedal. The speed of recent changes indicates just that. Asset prices have come down. What about the big picture? What about the direction of change? Let’s think about this for a while and ignore that prices may come down for a year or two.
Think five years in the future. Imagine the economy was up. China is still the largest commodity importer of the world. Picture you only knew five years ago these were the facts: decreasing supply of commodities, low interest rates, and massive money creation. What is the likely outcome?
You guessed it. It’s massive inflation! Considering what the central banks are doing now and how out of range supply and demand are with most commodities, that’s exactly what’s going to happen! I don’t care if there’s some deflation along the road. Eventually we are going to see a massive inflation wave.
The fact is that history shows that this has always been the case when money is printed at will. The fact is that supply and demand are out of whack. The opinion is that this will happen again. How valid is the opinion? Unless the law of causality is not cancelled, I would say it’s very valid.
This is my opinion of the likely outcome of this crisis. The speed may be slow at first, but the direction is clear. Hard assets are likely to come out as winners in this crisis. Personally, I believe in commodities (such as oil and agriculture) and solid cash flow based real estate with low fixed interest rates. While oil is low now, by 2015 it is likely to hit incredible new highs. On the other hand, increases is rent are mainly due to inflation.
I don’t mind high inflation. I feel for the little guy on the street who is told to save money and keep it on their bank account. While this may seem valid at first, in the end it will prove bad advice.
That’s my insight. I may be wrong. But if I’m right, will you suffer or profit?
Jaakko
PS. I would have everyone look at the comments of a legendary investor Jim Rogers.
