Sold house and bought anotherplace in Carmel Valley with 20% down and 5.7% fixed 30 year loan.
Pocketed $400k and bought boring index funds Vanguard Total International, Vanguard Precious Metals, Vanguard Energy, Vanguard 500, Vanguard Large Cap, Vanguard Mid Cap, Vanguard Small Cap.
Also gave $100k to a financial advisor.
Left remaining funds in a short term corp bond that returned 6.05%
2)Beginning 2005:
Sold bonds, converted to Chinese currency.
Also bought a townhome in China.
Gave some money to a relative to speculate on the chinese stock market.
3)End of 2006:
Sold all of energy fund, sold 1/2 of precious metal, and 1/4 of international.
Converted more money into Chinese currency.
Increased positions in Vanguard 500 and Vanguard Growth Large Cap.
Created an educational fund for my kid. Bought term life insurance. Increased liability insurance and hired a lawyer.
4)This year (plan).
Sell total international to 1/2 original investment and buy more Large Cap Growth.
Bring rental income back from Chinese currency.
Wait for the Chinese gov to float the currency (any day now….Ok, maybe not….)
Possibly sell home in china.
Give an additional $100k to financial advisor (part of this from a forced stock option sale).
We thought about paying some more of that the mortgage. But it seems like so far, it doesn’t make sense to do this since we so far have been able to beat 5.7% each year. Also, we need as much tax deductions as we can get without being limited by AMT.
