Tue 10 Jul 2007
www.GetRichSlick.com is a blog for high(er) income individuals
Posted by RichSlick under MMO, Rants
[15] Comments
I think I’m going to have to post a disclaimer on this site that reads something like, “This Blog Is Intended for Higher Income Individuals Earning at Least 100k or More.”
This rant by a reader Luke has inspired this post and I’ll consider adding the disclaimer to the the bottom of this blog on every entry. Luke has evidently taken offense to my strong dislike of mutual funds which I’ve repeatedly covered here, here, and here.
Although Luke’s comment was a bit hostile, I’m not offended and appreciate the feedback. Clearly, having stated that this blog is geared towards higher net worth individuals seems to have escaped some people and as a blogger, I keep assuming that every reader has read every post although my ABOUT page does have a disclaimer about my investment strategies.
I’m going to clarify that Get Rich Slick’s investment strategies are of an aggressive nature and are primarily done with DISPOSABLE income. Over at ETF Covered Calls, I have at least 60k in “play” in two accounts and plan on adding another 30k or so via credit card arbitrage at some point in the future. Some people out there will call me “crazy” for using credit card money for stock/ETF investments but don’t worry, I’ve got it covered and I’m willing to accept the risk/reward of my actions. The plan of course is to have 100k in play and return 18% to 24% annually. That’s an extra 18k to 24k in income each year! Yes, I may go bankrupt in the process if things go horribly wrong but I may also get killed by a drunk driver on my way home tomorrow too – there are no guarantees in life, only calculated and unexpected risks and the unexpected always makes life much more interesting than the mundane routine activities.
I suggest 100k salary because, in theory, that is an adequate amount of money to allow you to generate some disposable income for more aggressive investment strategies. Clearly, depending where you live, your personal situation, and countless other variables this amount may be too low or just right. And to clarify, I am talking about 100k net (NOT Gross) so you’ll likely need to earn about 138k to 150k in Gross income to come out with 100k of net income.
If you’re not making 100k net then I’m sorry you’re not earning that type of salary. It’s not my fault and I have no magical Harry Potter-like abilities to wave a wand and make you smarter, more dedicated, more passionate, more marketable or more optimistic. All I do have are DIFFERENT IDEAS that MAY lead to a path of greater wealth. Alternatives to the basic stuff that are interesting, fun and easy to understand. I put my money where my blog is and you can follow along over at . You’ll see gains and losses as fast as I can post them! The last thing the PF Blog world needs is more of the same. As far as I know, no one is blogging about ETF Covered Calls so I consider my strategies relatively unique; they’re not necessarily for everyone.
“This Blog Is Intended for Higher Income Individuals Earning at Least 100k (net) or More.“
15 Responses to “ www.GetRichSlick.com is a blog for high(er) income individuals ”
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December 13th, 2008 at 8:24 am[...] Seriously though, on rare occasion, I have someone ask me why that disclaimer is on the top of every post and some accuse me of some colossal egotism or arrogance but that doesn’t have anything to do with it. I started that disclaimer after getting frequent comments or e-mail comments that read something like, “well not all of us have 25k in cash lying around” or “not all of us can afford to invest xxx amount of money each month/week/whatever” and of course the flame war that drove me to doing it here. [...]
July 10th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Slick,
I make more than 100K a year, and I find your blog interesting because it dishes out advice which is very diffierent from the rest of the PFBlog world.
One area that flashes warning lights in my head is the combination smarter-than-all-of-you attitude combined with the incessant hawking of ETF Covered Calls. Maybe I am naturally risk averse, I just worry about following in your footsteps due to those two aspects: they make me feel like I might be being taken for a ride.
That’s just my thoughts, again I really enjoy reading your blog; its always an interesting read.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I agree with Alex, My household income exceeds $100K, but I take on risk in other avenues. Side businesses and other investments. ETF coveralls should be the name of your blog.
Not everyone that makes $100k, is not interested in ETFs Coveralls. I know a couple of people loss money in ETF coveralls. But, you cannot make people feel that they are a loser b/c they do not take advantages of your techniques. Alot of people became wealthy in other fields.
But I have to admit, you blog have given me education in another way of making money. It just not a one size fits all approach for everyone.
