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About me/the blog

Hi there and welcome to my early retirement blog. My name is Benjamin Davis and I am 27 28, single and very frugal. I am working towards achieving my early retirement and financial freedom. I grew up in Portugal and Italy, but I am currently living in Germany (where salaries are way better). Before, I spent 4 years in Canada, which I miss very much. My main goal is being able to retire (in Portugal) between age 33 (aggressive goal) and 36 (conservative goal). I chose Portugal as I like the country very much and the cost of living is way lower than say in Canada or the US. At the same time, the weather, the people, and the food are just from a different level:

Portugal early retirement and financial freedom on my early retirement blog

Another awesome spot in Portugal

To retire early and achieve financial freedom at 33, in Portugal, I will need a net worth of about €670K, which should generate a passive/mostly passive salary of about €2500 a month. It is possible for me to retire as soon as I generate a passive income of €1650, though. The reason why I want to retire early is because at this point I feel like I am dragging myself to the office every day. Sadly, I was diagnosed with the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in 2012, and I feel tired and exhausted on a daily basis. I will report all the steps of my journey in this early retirement blog.

After retirement, I plan on having a frugal life, living in a small condo in my hometown, and continue to save and invest, to grow my wealth and never put my retirement at risk. During retirement, I hope I can spend more time in nature, exercise, read, watch movies, meditate and spend time with family and friends. Of course that I won’t simply veg out, as I will continue to look for investments and do the things I like the most in life. As said by many in legendary bloggers, my retirement will be a full-time job. 🙂 Even after I retire I will have to manage this early retirement blog, which will certainly consume a lot of time.

My second goal is to become a millionaire after retirement, and before I turn 40. Once I reach this goal, and I have the means to maintain this level of wealth together with a passive salary, I will stop thinking about money for good, and I will truly achieve financial freedom.

I like my job very much, but I like other things even more, and I don’t know how long I will be able to work, so about 6 months ago I decided that I will retire early. This was sort of an epiphany in my life, as I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue (a mild version), which makes me dragging to the office on a daily basis. I want to live a life in which I don’t have to set up the alarm in the morning and I get to do what I want when I want. For example, I love to read, workout and spend time with my friends. I have noticed that since I started my job in Germany, I have progressively done these things less often.

In October 2015 I had some cash (about €30K) saved up and I started to invest it… I will report all my financial decisions in this blog, so stay tuned, because if I do well, you can simply replicate my strategy and live the good life: no alarms, no boss yelling at you and no dependency on a boring and/or stressful job.

About me

– 27, single, and very frugal (I too think twice before spending €2 on an espresso)
– Work in IT
– Love hitting the gym, reading and watching movies
– Mild version of the chronic fatigue syndrome and close to burnout due to my PhD
– No addictions, but OCD
– Type A personality

Stock Strategy (my portfolio here)

– Well-diversified portfolio of good quality dividend stocks
– Diversified on the sectorial and geographic levels
– Reinvest dividends into more dividend stocks (see my posts about portfolio re-balancing)

Real Estate Strategy (my portfolio here)

– Buy way undervalue, renovate (if need be) and rent out
– Get my investments back in less than 10-15 years
– Ignore appreciation when doing deals
– Buy close to colleges
– Multi-unit homes
– High leverage (<=5% fixed, long-term mortgages below rents, so I still put money in my pocket every month)
– Extra cash from rents (see point above) is invested in very liquid bonds to pre-pay mortgages and create maintenance fund reserves
– Address mass markets
– Buy all my real estate across Portugal (probably the cheapest RE in western Europe), in at least 4 different cities within a radius of 300km
– 75%/25% commercial/residential properties

Goals of this blog

– Update my portfolio, net worth and monthly balance every month
– Provide financial knowledge (read the disclaimer on the menu bar though!)
– Interact with other bloggers

My Financial Goals for 2016

– Increase my net worth to €115k (DONE – grew to €246k)
– Increase my net monthly income by 15% (DONE)
– Get a new job in Portugal for 2017 where I can make at least €35K/yr after taxes (DONE – found one flexible job at 18k net a year)
– Sell all my assets in Germany at market value (Partially DONE)
– Live off €800 a month (DONE)
– Improve my financial IQ (DONE)

My Financial Goals for 2017

– Increase my net worth to €300k
– Increase my net monthly passive income to €1200
– Live off €800 a month
– Make €20k in rental income
– Make $40k on my investments and businesses
– Pay RP#2 entirely
– Improve my financial IQ, reading 80 books

The rest of my goals for 2017 were presented on this post.

Last update: February 2017.

Disclaimer: Everything you read on this blog is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not meant to replace professional financial advice. I am not a qualified professional in finance or investing, and this site and author are not responsible for anything that may occur (such as losses or traumas) in your own investing. Please seek professional help if you fell you need it.

early retirement and financial freedom

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Start

Welcome to my blog, which was created to share my journey towards early retirement.

Do you want to work 9-5 until you are 65? Panic every time an unforeseeable expense crops up? Forgo the good things in life, such as the time you spend with your family so that you have a successful career?

I don’t. Welcome to my blog, which is, in fact, a cash flow blog, which presents monthly blog income reports, cash flow from my investments including Real Estate investments (turn key rental and active investments), my net worth, blogging and SEO tips, and a heck of a lot more. If your intention is to quit your day job and have more time to enjoy life, doing the things you love, this is the right spot for you… early retirement is the key and that is what I am working on! Note that I didn’t say “this is what I am trying to do”. Fear is the number one enemy of success. Success is a combination of confidence, motivation, discipline, commitment, and strong habits. Success is being able to stand up one more time than those you fell.

I am 27 and I want to retire between 33 and 36 (the goal now being 34). I decided to retire in Portugal (I am half Portuguese). If you wonder why Portugal… just look at the header of the blog. 🙂 My goal is to create passive income (through real estate, dividend stocks, and other investments) to live off of that. The advantage of having chosen Portugal to retire is that I only need €1500 a month (probably 90% of the Portuguese population lives on less than that) to have a wonderful life. Rents in Portugal are low, but real estate is considerably cheaper than other European countries and the US. This allowed me to start buying real estate (and working toward my goal) earlier.

