It’s early Friday afternoon, 11:36 am. I haven’t had any breakfast yet, (makes sense since I’m not really a breakfast person) however, I did just finish poring over some Morningstar reports and added two new positions to the investment fund.
VT and SPG; VT for its international exposure, which isn’t bad to have, and SPG has been solid for me since the pandemic when I bought it heavily discounted.
Over a month ago, I was walking to my local link in the hilltop area of my neighborhood, and when I went to tap my bus pass, I noticed a name on the machine, Init.
It didn’t take me long to get home and start researching the company. It turns out it’s a German company, and it can’t be purchased using an ADR on the US stock exchange because there isn’t one.
As I researched it further, I found it was a company I really would like to have the opportunity to have on my watchlist and possibly in the investment fund, but foreign commissions and taxes alone would eat into my profits with how little I am able to invest at the moment.
So, being that VT (Vanguard’s Total World Stock ETF) was my way of satisfying that disappointment, plus I already have some VTI in an older portfolio.
The investment fund is now $150 AUM, again that is hundreds, not thousands, or millions.
I want to document this from the ground up so in a decade I can look back and see the progression and the reasoning behind my decisions.
It’s been hard balancing the investment fund and going back to school.
What I mean by that is I’m still adjusting to my new schedule. I have had a study plan that has worked. I have all A’s in my classes, and it is now week three.
I have found that some of the effort I put into some of the classes isn’t needed, whereas in others, a little bit more could be useful.
Once I can pull the switches of the levers of which classes need more effort than others and balance them out, I want to set a schedule block for studying investments, which I haven’t been able to do.
Updating this blog post has been started and stopped over the last couple of weeks.
Yesterday, I was at Safeway picking up some after-school snacks: cheese slices, mango slices, along with a case of Zevia’s cold creamy root beer. (I have cut back on Zevia; it’s too expensive for my wallet).
As I was standing in the bread aisle, one of the workers noticed me from a conversation we had last year, and we struck up another conversation.
Turns out the guy is from New York, used to work on Wall Street until he had a stroke. He moved to my city but plans on moving back to New York once his kids are finished with high school.
The conversation revolved around investing, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, value investing, and book recommendations.
Turns out we both don’t bother with crypto; neither of us has the urge or natural tendency to rely on leverage or margin.
After our conversation, we bumped into each other a couple of times more, and each time he would say, “I got one more for you, look up X, Y, and Z.”
Appreciative once more, I would quickly pull out my phone and plug in whatever he said into Google for later research of my own.
Heading out, he told me to look up Tulip Mania, and just like the book recommendation, after some research, I plugged it right into my phone.
I asked him if he missed it, and his face lit up with a smile, “Oh yeah, I miss it, but the lifestyle isn’t for me; the guys party too much.”
I told him I am back in school as a psychology major and thought about going into finance; however, I don’t think the world of finance would be the right fit for me, and before we could continue, he was called away, and we said our goodbyes.
I hope to have more conversations with him, and who knows what they will lead to, but I always love it when I can talk investing with someone, especially when we speak the same language.
He said we are in a bubble and to keep my eye out, and that real estate is also in one as well.
I am still learning and reading what I can to form my own conclusions, but the acquisition of knowledge from others is always appreciated.
The Broke College Student 
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