July 10th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Well there’s plenty of TRANSPARENCY here. You can see all my transactions as they happen on my mini-account and power-fund accounts. You’ll also find that ETFCoveredcalls.com is FREE. You can also grab the info yourself for FREE from places like finance.yahoo.com and do your own calculations. I wrote an app that aggregates all the data with a click of a button and shows me the possibilities for 1.5 to 3% return over the next 30 to 45 days. I think it’s a very useful tool that reduced 20 hours of work to 2 minutes.
You’ll also note there are no ads on my blogs nor are there any promises of vast riches. I have yet to ask anyone for a dime either.
I blog about ALTERNATIVE/AGGRESSIVE investment strategies because very few people out there are doing it. I could shut down my blog; keep this info all to myself and help no one but I like to give something back to the community. This clearly isn’t for everyone and I don’t put a gun to anyone’s head. You can see that I’ve earned about 12k over the past year doing ETF Covered Calls and once I tweak the app a little more, I’ll bump up my vesting cash to 100k+
Contrast this with bloggers that:
1. Have a bunch of ads hawking just about everything.
2. Have a bunch of overly simplistic advice that an average high school graduate should know by now.
3. Are always distancing themselves from any investment other than mutual funds and advocate you do the same or else you’ll end up bankrupt.
Quite simply, America is the greatest land of opportunity and too many people all around the PF Blog world have reduced themselves to hawking mutual funds as the path to wealth. There are exceptions which I recently highlighted but those exceptions are rare.
Coming off as “smarter than you attitude” is an emotional response I have no control over. If you FEEL inferior in any way because of something I wrote, I have no control over that. Those are YOUR emotions making you FEEL inferior. Please refer me to any post where I call someone dumb or inferior.
If you think my strategies are flawed, please comment and provide feedback as to why they won’t work long term.
I’ve been bashed in a few comments with people calling my ideas “garbage” but with no mathematical models, proofs, theories as to WHY it’s “garbage.” Just plain name calling at a JR. High level with no logical arguments as to why my strategies are flawed.
July 10th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Well, I didn’t mean to ad-hominem attack you. I was merely trying to add my perspective as a novice investor, I’m trying my hardest to learn as much about investing as possible, but it can be quite hard to know what is legitimately good advice and what is not.
When I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, one thing that helped alert me to the fact that this guy was full of it, was his tone: he came off as very “you-have-to-be-an-idiot-not-to-follow-my-advice” As part of his spiel to sell his advice, he mocked those who opposed his thinking.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
I’m not sure that you need to make 100k net to be able to set aside some serious disposible income on that you can invest with.
If you eliminate debt and live modestly, almost everyone should be able to pad their retirement and savings and still have some money left over which, over time, could be enough to start investing.
I’m looking forward to learning more about ETF covered calls. I think that it is an interesting strategy that I would like to learn more about. Thanks for providing the information on the site.
cheers.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Can I recommend getting the What Would Seth Godin Do WordPress Plugin (if you don’t already have it) and putting this disclaimer (or a small version of it) at the top of your posts for all your new visitors. It wasn’t immediately apparent to me that your blog was geared towards those netting 100K+. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t have expected to see much about credit card arbitrage, because it seems like a lot of work for a very small percentage gain (at least with your target audience).
I love that your blog is different, but I wonder how many (or few) people who net 100K+ a year are reading blogs to figure out what to do with their finances. I would expect many have accountants manage their money (especially as you get to people netting 150K+ a year). It’s a narrow niche and you might be one of the few people supporting it.
The only other thing that I’d say is that I suspect your definition of “rich” is different than most of the people reading your blog. That’s probably not your fault, but it’s hard to require your readership makes that much money. Many of them would consider netting 100K+ a year already “rich.” It seems like your idea of rich is 5M+, while I think much of America would consider 1M+ to be fairly rich today (even if it really doesn’t buy near as much as it used to).
July 10th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
As someone who is just out of college and makes about half the amount you suggest (and considers it a goodly amount!), I figured I’d throw my opinion out there…
I applaud this blog. I am glad to see people discussing alternative methods of investing. I am young. I have an incredible risk tolerance and am by no means risk averse. That being said, I’m also not dumb. I know that the techniques covered here are not something that I’d do with my entire investment portfolio. That being said, I think there’s room for these types of strategies for a wide variety of investors for multiple reasons. The first is education. Learn about it now by dabbling so that if/when the time comes you are already familiar with these investment vehicles/strategies and can hit the ground running. Second, all but the most conservative investors will have some portion of their portfolio in more “speculative” investments. Among other investment vehicles, the sorts of strategies described here could do an excellent job of filling that percentage.