I intend to have other sources of passive income other than real estate. In addition to real estate, I intend to have passive income from dividend stocks, bonds, farming investment, P2P loans and online income. I hope that you can grow wiser learning from me and my blog (read the disclaimer at the end of this page).

You can quickly access:

My Net worth – My Net Worth
My Real estate properties – My Real Estate
My Stocks portfolio – My Stocks
About me and the blog – About me and the blog

Disclaimer: Everything you read on this blog is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not meant to replace professional financial advice. I am not a qualified professional in finance or investing, and this site and author are not responsible for anything that may occur (such as losses or traumas) in your own investing. Please seek professional help if you fell you need it.

Reports,

Net worth update: October 2018 (439,344.01€)

My current net worth is €439,344.01 (65.57% of my first goal – €670K).

It’s funny how things can move so fast, when it comes to mindset (especially when I grow my net worth by almost 30k!).

Last month I started off my monthly report with a solid “I must admit I can already smell great times coming”.

This month my mindset is more like “I am still going through a lot, not sure how this will shape up over the next months”.

I am afraid. I am afraid my health is not fixed or I spend decades chasing my own tail, and life goes by.

Actually, I am still trying to work hard, and it seems that time flies (even if I am not having fun). My go-to all-the-god-damn-time personality surely does not favor my healing. But at the end of the day, that is who I am.

As for my financial independence, I can still see it happening soon but I am not nearly as motivated as last month.

Despite all that, there were big and important changes this month, which will pretty much set me up for the future…

I got another offer on RP#4, and guess what, I decided to sell!

This back and forth is not something I particularly like. But, guess what… it is part of the game.

After an offer which was first taken off the table and then put back onto it, I decided not to sell the property.

This is a beautiful, magnificent property which I won’t find again (especially at the price I am selling it at). But the truth is that I am making important money which can pretty much set me for hitting early retirement sooner than later.

And this entire rationale only happens because I got a higher offer on the property and I decided to accept.

In this new offer, I will make some important k’s, something like I never made in my life (especially this quickly).

I will still undersell it, because after the reno works, I will easily be appraised at 300k, and I am selling it just under 250k. But this operation will net me something like 70k. Too much given that I didn’t even finish the renovation (the new owner will take over).

What to do with the money?

A global crash is eminent. Keeping that in mind…

Stock Market

Putting money into the stock market is a risk… unless I continue to pour it onto my dividend-aristocrat portfolio which I won’t ever sell. Over the (sufficiently) long run, this is not a problem.

This is part of my new strategy:

I will keep 10k in the stock market until the end of the year, and eventually start building from that. I will modify my strategy entirely. From high-yield stocks, I will now go with (mainly) dividend stocks that have been paying consistently but above all, have been increasing their dividends consistently. I am currently doing my research on both US aristocrat socks and European aristocrat stocks. Plus, I will acquire more and more long shots: weed stocks are one, but promising fintechs and what not are a strong possibility.

I expect to have about 30k in the stock market until the end of 2019, which a dividend yield of about 5%. This month, I will write a post on this.

Real Estate (new LLC in early 2019)

I am a buy and hold guy (thanks to my mentor). Yet, by selling RP#4, I realized that the largest amount of doe are to be made in flips. Until I hit my truly financial independence, I think that flips are more tailored to my goals (while I keep my buy and hold properties anyways).

Therefore, I will concentrate a big chunk of money in real estate that I can monetize while I hold onto it, but properties that I can flip. And I found the perfect way to do that…

So I will kickstart a new LLC in early 2019 from scratch with 50k and get the ball rolling on that strategy. Here are the most realistic projections:

In 2019 put about 50k in, and add another 15k as a company reserve. This will be enough to buy one property and sell it and do this operation twice in the year. I should end up the year with about 125k in value; At a 7% rate, I could monetize that at about 750€/month.
In 2020 I will do the very same thing: turn those 125k into about 250k with 2 flips. At a 7% rate, I could monetize that at about 1,500€/month.
Anything else beyond that is not realist to foresee, but at that point I will be able to borrow tons of cash…

Life

No human should go through what I am going through… even though I actually think that I look healthy as I said last month;

As my health declined a bit this month, my motivation went south with it.

Not sure you guys are interested in this, but I spend a lot of money every month on my health (primarily supplements)…

The Andy Cutler protocol is not that expensive. The thing is that I also do a variety of other supplements, and those are expensive. I am still dealing with extreme chemical sensitivity, which is expensive. I think I will actually remove some of the supplements just for the sake of money.

As I’ve been saying, I am a man on a mission…

Rental income

RP#1 is still my Primary Property (PP). I may change that sooner than later, actually.

The rental income in October was €1,745. This will actually be net at the end of the year, because I have enough expenses to write off against this income.

I believe that I will rent out the last vacant property ASAP. That should rent at 270€, so I will finally surpass €2,000 in rental income. What a sweet number…

If I were to keep and rent out RP#4, I would hit €5,000 in rental income, which is really the first goal to set up a rental business for real. I will need to put that off for now…

Real Estate Company

The Real Estate business is going great!

We have been growing the products we have to offer and incorporating many great people in the company. I am so excited for what the future will bring us…

Online income

My online income in October was about €70.

Goals for October

Stick to my perfect routine and continue on dreaming. FAIL. Mercury is a bitch. I can’t visualize and concentrate well;
Learn deep breathing techniques (check out Wim Hof). DONE. Well, realistically, I should be doing this way more often, but at least I have started. I love the end result, I get out of the wired-status so fast, it is really incredible. The only catch is that the breading exercises also require a lot of energy, so not great for someone who struggles with fatigue…
Go for a walk (more runs than walks, if I have the energy) every single day, in the morning. FAIL. October was not a great month health-wise, due to the protocols I am doing (as I’ve had a relapse) but it was the cold f* me up. Why is it so damn cold these days? Not in the mood to go for a walk. Plus, it just slows down my adrenaline like crazy…
Continue to learn inverted pull ups and handstands. FAIL. Same reason as above and lack of strength and adrenaline. I am already missing the summertime…
Go to bed before 10:30pm. FAIL, but not badly. I am still to change my mindset to go to bed at that time. I am too stuck to 10.30 – 11pm. My adrenals need that time and I know it. I just get too tired at the end of the day and therefore I lose too much time cooking, eating up and preparing the next day.
Another 4/5 rounds of the Cutler’s protocol. SEMI DONE. I am now at 8 rounds (which is nothing) but had to stop the protocol for a while as it got too rough. I will restart it next month.
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now). DONE.
Help my company to close 4 contracts. SEMI DONE. I helped them with 2 contracts. I am happy that the ball is rolling fast there. 🙂
Rent out my free unit. SEMI DONE. Didn’t rent it out, but got a few good prosps. I am sure I will rent it out next month.
Close on 2 properties (I didn’t talk about this because I am not sure I will be able to close 😉 ). SEMI DONE. Not done yet, but there was some progress made…
Be happy. DONE. I am even dating a sweet girl who respects my goals and health status. I am so very much liking this…

