There is something about acquiring shares of a certain company that most people around my age have no clue about because they don’t care to, to be frank, which means there is more slice of pie for the balance sheet of the private investment fund.
I was talking with a friend today who moved to Japan back in 2016 after finding love and immersing himself in the culture and language years prior. We talked about our children, our interests, and caught up with each other on everything we could, and naturally, the conversation turned to investing.
He started a day trading course on Udemy because he wants to learn how to better manage his own funds. His U.S. 401k isn’t doing much and hasn’t grown since the first time he mentioned it to me, which was back when I had shared a screenshot of my first-ever brokerage account with Robinhood.
At the time, it was around $3,000 or $4,000, and his 401k sat at $30k. It is still there and collecting fees rather than capital appreciation, and he is thinking of moving it or handling it on his own.
I have, in the past, pointed him in the direction of investment articles that gave me the solid foundation on which I built my own portfolios and now the investment fund. Even then, everyone has their own way and idea of managing their funds. I eventually sent a text back about the investment fund in the conversation when we got to the topic of love and finding someone you can stand to be with.
I told him his story was a personal inspiration to me, as I hope to meet someone and have a quiet life, even if that means finding love outside of the States just as he did. I painted a picture of what I want in the future—a garden, a home, to be able to wake up and read the newspaper, preferably The New York Times or Wall Street Journal, and walk to the local coffee or bagel shop with the spouse while quietly building stealth wealth through business ownership.
After an hour or so of texting back and forth, I was left to ponder the conversation, and I sat with the warm feeling in my chest of how he and I used to stand on our balcony and talk about our childhoods, nightmares, traumas, and how the 30s are usually when life flips. I was in my early 20s, he was in his later 30s, and he was right because now I sit here with the prospect of a bright future ahead.
Business ownership was something that always interested me, and now here I am in a small one-bedroom apartment acquiring shares of a spin-off company from a large conglomerate, and the earnings shall grow beyond inflation over the years, creating cash flow for the fund while further pushing my household towards financial stealth wealth.
It’s the kind of wealth that I want for my life moving forward. I just want to be able to afford to live in a neighborhood where my family feels safe and comfortable while living out the rest of my life with simple pleasures—baked bread on fall mornings, the smell of nutmeg and cinnamon filling the house, Christmas decorations in the winter, passing out full-size candy bars to kids during the spooky season.
Then, when the lights are off and I am in bed, I can turn to the spouse and talk about the week ahead, the next business I think we should acquire to further grow our wealth so that we can make sure our loved ones are taken care of and we can support causes that matter a great deal to us. Stealth wealth, to me, goes hand in hand with a private, simple life, and it’s the life I am building towards.
P.S. As I finish up this blog post with some editing, I am listening to a mix of soundtrack scores from various movies that I enjoy, and this score came on.
It’s one of my favorite’s from the Love Actually Soundtrack and it fits perfectly with the sentiment of this post.
The Broke College Student 
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