Achieving More Notoriety
Once again Freedom 35 Blog has become the subject of debates and discussions across several online news sites and public message boards. 🙂
This humble little blog is becoming more popular than ever! I’ve found some of these online remarks and wanted to share them with my regular readers here. Below is a collection of mean comments about me and this blog from forums and discussion boards around the web.
Sweet butter crumpets! Well guess what, internet? Now it’s my turn to respond!
Where to even begin? Well first of all, let me just start by pointing out how surprisingly refreshing it is to hear all these unique viewpoints. 😀 As a novice investor who still has a lot to learn I genuinely appreciate any helpful feedback I can get. I don’t know any of these commentators, but I’m sure they’re all friendly people in real life.
But with that said, I can also take a hint. I think the general gist from these comments is clear: If interest rates go up then I’m screwed. 🙁
I would have to agree. I have always been complacent about cheap credit in the past. But I must face reality. I have a mortgage and some other debt obligations so I can’t just ignore interest rate risk anymore.
That is why I have recently taken steps to appropriately address this risk. 🙂 In October I wrote about borrowing $4,000 to purchase Royal Bank shares at $71 per share. Banks are in the business of lending money and collecting interest, so they stand to gain when interest rates rise. Once my Royal Bank shares increase in value I can use the returns to pay down my debts. It’s the perfect plan. I believe this new $4,000 investment will adequately hedge against the looming cost of any possible interest rate increase in the near future. 😉 I really appreciate the concern from all those commentators. After accepting and acting on their constructive feedback I feel much better about my financial situation now.
It’s important that we learn from our mistakes and move on with greater knowledge and experience. We should make decisions based on solid facts, sound reasoning, and undeniable evidence! Don’t let emotions get in the way of investment choices. 🙂 Money is a very personal subject, so do not take any of my opinions or suggestions as sound financial advice.
Thank you everyone, for reading and sharing! Putting together these comment compilations from other websites is always a ton of fun! If you want to read more internet remarks about this blog check out Part 1 from last year.
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Random Useless Fact:
This was how the opening crawl of Star Wars was filmed back in 1980.
Congratulations on achieving notoriety. I would love it if Reddit users talked about how much they hate my site – including linking to it in their discussions.
I will admit too that your method of investing is a little riskier for my own personal likelihood. Perhaps it may be reasonable to start paying off those margin loans using the dividends you receive.
The thing of course is that most of your debt consists of your home mortgage and the mortgage on your land. Assuming that those are long-term and fixed interest rates, you should do fine over time.
PS Most of the people who write hateful comments are those who have failed at investing. There is a blogger called Michael James on Money, who consistently writes against my site. The problem is that this person spent 15 years of their life investing, yet never really made a profit doing so. The reason why he is so hateful is because he wants to take his frustrations of being a failure himself onto others. I would assume most of those internet commenters are talking against you because they feel like failures in their lives.
Your blog is probably more popular than mine overall since your page rank score is higher. Sooner or later Redditors will talk about you. 🙂 But it’s too bad how some people take out their frustrations on others instead of learning how to become a better version of themselves.
Most people don’t know that Buffett (and the lesser known Shelby Davis) used a leverage ratio of about 1.3x to 1.5x to add to their returns. I don’t personally use debt to finance my investing, but there’s an argument to be made for using cheap credit to compound your wealth – if done conservatively. Long Term Capital Management (and a lot of other hedge funds) is a great example of over-use of leverage.
Good piece of Buffett trivia. I didn’t know that either. 🙂
Ugh! Don’t even bother with what people say about you! The internet, even our little corner of the PF world is so catty and can be so cruel.
Yeah. Sometimes we need to have thick skin in this community and not dwell on what mean people say about us. 🙂
It seems people are pattern matching ‘guy uses lots of leverage and emojis’, and peg you as a fool, without looking past the surface puns and image memes to see the hard-nosed investing strategy at work here. It makes you look less serious, but I guess that’s just how you roll. 🙂 I know that you realize your methods are suited and limited to young people with high risk tolerance, and only while we’re in this historically low interest rate environment. You’ve spelled it out in previous posts, that when circumstances change, your allocations and methods are going to change as well. The risk is in executing that re balancing, especially if your hand is forced by things happening very suddenly (ie interest rate shock or rapid inflation).