Goals for November

Stick to my perfect routine and continue on dreaming.
Continue to learn and apply deep breathing techniques.
Go for a walk (more runs than walks, if I have the energy) every single day, in the morning.
Continue to learn inverted pull ups and handstands.
Go to bed before 10:30pm.
Another 2 rounds of the Cutler’s protocol (will probably lower the dose).
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now).
Rent out my free unit.
Close the sale of RP#4.
Close on 2 properties (I didn’t talk about this because I am not sure I will be able to close 😉 ).
Be happy.

Enjoy life guys!

Ben

Reports,

Net worth update: September 2018 (412,036.27€)

My current net worth is €412,036.27 (61.50% of my first goal – €670K).

I must admit I can already smell great times coming.

I can actually see the path to financial independence before my eyes… it is certainly a matter of execution, if this continues like so.

Let’s break this down:

As I didn’t sell RP#4, we should see a spike in my net worth in the next months. After the property is renovated, it will easily be appraised at 300k.
If I continue to save at the same rate, until April 2020 (see why this date here), I should hit my “perfect” number of 700k in net worth.
Of course that savings alone won’t do it, but I have enough financial capability for a couple real estate deals that should bring in the rest of the money.
We’re excited at my company. The major shareholder predicts to start buying real estate and start doing “own” transactions (this will be a game changer).
All this said, the idea is to come to April 2020 with a truly passive income of €1000 (for which I will need 3k before takes). And this will be hard…

Why will it be hard to it €1,000 of truly passive income by April 2020?

You may actually be asking yourself… whether a net worth of 700k will generate that. It it probably does – we’re talking 5% (to yield 3k, thus 1k net), no big deal.

But in my case, my net worth is very inflated with my estate… and I am only OK with this because I can generate huge returns on those properties.

Plus, a lot of those 700k don’t even belong to revenue-producing assets. Yet, realistically, I could hit say 2k of truly passive income or 3k of “passive income” by then.

While this is good, it doesn’t meet my mark. And I am a mark meeter, where that exists or not. 🙂

Now, to hit this mark, I will need to raise money for the stock market or higher truly passive property managers. I am inclined to go towards the stock market, but the thing is that the market is highly inflated now and I am afraid to buy any stocks (other than weed, when the hype is over).

So I am stuck. On one hand, it doesn’t make sense to buy (much) more real estate because of exposure and taxes. On the other hand, the stock market may crash. Of course, I have a third option: hold onto cash. But that is not an option when I am looking to get passive income for my retirement. I actually put it very nicely in the last income report.

I will think about this until the end of the year. If you have any thoughts, please let me know in the comments…

Life today

You would not imagine what kind of stuff I go through by looking to me. I actually look healthier (much healthier than my biz partner, who is healthy as fuck).

My real estate passion definitely came back. After so much time having motivation at the bottom, I suddenly desired to rent out my own properties and buy more pieces of real estate.

As far as my health, I am still spending LOTS of cash. The other day I spent about €1000. In one day.

This is because of a few reasons:

I am dealing with extreme chemical sensitivity, so I need to filter out my home’s water, etc. My filter came out at €400. No kidding.
So basically I need to get away from all chemicals. Plus, the diet is expensive as I need to eat super clean and stuff.
I am also purifying my air, not just my water. So I bought various plants and essential oils to have at home. I breathe super clean now (which is the minimum I can do, given that my body is clogged up 100% inside). I need to buy a mechanical air filter eventually, for now plants will do.
I am officially chelating heavy metals, with the Andy Cutler’s protocol, which forces you to take a capsule of whatever chelator you’re using (I am tripping on ALA these days) every 3 hours. That is day and night. The protocol per se is not expensive. But keep in mind $500 worth of supplements is what it takes for Ben (only 10% of that is due to Cutler’s protocol).
Along with heavy meal chelation, I am 1) detoxing my body with binders, sauna and cleanses – probably try to raise Glutathion eventually, 2) doing regular low-key exercise to keep things moving, including rebounding which moves my lymphatic system, 3) restoring the gut balance with probiotics and a few other things. Soon, I will have to address infections pretty aggressively (just want to move up with chelation a bit more).

As I’ve been saying, I am a man on a mission…

I am a man trying to get his health together, first of all.

Then, I am a man trying to get to his early retirement. By April 2020 I want to have €1.000/mo secured for life. This is not easy, especially given that there is no clear option between real estate and the stock market.

Rental income

RP#1 is still my Primary Property (PP).

The rental income in September was €1,445, but I collected an extra €275. First, I rented out one of the vacant units, for €300. This will raise rental income to €1.745 from next month onwards. This will actually be net, because I have enough expenses to write off against this income.

The reason why I collected another €275 is because I was actually able to rent out the other unit I had vacant, but the tenants actually ended up walking away (thus losing the security deposit). During October, I will make my best to rent out the other unit I have. In fact, I hope to get over €2,000 in rental income due to that lease. This means that with RP#4 fully rented out, I will be close to €5,000 within 2018.

Real Estate Company

The Real Estate business is going great! I will comment more on it next month.

