Early FI – Slow and Steady Progress (2 Year Update)
It’s been over 2 years since I got off the beaten path and ventured over to the “dark side”… As it pertains to early FI, there’s not a single soul that I’ve ever met who didn’t want to achieve that… With that said, early FI isn’t easy and for many people the journey from beginning to end doesn’t happen in a linear fashion…
Just speaking for myself, I got to early FI primarily through Real Estate Investing (REI), picking up gems at the bottom of a bear market, beginning in 2012… By summer 2015, next thing I knew, I was a millionaire…
So yeah, you could say it all happened in a blink of an eye…
And similarly, in 2015, I really felt in my heart of hearts that: real estate, stocks, bonds, etc. were all extremely overpriced, and I saw zero appeal in loading up on more of those assets… I looked around, and saw tremendous deep value opportunities abundant in the mining sector, particularly in precious metals….
By the end of 2015, I had constructed a mining stocks portfolio that looked like the following.
Fast forward towards the end of 2016, and after a rip-roaring rally in gold/silver equities, my mining stocks portfolio grew to this.
Unfortunately, gold/silver lost their groove in 2017, but luckily I was diversified into some clean energy/EV metals (e.g. cobalt, lithium) that helped offset some huge losses my portfolio experienced in the precious metals sector…
Biggest mining stocks losers to date (realized and unrealized):
Alicanto Minerals (AQI.AX) down -$16,168.13Cordoba Minerals (CDB.V/CDBMF) down -$14,548.10Sandspring Resources (SSP.V/SSPXF) down -$12,473.70Fortuna Silver (FSM) down -$11,348.22Sarama Resources (SWA.V/SRMMF) down -$9,457.89Northern Shield Resources (NRN.V) down -$8,722.17Here’s a summation of the overall progress I’ve made in mining stocks…
December 2015: $223,326.39
December 2016: $678,023.72
December 2017: $1,285,037.40
Please don’t read too much into the “raw figures” themselves… In other words, it would be impossible to compute actual gains made from just those numbers alone, since over the years I’ve injected more and more capital into mining stocks as my conviction has grown… And exact “total percentage gains” is beside the point…
Why am I sharing this all with you?
Just to show you that the path to early FI isn’t always easy (you will not win every trade), or linear…
But importantly, I’ve made some decent gains and by and large the portfolio is moving in the right direction…
On the “human side of things”, I will let you know that my “second journey” to early FI hasn’t been smooth sailing at all… When I first made the switch into mining stocks in 2015, I received a lot of flak from naysayers, critics, haters, and a lot more people…
I lost a ton of readers…
I received a bunch of snide comments… Stuff like the following actually still occurs to this day…
I wouldn’t be surprised if this blog is seen as nothing more than a joke by a lot of people in the early FI community…
I’m way too much of a gambler, apparently…
Deep down, I think a lot of people were (still are) rooting for me to fail massively just so they can say, “I told you so you fking idiot!”
Back in 2015, it was demoralizing at times, I’ll admit, but I tried my best to block out the noise, stay true to myself, and carry on with the plan…
The journey to early FI can be a very lonely road at times, especially if you’re going with unconventional investments that aren’t accepted by the mainstream, your peers, co-workers, family, friends, etc…
Here, check out this comment, posted earlier this year.
From Bigger Pockets.
OK, the above comment isn’t actually all the bad and negative… In fact, the commenter actually had some flattering things to say about me. ??~?
But the bit that bothers me is the one about how “each new thought has the life expectancy of a fruit fly.”
LOL!
Hey, I’m only human and I make a shit ton of mistakes, I will be the first to admit, but I would like to believe that I put in a lot of effort and research before deciding to jump head first from one investment idea into the next… I mean, I’ve poured thousands of hours into researching mining stocks… and before that, I did the same with real estate…
I would sincerely hope that I don’t just make investment decisions on a whim with no analysis at all…
Point blank — I think it’s extremely important to be open minded…
Just this year, I was totally asleep at the wheel in regards to cryptocurrencies and I pretty much missed out on “the greatest wealth transfer in human history.”
I can freely admit I was dead wrong about cryptos (I underestimated their growth potential by a country mile and then some)…
Pride.
Ego.
Being right.
I don’t care about that stuff… Self-obsession gets in the way of learning and improving… F that.
Straight up — I was dead wrong about cryptos… I’ll own up to that, dust myself off, and now figure out a way to get properly educated.
As readers know, I try my best to be an agnostic investor… Again, it’s not always easy, though, because when you flip the script and attempt something new, it creates all sorts of dissonance…
From family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc.
From readers.
From yourself.
Everyone is out for that simple, straight-forward, linear path to riches…
But in so many instances, I’m finding that the “real path to wealth” was achieved by those who were daring enough to be bold when nobody else around them had the stones to even risk a single penny…
These days, I could easily just sell out of every last mining stock that I own, and just pimp out Dividend Growth Investing (DGI) and REI 24/7 until the cows come home as being the “holy grail” to getting to early FI… and I would make way more $$$ on this blog by doing just that…
But that would be disingenuous… I would be selling all of you out… for a quick buck, promoting something I don’t genuinely believe in.
Honestly, I don’t think those strategies (DGI/REI) are gonna be the most efficient vehicles for getting to early FI in the foreseeable future (baring some kind of crazy market crash to reset things back to “fair value”)… and even as someone already in early FI, I find myself struggling to find those investments anywhere close to being compelling enough to sink serious capital into at this time…
I put my money where my mouth is. Looking into 2018, I’m very bullish on: clean energy/EV metals (cobalt, lithium, nickel, copper), precious metals (gold, silver), and cryptocurrencies.
Anyway, just sharing this post to give you all an update on my current progress and where my head is at… For anyone who is on a similar path to early FI, I hope you found these thoughts interesting and useful… If you feel discouraged, alone, alienated, pretty much a pariah in your own social circle, well, all I can say is you’ve got company and I totally understand where you are coming from.
You’ve got my support and a friend in me! ??(TM),
Haters are ALWAYS gonna hate…
Just keep pressing on!
Fight On!