As an aside, I’m impressed by how you respond to your critics, especially certain commenters here. There’s a difference between objecting to certain arguments, and then being a contrarian about every little thing just for the sake of it.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. 🙂 Re-balancing is certainly my biggest risk. I’ve been waiting for circumstances to change for years. Higher interest rates, major stock market correction, housing bubble bursting, farmland value sinking, etc. But so far all the indicators seem to point towards continuing cheap money and government backed asset bubbles. I’m curious as to how my finances would hold up when the economy changes or when inflation/deflation gets out of hand. I wonder how my strategy will change. I think it will get really interesting if I’m forced to deleverage or make some hard decisions. I look forward to see if my stress tests will hold up. That’s how I’ll know if my long term plan is really sustainable or not. Until countries stop manipulating their currency supplies the free market will never behave in the cycles that it’s suppose to.
You just proved how above all of this you are by your response and I’m very impressed. I could learn a lot from you.
And for the record, your emoticons and bad puns are awesome 🙂
Oh stop it, you. ? My bad puns aren’t that great. Well, maybe they are. 😉
“Dumb white young people”? Do people invest differently based on their race? That was just crazy.
Haha. I know right. 🙂
I’ve followed your blog since I started contributing to my first RRSP 5 years ago. Knowing not even what an RRSP was back then, to having over $130,000 net worth today, I found that your blog complimented my independent learning very well. Maybe your blog is not for every investor out there, but I’ve gained a lot from reading your posts. I think your blog is most beneficial for the beginner – intermediate investor and those just not knowing where to start with the investment world.
Keep up the good work. Negative posts like those just drive interest and traffic directly to your blog. Let the haters hate, and then use your advertisement revenue to pay down your bad debt.
That’s a great idea. I’ll pay down some of my debt this month with my blogging income. 🙂
I view those responses in a different light.
The overwhelming majority of personal finance blogs are owned and operated by amateurs, that is, not financial sector professionals. Thus, all comments posted to blog entries are merely a form of amateur peer review of published material. Amateur begets amateur.
If you want to read intelligent and insightful comments and conversations, I suggest you visit blogs run by financial professionals (but be warned, they will surely be void of ‘smileys’).
The other matter is the truncated attention span of the Internet. The very nature of successful blogging requires new content as the prime driver, thus in-depth development of ideas derived from commentary at length simply does not exist.
Best to regard almost all amateur personal finance blogs as entertainment and value their content as such.
(Regarding your “kids” tweet….it’s neither selfish or unselfish…it’s merely fulfilling what our DNA (and ALL DNA) is programmed to do — procreate. It’s like asking what’s more selfish, walking or running?)
I suppose if we don’t reproduce, then we are breaking a 200,000 year old family tradition lol. 🙂
Well it is a publicity, one way or another. Than one does need to start somewhere!
We have to fight for ourselves, is middle class is rapidly loosing ground: http://www.niterainbow.com/2015/12/the-us-middle-class-is-losing-ground.html
That’s a shame because the middle class is the backbone of any economy. I hope we can turns things around in the future. 🙂
Hahahaha, I can’t stop laughing. Your blog is becoming more popular everyday! 🙂 Just wanted to let you know that I am a big fan of your emoticon and random facts. Not to mention, your honest and great insights of debts. Love it and love it!
Cheers,
BSR
Thanks BSR. I think more people should look at finance from a broader perspective and not just what they hear from the mainstream. 🙂
Haters going to hate. Ignore the noise, just do your thing. You are on the right path to financial freedom. I know you’re real deal.
Yeah, the best we can do is act on the information we have. There will always be people out there to throw shade, but we just have to continue doing our thing. That was the first time I read someone calling me a “captain of industry.” So that’s kind of cool. 🙂
Classy blog post freedom thirty five. Gotta love the doomers! Buddy you’re a true contrarian. Going against the grain. That’s rare. When you break it down – you’re just using debt to purchase income producing assets…….not a Lexus or Miele appliances. Even if the doomers are right and we’re in for some hurting, when the dust settles people like you will still end up ahead. I enjoy your blog and your opinions, even if I don’t agree with all of them.
Keep the blue side up.
Joe
It’s sometimes hard for me to tell between constructive criticism and trolling on the internet. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and treat them fairly. I’m sure the doomers will be right one of these days. Investment values can’t rise indefinitely. The question is do we have the stable financial capacity to help us get through the hard times. 🙂
Fun stuff! How did you find out all those comments? Was there a pingback or something?
I assume nobody talks about me behind my back. 🙂
Whenever I get a lot of traffic in one day I visit Google Analytics to see if anyone has linked to me recently. It doesn’t always work but usually does.
Hello Liquid,
I enjoy reading your blog and learned quite a bit on investing. Thank you for being open and sharing your experience.
Have you run a model to see what may happen to your strategy if interest rate rises? Let say interest goes by 1%, 2% etc. What would you sell first to keep debt at a minimum? Would you for example sell a farm and keep the other one?