Online income

My online income in August was about €300, which is very good given the last months…

Goals for September

Stick to my perfect routine and continue on dreaming. DONE.
Go for a walk (or even a run if I have the energy) every single day, in the morning. DONE.
Start learning inverted pull ups and handstands. DONE. But this will take 6 months, if not more.
Go to bed at 10pm every day and NOT at 10:30 as I’ve been doing. This should allow me to wake up just before 6am, which would be pretty cool! FAIL. 10.30 is still the mark.
Start new treatment and get some results. DONE. Heavy metal chelation. I need 3 months on this to assess results.
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now). DONE.
Structure the company for the rest of the year and write 5 guest posts (aggressive, I know).
Rent out both units that are yet to be leased. PARTIALLY DONE. Well I actually did it, but the tenants walked away.
Be happy. DONE. What a happy dude Ben was this month. 😉

Goals for October

Stick to my perfect routine and continue on dreaming.
Learn deep breathing techniques (check out Wim Hof).
Go for a walk (more runs than walks, if I have the energy) every single day, in the morning.
Continue to learn inverted pull ups and handstands.
Go to bed before 10:30pm.
Another 4/5 rounds of the Cutler’s protocol.
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now).
Help my company to close 4 contracts.
Rent out my free unit.
Close on 2 properties (I didn’t talk about this because I am not sure I will be able to close 😉 ).
Be happy.

Enjoy life guys!

Ben

Reports,

Net worth update: August 2018 (406,947.09€)

My current net worth is €409,499.44 (61.12% of my first goal – €670K).

Times are changing…

Ben is slowly coming back to the frugal dude who got mad over 20 bucks…

My real estate passion is slowly coming back, despite my health is at its rock bottom.

I am still spending tons of money in supplements and therapies and stuff, but I am becoming more aware of what works (or does anything for me), and selectively spend my money there. All in all, I learned that the best things are not the most expensive ones! And I was happy about it. 😉

Just like I said last month, I am a man on a mission…

April 2020

This is the date when I will lose the contracts that I currently have settled. This means that I should work on setting up a stream that yields at least $1.000 per month, 100% passively and 100% reliably. May sound odd to you, but this is how much I need to live a good life now. Note though that this should be on top of my real estate and whatever else I have (which means, like I said last month), that I should have €3000 net coming in every single month without me having to do anything for it.

The bad news is that I am pretty much at ground 0.

The good news is that I think I will make it. In fact, at a 8% yield on the stock market, this means that I need to raise about $120.000 (considering 20% tax on the dividends).

Building this side income through dividend stocks is very reasonable, given my current (very low) exposure to it. On the other hand, it is not a good time to invest in the stock market (in my humble opinion) because I can smell a mother*ing crash! Uhhhh.

In fact, as of late 2018, the only place where I don’t mind putting my money into, on a consistent basis, is real estate in markets that are not overvalued (I am lucky to be part of a company that knows which markets are overvalued and which are not).

But I don’t want to build this stream from real estate, for several reasons. 1) its too much exposure and rental laws may change, does leaving me to the mercy of the government. 2) it actually doesn’t make more sense to increase my rental income, from a tax perspective, unless I make A TON of money on top of what I make.

Very tough position to be in… more about this plan late on (probably on a separate post!).

Coming back to August 2018…

Financially, things are going smoothly even though I spent tons of money on my health and I am far from having a secure income stream until I reach retirement. This is part of the reason I want to speed up the process!

Rental property #4

I recently rejected a €100.000 offer on Rental Property #4, which would put €50,000+ on my pocket in a pair of months. Believe it or not, I am renovating it fully now, and I’ve got a total loan of €160.000. Lots of money, yes, but the property is estimated to work (before the bank, not before my eyes) €440.000! But forget about that for a second…

This property will yield, at the very least, €2.500 per month, and my mortgage is about €750. Also, because I am renovating the property, I can write off the renovation expenses against the rental income, so that will be net for at least 4-5 years. We are talking €150.000 in 5 years…

Do you know realize why I rejected an offer that would put €50.000+ in my pocket overnight? There is more than instant money. And more than that, I have already made that money when I bought the property and secured a ridiculously cheap renovation contact for it.

Rental property #5

I have this property listed for a while now. I knew from the get go it would be hard to sell it quickly, but I was counting it on selling it in 6 months, at most. It has been almost 6 months and I’ve got exactly 0 offers, which is kinda annoying… I need to sell this property urgently, because that cash is preventing me from doing more quick deals. Renovating the property and leasing it out is not an option because we’re looking at 8% yields or something. This is not good in my book!

Plus, I can’t get my head around sitting on €100,000 in cash until the end of the year. That will allow me to properly plan a stock market assault…

Health status

As I have been saying, I have been able to identify the direction I want to follow as far as my health, and I will start executing phase 2 next month. Wish me luck…

I will tell you guys all about this next month, when I should have completed an entire month of treatment.

Rental income

RP#1 is still my Primary Property (PP).

The rental income in August was again €1,445. The thing is that I have no mood to properly look for tenants and rent my homes out. Next month, the story will be the same, but I am confident about October because I slowly seem to be motivated enough again for the real estate game. From October onwards, I expect to have a total rental income of €2,000+.

This means that, with RP#4, I could be close to €5,000 by the end of the year, which was the goal in January.

Real Estate Company

The Real Estate business I am involved with is growing and the brand is being slowly spread and consolidated. The fact that our biggest freelancing clients shut down forced us to go after the market ourselves, so we will push the online biz more than ever. In particular, we will hire some people.

This really means that we need to get to 10.000 subscribers by the end of the first quarter of 2019. We’re still considering how much money we’ll put into this task and what strategy we’ll follow. Having the offline business feeding the online growth is something we said we wouldn’t do, but this may actually be a possibility from now on…

Online income

My online income in August was about €100, which is pretty much what I do 100% passive. This means no money.

You want to support my blog in any way (even by simply donating a few bucks)? Please let me know in the comments down below.