To Alex: one thing that helps assure that you’re not being taken for a ride is that you don’t have to pay to get this information. You can therefore track and verify everything on your own if you wish before ever spending a dime (except to pay your internet provider!).
To Lazy: Remember, if we’re considering this as retirement money, inflation will do a great job at eating into that million and it won’t go nearly as far as you think it will. I’m 23 and somewhere around the 2 million mark is what I’m considering “comfortable” right now…but by no means rich, so Rich’s “definition” may not that be far off for everyone.
To Rich: I’d be curious to hear more about the app you wrote. This is exactly the sort of application/use that led me to get a CS minor…being able to write fairly simple applications to automate or aid a task. I realize that you may not be willing to share the app itself given all the work that must’ve gone into it, but if you’re willing to talk about it, let me know.
July 10th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I smell hubris!
July 10th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Quite honestly, it’s been a long time since I’ve know what its like to earn less than 100k/year. Perhaps it has been too long but at the end of the day, I can recall that when I finally started earning six figures that most of the financial troubles in my life melted away. There is something magical about 100k income that is very comforting; I started of in the world barely above poverty and have worked myself into a very comfortable place.
I appreciate everyone’s comments and no Alex, I don’t think you were attacking me since I was referring to Luke in that comment.
Lazy, I’ll look for the plug in and try it out. James – Thanks!
July 11th, 2007 at 10:17 am
James,
That is great. Just out of curiosity, did you end up with tons of student loan debt as well? I make a decent wage, but it is the student loans that are killing me which makes paying them off soon a huge priority for me.
Rich, Along the same lines: If you don’t mind my asking, what is your career? I’d be interested in hearing more about your steps to get over that 100K mark. I am in a career that could be a 100K career, but I am always looking for new insights that might really help me improve salary/situation etc.
Also, did you pay off all your debts? At what point in the process did that happen? Is it possible that debt payoffs which happened around the same time might have had an impact on your situation just as much as the increase in salary?
And finally, if you don’t mind my asking, how old are you roughly? I am in my late 20s, so I am just trying to get a gauge of how old you are, and how old you think your target audience with the 100K net is, roughly.
Thanks and keep it up!
EasyChange
July 11th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Easy, I’ve covered pretty much all of your questions in various posts (just search) but here are a few links to answer them:
On career advice
http://www.getrichslick.com/2007/05/24/professional-toolbox-most-managers-should-have-to-earn-big-buck/
On becoming a Vice President
http://www.getrichslick.com/2006/11/08/how-do-you-become-a-vice-president-part-iii-of-iii/
On Debt:
I have a mortgage which I keep around because of the low interest rate (3.25%) that I’m thinking of paying off.
I have 25k in credit card debt which is a 0% arbitrage play. I’ll likely pay this off next week, perhaps along with my mortgage to be at 0 debt total. I consider myself debt free because I have sufficient funds to pay off all debts if need be; I haven’t found a reason to really pay off all debt, especially since it is very low interest.
As for age, I’m 35 and have been in management and executive management roles the past 12 years. I made a conscious decision to move into management early in my career since managers were all getting big bonuses, stock grants and promotions into sr. management. The grunts (like me) rarely got recognized so I decided to move up.
July 11th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Easy: I actually have no student loan debt. The only debt I have is ~$2500 left on a loan for my truck. I “lucked into” a 4 year scholarship that covered all tuition and most fees starting sophomore year. I say lucked into because it had little to do with my own qualifications and mostly to do with my dad’s veteran status (Vietnam). This would’ve covered the one year I took to get my Master’s as well, but I ended up getting a research assistantship that paid a stipend and tuition for the year of my Master’s. I also had another on campus job that paid quite well doing computer tech support for dorm residents.
July 11th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I was actually “poor” enough to qualify for Federal grants. It wasn’t much money, about $1500 and a $500 state grant but the rest was paid for by working minimum wage jobs and during my last two years, I took out some student loans. I was fortunate to only need to borrow about 5k my last two years. It was fairly easy to pay off that amount after getting my first “real” job.
July 13th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
@James: I was assuming that you have the 1M now… If you do, you can invest it in such a way to have good returns despite inflation. You might, if you live frugally enough, find that you make enough money after the inflation to not need a job ever.