Best wishes
Hi FB. That’s a great question. 1% or 2% increase rate increase isn’t a concern for me at the moment. My mortgage interest is currently below 2.5% a year. I would still be able to make my payments even if I was paying 5% right now, given my employment situation doesn’t change. My other variable rate loans would be in a similar situation. But if interest rates go even higher, like if the prime lending rate at the banks were to hit 7% then I would have to sell some of my assets in order to feel safe again. I would sell my most liquid investments first like stocks and bonds. As you pointed out, it’s important to run these what-if models to prepare for the unknown. I run these kinds of models for myself a few times a year to make sure I’m on top of the situation when things change. You can find out more about my plans for dealing with higher interest rates on my stress test page. 🙂
Wow, people are harsh especially when it is not to your (virtual) face. It seems to me like you are confident and know what you are doing and your honestly helps everyone else who is reading this along the way. Like anything, sometimes things work and sometimes they don’t. I really enjoy your blog!
Thanks Jess. We all have our own way to handle our finances. 🙂
In the words of Taylor Swift…”Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate. I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake. Shake it off. Shake it off.” Or something like that. You know you’re popular when you have people criticizing you all over the world wide web. I wonder if any of these people are any good with investing or their own finances. All that time they’re spending dissing people who are doing well financially could seriously be put to better use.
That’s a catchy song. 🙂 I think Taylor Swift is pretty talented for her age and experience level.
Hey Liquid!!
Haters gon’ hate mang. Listen, your doing an amazing job. And you top that off with amazing delivery through your blog. If people think what your doing is “risky” they would lose their minds if they seen my TFSA grow to over 100,000$ in just 15 months!
To achieve superior investment results, you have to hold non consensus views regarding value and risk, and they have to be accurate. In an otherwise efficient market you must have an unconventional method of thinking, Howard Marks calls it second level thinking. You can;t do the same thing others do and expect and expect to outperform.
Risk is just relative. If you have a conventional investing method that you think is low risk, think again. What I do is considered risky, and it is for the weekend investor. Most amateur investors emphasize stock picking, and put no thought on when to exit. Your sell/stop loss is more important than the stocks you pick. Study selling, to protect yourself from losing everything.
Keep writing liquid, you have real traders/investors that look forward to reading your blog. Good luck, see you on the other side of the rat race.
Good points. If we do the same thing as everyone else then all we’re ever going to get is the same outcomes as everyone else. Putting in the effort to become better investors and traders and continuing to learn is how we can get ahead.
Hi Liquid,
Been following your blog for almost a year now. The amount of leverage you use is beyond my risk tolerance, but that is all a personal preference! Most of those comments are just angry people who can vent on the internet.
Here’s a bit of caution for your strategy address the interest rate risk. If rates rise, the banks don’t necessarily make more money on their loans, because the cost of lending has gone up too (banks also borrow). However, there will be fewer people looking to borrow at higher interest rates, so banks will be getting less new business. Hard to know if the interest rate rise would be a positive or a negative overall for shareholders!
If you do want to mitigate your interest rate risk, you may need to look at some other options.
Cheers!
That’s an interesting analysis. I haven’t looked at it like that before. I’ve heard life insurance companies make more money if rates move higher because they invest in fixed income assets which pays out interest, but I don’t know if the big banks have exposure to that as well. Higher mortgage rates can also increase the number of delinquent payments and defaults, which can hurt the banks too. This probably wont happen up here, but in the U.S. a lot of homeowners who took out mortgages in 2004, 2005, and 2006 experienced a sudden 200% or higher mortgage payment increase in 2007 when all the variable terms reset. 😕 I kind of want our rates to go up a little bit just to see how it would affect the markets. But at this point I’m not sure if higher rates will be a net positive or negative for banks.
Comparing you to a ‘Shoe shine boy’???…Oh my goodness, what an outdated, ignorant opinion. Do these people KNOW about the awards your refreshing and entertaining gem of a website has garnered?
I would be so proud if any of my children became a shoe shine boy/GIRL and displayed your ambition, entrepreneurship, research skills and sense of humour!
Stick with your friends, Liquid, and stay away from the Deep Dark Web!!!
Lol, thanks Fee. It’s because of long time visitors like yourself that I’m still blogging today. 🙂
[…] doesn’t matter very much. This is why I have a relatively high risk tolerance, even though some people don’t approve. It’s because I’m in my twenties and if I can get that higher rate of return on my […]
[…] Here is part 2 of people’s remarks about this blog. […]