Goals for August

Stick to my perfect routine and continue on dreaming. SEMI DONE. Although I did it, I can’t seem to visualize property anymore. Can’t seem to concentrate well enough. I need to change this.
Go for a walk (or even a run if I have the energy) every single day, in the morning. DONE! Even on Sundays…
Start learning inverted pull ups and handstands. I would be extremely happy if I could do both until the end of the year… SEMI DONE. I started to, that is a fact.
Go to bed at 10pm every day and NOT at 10:30 as I’ve been doing. This should allow me to wake up just before 6am, which would be pretty cool! FAIL. 10.30 is still the mark.
Get a freaking rebounder (for €100 or less) and a true water filter (like Big berkey – which is like €250 more expenses coming!). SEMI DONE. I got the rebounder (for €30, savvy Ben is savvy) and it seems to do the trick. As far as a true water filter, I am yet to get one…
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now). SEMI DONE. I am still late and leaving you angry at me, sorry!
Follow the nofap protocol aggressively (for health reasons, not social phobia or anything like that). FAIL. Couldn’t help myself.
Structure the company for the rest of the year and write 5 guest posts (aggressive, I know). FAIL. Entrepreneurs are freaking heroes. I am not one yet.
Be happy. SEMI DONE. I certainly had ups this month! 🙂

Goals for September

Stick to my perfect routine and continue on dreaming.
Go for a walk (or even a run if I have the energy) every single day, in the morning.
Start learning inverted pull ups and handstands.
Go to bed at 10pm every day and NOT at 10:30 as I’ve been doing. This should allow me to wake up just before 6am, which would be pretty cool! FAIL. 10.30 is still the mark.
Start new treatment and get some results.
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now).
Structure the company for the rest of the year and write 5 guest posts (aggressive, I know).
Rent out both units that are yet to be leased.
Be happy.

Enjoy life guys!

Ben

Reports,

Net worth update: July 2018 (406,947.09€)

My current net worth is €406,947.09 (60.74% of my first goal – €670K).

It is surprising how I have been managing to keep growing my net worth even by spending tons of money every month. That behavior of Ben, who micromanaged 5 bucks on a monthly basis, is now gone. I am spending tons of money in therapies and what not, for the sake of my health.

At the same time, I was able to ramp up my monthly income, by securing some contracts, but they will end by Abril 2020. This means that my income will take a hit then, if I don’t secure any other contract (via my company or as Ben myself), so I’ve set this new goal: by Abril 2020 I should have €3000 net coming in every single month without me having to do anything for it.

The cool thing is that I think I will meet this goal. More to come on a separate post. Onto this month now…

The conclusion is kinda obvious: another great month. You may notice that this is solely due to the acquisition of a new property, which basically brings in €50,000 to my net worth. I’ve had this discussion before: “Ben, you can’t do that, because that is all artificial, you can only update the books when you sell the property”. The key thing is that I’ve got an offer on this property, right after I bought it. And the offer was €100,000… so that is what I am keeping in the books for now.

If the deal goes through (I am keeping my fingers crossed), this will represent a lot of liquidity. I don’t want to cash out on the other properties, because I live myself in RP#1 (which should actually be called PP1) and I don’t plan to move soon, and the other properties are clearly long holds (expect for RP#5, which I also have in the market).

If the deal goes through I hope to be sitting on €100,000 in cash until the end of the year. That will be a heck of an accomplishment, and a heck of a security in my eyes. Hopefully, we’ll see the interest account rise over the next months…

As far as my health, things have been retracting lately. I will take some time off again and recharge. As I said last month, I have actually been able to spot the direction I want to follow, and I am confidant that I will win eventually!

My FOCUS (Follow One Course Until Success) is still the same:

Rebuild my health. Things are making more sense as I go, and I’ve also been able to identify things that need to be fixed in my body as well as new treatments. Remember me telling last month I was about to get tested? Yes, heavy metals hello! I am so God damn intoxicated with Mercury and Lead the guys at the lab didn’t believe it. I know what I will do to get over this, because I will let the body take his time. I hope that by April 2020 (and you know why…) I am at 100% of near that.
Grow my company so that I can live off of it. I estimated I can live entirely off of my company by April 2020. This is not a slam dunk, though. We have been facing a lot of legal issues that are still not clear, and even though we are structuring the company in a way that we will all passively live off of it, this may be a big barrier. I think that only the future will tell whether we will be able to accomplish this without problems. Yet, even if we face some challenges, we will certainly be able to profit out of the monster we are building. We just need a little bit more of asset protection going forward. 🙂

Health status

I’ve been meeting tons of people with similar symptoms to mine. Some call it chronic fatigue syndrome, antibiotic poisoning (or floxies) due to fluoroquinolone toxicity (which is probably part of my problem as well), adrenal fatigue, and many other names.

Recently I decided to test myself against toxic metals. My symptoms don’t make any sense. I’ve always been SUPER healthy until I got sick, and nobody can trace back my symptoms to any known pattern (called “disease” by western medicine). So toxic metals could be a problem.

And they are.

I tested positive for mercury, lead, arsenic and cadmium toxicity. Now, I didn’t simply “tested positive”, my levels of these metals are THROUGH the f* roof.

There are two important things to say:

I was right in thinking that I had skyrocketing levels of mercury in my body, together with chronic defect detox pathways. As I said last month, my body has been accumulating toxins like no one’s business over the last 4-5 years like crazy, and they decided to show up altogether.
I will have to change a lot of things in my diet and lifestyle over the next times (probably years…), including try a low Thiol diet (and keep at it if I succeed) and start the ACC protocol (follow the same link, you’ll get there). I’ve been researching about heavy metal detox, and ACC seems to be the safest method there is, so I will give this one a shot, starting in September (although the low Thiol test is to be done in August.

Now I finally have a serious diagnose to go after. And I will nail it, I am sure!

I keep concluding the same things as I go through this journey:

When you’re sick and trying to heal, you should give your body some time.
If you are tired, and you need to rest. Your body heals when rested (in the parasympathetic mode) and sleeping.
Anything that takes you from the present moment to the future or the past will only play against yourself;
If you forget about your sickness you’ll heal faster; Don’t look for symptoms, you’ll be able to see them crystal clear (which is not good).
If you look for red, you’ll see red everywhere. Try to shift your thoughts to other things other than your symptoms and how you feel;
That said, always listen to your body. We’re all different. What works for me doesn’t work for you and the other way around. Your body is able to tell you what it wants, so pay attention (without overdoing it).

Rental income

RP#1 is still my Primary Property (PP).

The rental income in July was, … take a deep breath … , €1,445. Guess what, I’ve got two units vacant, meaning €550 on the tame every single month. This is even with a property manager in the ground…. and no, it is not the market that is cool, they are being reckless (just like I was for two months). I hope I have better news next month!

With my mortgage rates re-negotiated, the next step is to hit €2,000/mo in rents, and I will clearly focus on that this month.

As I presented RP#4, the game changer, I am confidant that I am building a monster portfolio…

Real Estate Company

My Real Estate business is still growing nicely, and I feel blessed for the great opportunities and partners I have.

Sadly, my biggest client broke the news on me that they are shutting down for business by the end of the year. I can either take this as a huge loss or I can see the upside and grow. We are starting to push the online side of the business and this may be our opener.

If we want to go after the online market, we need to up our subscriber list to 10.000 subscribers until March 2019. This is not an easy job (unless we throw a lot of money at it, which we do not want to do). The key thing to make this happen is to establish partnerships and gain visibility. But this is incredibly hard (or time-consuming). We will keep growing our client base as aggressively as possible.

Our offline model is well defined by now.

Online income

My online income in July was about €400. This was one of the best months ever, in that regard.

I am still losing money with the blog, but making money with it is definitely not the main goal, so I don’t really care. I will focus more on this subject later on, I am not overly concerned about this right now. Let the blog gain more authority + once I have the time to write a few posts a month things will change.

You want to support my blog in any way (even by simply donating a few bucks)? Please let me know in the comments down below.

Goals for July

Stick to my perfect routine and continue on dreaming. KINDA DONE. I need to visualize for longer and be way more present. Same with meditation.
Go for a walk every single day, in the morning. DONE. I also learned to do headstands for more than 1 minute and starting with my feet on the ground.
Go to bed at 10pm every day and NOT at 10:30 as I’ve been doing. FAILED! I could keep it at 10.30pm, but not 10pm… I will fix this!
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now). DONE.
Follow the nofap protocol aggressively (for health reasons, not social phobia or anything like that). FAILED! No excuses for August!
Close on the new rental property and close 2-4 deals in the company. DONE! Really happy about this.
Be happy. FAILED! I was happy for 2-3 days, but the vast majority of the month I was hit by what I now know to be metal redistribution. It was tough and I experienced a LOT of fear. Things will get better, I know that. 🙂

Goals for August

Stick to my perfect routine and continue on dreaming.
Go for a walk (or even a run if I have the energy) every single day, in the morning.
Start learning inverted pull ups and handstands. I would be extremely happy if I could do both until the end of the year…
Go to bed at 10pm every day and NOT at 10:30 as I’ve been doing. This should allow me to wake up just before 6am, which would be pretty cool!
Get a freaking rebounder (for €100 or less) and a true water filter (like Big berkey – which is like €250 more expenses coming!).
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now).
Follow the nofap protocol aggressively (for health reasons, not social phobia or anything like that).
Structure the company for the rest of the year and write 5 guest posts (aggressive, I know).
Be happy.

Enjoy life guys!

Ben

Reports,

Net worth update: June 2018 (351,715.75€)

My current net worth is €351,715.75 (52.50% of my first goal – €670K).

Finally, I surpassed the 50% mark of my first goal! This year is finally starting to shape up nicely!

This month was good because of two reasons: I’ve got a $25k bonus and my company shares have gone up. But this month has also been great because prospects are AWESOME. I actually think I will add another 100k to my net-worth until the end of the year. I will obviously keep you posted.

As I report below, I am pretty much the same as far as my health, but finances have been up. I have actually been able to spot the direction I want to follow, and I think that I did find the path to victory!

My FOCUS (Follow One Course Until Success) is still the same:

Rebuild my health. Things are making more sense as I go, and I’ve also been able to identify things that need to be fixed in my body as well as new treatments that I will soon test.
Grow my company so that I can live off of it. I estimate I can live entirely off of my company in 24 months starting from now. But as you will learn in this post and over the next 3 months, we are structuring the company in a way that we will all passively live off of it. This plan ain’t no joke! Until the end of the year, I hope my company starts to buy its own real estate and thus my shares will become a lot more valuable.

Health status

Chronic fatigue, antibiotic poisoning (I actually found out that we are called floxies, a name for fluoroquinolone toxicity suffers), adrenal fatigue, toxic metal poisoning, you name it.

If you want to know, I think that what I really have is skyrocketing levels of mercury in my body, together with chronic defect detox pathways. My body has been accumulating toxins over the last 4-5 years like crazy, and I am now dealing with it all at once.

I’ve been making small progresses here and there, but I am looking at it on a 2-year horizon. That is when I should have things fixed. Right now, I burn through €500 a month just on supplements. As you can imagine, that is the biggest chunk of my expenses right now… Needless to say that health should always be our no. 1 investment, and therefore I am relaxed about it, as long as I have the current sources of income.

Overall, I am still way too dizzy and I try to rest as much as possible (sorry for not feeding the blog as often as you guys deserve). You’ll notice I will get better as there are more articles on the blog. 😉

I am still pretty much drawing the same conclusions about health…

When you’re sick and trying to heal, you should give your body some time.
Anything that takes you from the present moment to the future will only play against yourself;
If you forget about your sickness you’ll heal faster; Don’t look for symptoms, you’ll be able to see them crystal clear (which is not good).
If you look for red, you’ll see red everywhere. Try to shift your thoughts to other things other than your symptoms and how you feel;
That said, always listen to your body. We’re all different. What works for me doesn’t work for you and the other way around. Your body is able to tell you what it wants, so pay attention (without overdoing it).

Rental income

RP#1 is still my Primary Property (PP).

The rental income in June was, again, €1,445. I am about €550 away from my portfolio’s potential and this is simply because I am being reckless. If I had all my units rented out I’d be making €2,000. Hopefully I will be able to do that next month.

Like I said last month, I was indeed able to renegotiate the terms of my fixed-rate mortgages to 3.85%! This is great news because it will save me about €100 per month in interest. The next step is to hit €2,000/mo in rents, and I will clearly focus on that this month.

Like I also said last month, I was able to secure a new real estate deal which will take things to a whole new level. I am also going deep into debt, but I honestly believe this will be a game changer. I will tell you all about this deal next month, when I hope to have it closed!

Real Estate Company

My Real Estate business is growing a lot, this is great news. I am blessed by having so many great clients and opportunities. But above all, my partners: they are really pushing the business further and I think my share of the company will be appraised at 100k.

We have tons of plans for the company. We’re looking for real estate investors who want to invest passively and we’re putting together a system that allows anyone to track their turn-key properties in Portugal. We believe this will be HUGE so stay tuned, I will keep you posted on this.

We hope to scale our business by a 10x fold in the next 12-24 months. For now, the keep thing is to keep growing our client base, maintaining the revenue and grow our capital reserves in order to buy rental properties to the company. The idea is to acquire a decent-sized portfolio in the company (probably all cash) and then capitalize on that to increase the profits, by selling our own real estate to investors. We absorb the risk, get things going in terms of rents and what not and we cash out by liquidating the properties (and repeating the model).

A lot more to come on my company soon!

Online income

My online income in June was about €200. I am still losing money with the blog, but making money with it is definitely not the main goal, so I don’t really care. SEO is actually going good (I increased the no. of keywords I rank for) but I can see a big drop coming (as the authority has been decreasing as well). I will focus more on the blog as time goes by. If you’re a blogger and you’re interested in writing for me, shoot me an email!

You want to support my blog in any way (even by simply donating a few bucks)? Please let me know in the comments down below.

Goals for July

Stick to my perfect routine and continue on dreaming. This has been awesome for me.
Go for a walk every single day, in the morning. I learned to do a handstand (with my head on the ground), the next goal is to be able to hold it for more than 1 minute.
Go to bed at 10pm every day and NOT at 10:30 as I’ve been doing. This should allow me to wake up just before 6am, which would be pretty cool!
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now).
Follow the nofap protocol aggressively (for health reasons, not social phobia or anything like that).
Close on the new rental property and close 2-4 deals in the company.
Be happy.

Enjoy life guys!

Ben

Reports,

Net worth update: February 2018 (294,742.08€)

My current net worth is €294,742.08 (43.99% of my first goal – €670K).

Didn’t really go down, but going sideways ain’t good either!

This has been such a crazy and unique year, that I’ve been finding it hard to update the blog at all… You guys excuse me for that!

This year, I focus on my health, on my company and on growing my net worth. I really want to escalate my real estate portfolio to a huge one. However, my company takes all my time and since I am still struggling with my health, it has been quite tough to be honest.

Health status and state of mind

My health isn’t right yet. I have been poisened by antibiotics, which caused serious adrenal fatigue and a bunch of other problems. I feel this is very unfair because I’d be nailing it right now.

At the same time, I know my life is a blessing, and so I thank God for it on a daily basis.

I am quite OK with the growth rate of my net worth, but now my mind shifted to my company. We’re working extremely hard to bring it up.

This is way I have no time for From Cents To Retirement anymore, and given that I make no doe, I may consider selling the blog or put this project off for a big while. 🙁

I want to focus on my health for now. Whenever I am OK, I hustle for my company, because my partners deserve that. I do hope I can reverse my illness in 2018, and to be honest, I think I have a very good shot at it! Either way, I will live life by the day and try to be as happy as I can.

Rental income

RP#1 is still my Primary Property (PP).

The rental income in February was €1,700. I am not kidding around no more… This is real money and I can finally say that I have a real Real estate business going on. Yes, my costs are going through the roof as well (about €650/mo) but I will now be able to grow much larger without actually increasing these costs further (expect for mortages, that is).

Next month, I will stay at €1,700, even though I will have one free unit. I won’t be able to rent it out as I will need to make some adjustments including painting it entirely – these were probably the worst tenants I had up until know. I am just glad they will be paying for the maintenance works.

During 2018, I actually now think I will hit €5000/mo because of a few new investments I’ve been making.

Online income

My online income in February was, not surprisingly, very low. I am working on my SEO and I do hope this turns out to be good, but the reality is, right now, I make very little money, and I only do that from my book and affiliate links. Better SEO just became a priority now.

Actually, regarding start displaying ads, I am probably changing my mind in the near future. I must monetize somehow and if the book isn’t enough, I will have to go with other channels. Still, I won’t do anything aggressive. I am here for the long haul.

If you want to have instant cash do NOT replicate my strategy; this one is for the long haul although I started to realize that I may actually terminate this project.

My Real Estate business

My Real Estate business is still growing. This year, I will try to make about €100,000 and cash out a part of that in dividends and mostly buy real estate through the company.

Goals for February

Stick to my perfect routine. DONE!
Go for a walk every single day. DONE!
Take 1 week 100% off (and do this for the next 6 months!) FAIL.
Go to bed before 10.30pm every day (I will actually try 9:45 to create a safety buffer). ALMOST DONE!
Learn about bio-identical hormone modulation and start doing that. FAIL.
Follow the nofap protocol aggressively (for health reasons, not social phobia or anything like that). YES SIR!
Be happy. DONE!

Goals for March

Stick to my perfect routine.
Go for a walk every single day.
Go to bed before 10pm every day (I will actually try 9:45 to create a safety buffer).
Fucking grow my company.
Rent out my free unit.
Post at least once on this blog (sorry guys can’t do more right now).
Follow the nofap protocol aggressively (for health reasons, not social phobia or anything like that).
Be happy.

Enjoy life guys!

Ben

Reports,

Net worth update: January 2018 (294,927.20€)

My current net worth is €294,927.20 (44.01% of my first goal – €670K).

The first month of 2018.

Shit, time flies. Even when you’re not having fun…

2017 was a unique year in my life, and 2018 is the turnaround year for me! In 2017 I was dizzy for the most part, struggled hard with CFS, but managed to grow my portfolio like never before!

This year, I focus on my health, on my company and on growing my net worth. I really want to escalate my real estate portfolio to a huge one.

My state of mind

I am quite OK with the growth rate of my net worth, but now my mind shifted to my company. We’re working hard to bring it up. In fact, I have no time for this blog, and given that the amount of money I make with it is very low, I may discontinue this project… 🙁

At the same time, I understood that my state of mind and type A personality has been the root cause of my adrenal fatigue.

I want to focus on my health above all and have enough energy to focus on my projects, including my company and my career. I do hope that 2018 will be the best year of my life, the year in which I reverse my illness! I promise to work hard and do my best towards that goal.

Rental income

RP#1 is still my Primary Property (PP).

The rental income in January was (unexpectedly) €1,225. I’ve been saying it should have been close to €2,000, but the renovation works in RP#3 took way longer than I expected. Also, as I sold RP#4, which means €200 less in the total rental income.

Next month, I know I will hit €1,700, and I will have another unit to rent out. Ideally, the portfolio as it is, should yield €2,000 every month.

During 2018, I expect to hit €3,500/mo at some point and I am positive I will do that.

Online income

My online income in January was low. As I said before, I either increment my SEO quality badly or it will be difficult to reach an amount that makes it a real business (at the very least €15,000/yr). Because I have very limited time to the blog, I don’t think it will grow in the next year.

As I also said before, I don’t think that I can make a lot of money on my blog if I don’t push it or I start displaying ads, which is something I am not particularly keen on doing. The strategy to my blog will definitely have to be carefully planned, but for now, I am not desperate to make money with it, so I will just stick to the original plan (no ads, no monetization, focus on growing the blog organically as much as possible).

If you want to have instant cash do NOT replicate my strategy; this one is for the long haul although I started to realize that I may actually terminate this project.

My Real Estate business

My Real Estate business is still growing. This year, I will try to make about €100,000 and cash out a part of that in dividends and mostly buy real estate through the company.

Goals for January

Stick to my perfect routine (I will write a post on this on January 8th). ALMOST DONE. Made some progress but I am still far from having perfect execution.
Finish my second book. DONE! I am excited about this one.
Take 1 week 100% off (and do this for the next 6 months!). FAIL. However, I understood how this is impacting my recovery and I will change gears soon.
Write 8 posts on the blog. DONE… but probably the last month I did so.
Write at least 1 guest post. DONE… but probably the last month I did so.
Take at least 7 cold showers. FAIL. One is too cold. Two I fear this may tax my adrenals too much.
Go to bed before 10.30pm every day (I will actually try 9:45 to create a safety buffer). FAIL. Argghhh, I regret this one. I am now at 11pm, but I will follow this in the next month for sure.
Follow the nofap protocol aggressively (for health reasons, not social phobia or anything like that). DONE! I ejaculated twice.
Increase my page authority beyond 50. FAIL. And honestly I don’t know what is going on…

Goals for February

Stick to my perfect routine.
Go for a walk every single day.
Take 1 week 100% off (and do this for the next 6 months!)
Go to bed before 10.30pm every day (I will actually try 9:45 to create a safety buffer).
Learn about bio-identical hormone modulation and start doing that.
Follow the nofap protocol aggressively (for health reasons, not social phobia or anything like that).
Be happy.

Enjoy life guys!

Ben

Blog,

Donate Button – supporting From Cents To Retirement

Hi guys,

If you have been following my online income reports you know that:

This blog doesn’t make much money, especially if we consider the amount of time I spend with it.
I don’t consider using ads because I want to keep it clean and turn it into something big.
It is true that some many readers that come to me through From Cents To Retirement but I could get clients from other sources and that doesn’t really justify the incredible amount of time I spend writing content.

The bottom line is that From cents to retirement is still a one guy show and I do everything from content creation to social media. I was asked many times to write a book, and I did. Many readers eventually became clients. I do get money from affiliate links and sponsored posts if they actually provide value.

But does all this justify the amount of time I put on the blog? The reality is I really don’t earn much from the blog (especially now that I have even more costs with a dedicated server and a Mailchimp paid account) so you know by now that this blog is way more of a labor of love than anything else…

Dude, you still make more money than 70% of the bloggers out there…

Financially wise, I’d actually be much better off if I invested this time into consulting, writing books or, more effectively, at my real estate company.

Since the beginning, my focus has always been entirely on content creation as opposed to monetization, and I am actually quite proud of that. I didn’t want the blog to be a cash machine but rather become something so big that it would attract people from all over the world. My intention was always to share knowledge and inspire people. I also wanted to become the number 1 reference for early retirement in Europe, at the same time I compared thing with the US and Canada, as I know both countries fairly well.

I think I have slowly met those goals. The blog is still growing (after all it is less than 2 years old yet!) and I am here for the long haul. My businesses, my job and even my CFS won’t prevent me from writing awesome content because I am one committed cookie and committed cookies go wherever it takes to deliver.

However, I still have to think financially. This can’t just be my hobby, I should have some return on my time. I won’t make From Cents to Retirement a selling machine, just like many blogs are becoming, but just to put this into perspective, if this was a business I couldn’t live off of it.

How hard is it to maintain a blog?

I can tell you this:

If this was my only job, it would be “easy”. Yet, I’d starve to death.

I can also tell you this:

There were many posts that I wrote with a huge sacrifice, in 2017, as I delt with permanent dizziness. CFS is a monster and I need to deal with it every single day. I can tell you that I’ve been under big stress sometimes, just because I had to deliver. I wanted to guys to have regular posts and learn as much as possible. Posts like “flipping houses with no money“, “geographic arbitrage“, “mastering lines of credit” or “investing in small towns vs big towns” are good examples of posts that took me hours to write, as they average 2400 words! Plus I did a lot of research to write these, and I bought infographics at $10/piece from Fiverr. All of this to please my readers and grow my blog.

I do feel like I put in a lot of effort into producing high-quality content for readers. And sometimes it is not easy…

Sadly, I can’t do this full time because I haven’t retired yet. I do also need to eat and grow my portfolio so I do need to make money. I considered a paid subscription service, but I would not have the time to produce high-quality newsletters at the same time I wrote big, informative posts on From Cents To Retirement. One would end up being dismissed.

The idea

Based on what I said above, I want to have a better return on my time. I also want to continue delivering great content and growing the blog. So I came up with the idea of a donate button, which gives everyone the chance to contribute as much as they can and want. I will be totally open about the donations, which I will report on my Online income reports and I will guarantee that the first $100/mo will be given back to the From Cents To Retirement community in the form of infographics, sponsored Facebook ads (which will bring more people -> more money -> better and better content -> happiness), etc. Most likely I will actually spend the donations entirely, mostly on Facebook ads, to grow the blog.

I feel that this can be a temporary idea until the blog grows to the point of making enough money. Enough money would mean covering the fixed expenses of the blog, hiring a VA full time to manage social media, editing posts, etc and put some money on my pocket every month (say $500). At this point, I’d fell it is worth to invest so much time into the blog.

Any donation you want to make is welcomed – even $1 is good! If you consider donating more than $1, please break it down into multiples of $12 and donate monthly… I’d actually get $1/mo than $12 right away. This would help me predict donations much better and plan accordingly as to hire a VA and spend money on infographics, etc.

Either way, don’t feel pressured to donate. Although I feel that some donations would come in handy now, I will continue producing the same content regardless of how much I get!

Toodles!

Ben

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