The Investor Diary Entry #14: February 14, 2023
In December 2022, my wife and I were talking around our morning coffee as we usually do. We were talking about how the stock investing experience going, and now we would like to get into real estate investments.
I don’t know what brought the subject, but suddenly she asked what was the name of the game that the guy who wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad created. I told her that I read the book, but I do not recall him mentioning the game. Then we started searching each on his/her mobile, until one of us found it. It was called the Cashflow game.
I asked my wife what is the Cashflow game. She said it is a game that the author created to teach people how to invest, but that she didn’t know anymore details about it.
The Investor’s Attitude
Getting into investment is not about learning certain skills of a profession. Investment is something that one lives. It is a mindset, an attitude, and a holistic lifestyle.
Yes, if you want to excel at anything, you will need to believe in it and live it as a lifestyle, and not just a set of tasks and activities to get the job done. Yet, any other job, or at least most jobs, can be accomplished by following certain steps and learning certain techniques, but not investing.
In my opinion you cannot learn investment. One needs to create a new person from within that lives investment. One needs to create a whole environment that supports living as an investor.
Many books and articles talk about the mindset. The investor’s mindset, the positive mindset, the growth mindset…etc. Investment is not just a mindset. Investment is a life that one chooses to live.
Choosing to live a certain way and knowing how to live in that way are two different things.
My Daily Routine
I wanted to surround myself with investment; therefore, I created an investment routine that I will conduct on daily basis; either whole or part of the designed routine.
The routine was to read news, analyze stocks; whether they were on my research watchlist, something totally new but I want to research before the watchlist, or my current portfolio. Sometimes I try to find new industries that have a growth future.
In my stock analysis, I read statements, I look at analysts figures, I read news about the particular stock that I am researching, and I come up with a price that I am willing to pay for that stock. I do all of this through a subscription software that I am part of.
Within the software, there is also a community, but I am not participating a lot, which I should.
I have a list of books that I asked an investor to advise, and told him to imagine that you are teaching in an investment faculty, what would be the books for the first semester curriculum. He gave me my first semester books, and once I finish them, I will ask him for the books for the second semester.
The Final Piece
The whole idea is to put myself, not only mindset, day in and day out into the investor’s life. Therefore, that day when my wife mentioned the Cashflow game, we ordered it. few weeks down the line the game arrived.
My wife and I, we both believe in and planning on living off passive income. We distributed roles and responsibilities based on skills and passion. She is going to take care of our real estate and other small venture ideas, and I handle the stocks, online opportunities; in addition to other areas that have an opportunity to develop and become an added revenue stream.
It took us some time before we were able to open the game. Once we did, we were hooked. We are not playing the game to win, we are playing the game to learn how to live the investor’s life. Each card we draw, we study, and think of the best options to deal with the presented opportunity.
After one week of playing Cashflow, we decided that we want to start implementing this into our lives. A side note to those who are familiar with the game; the game that we received is Cashflow, it is not Cashflow 101 nor 102, just Cashflow.
I watched different YouTube videos of reviewers who preferred the older versions of 101 and 102, for the time being we are going to deal with the game that we have at hand, maybe in the future we will see what those older versions are, but reading about them they for sure seem more interesting than the version that we bought which is supposed to be the more advanced one.
The Personal Financial Statements
We are both business graduates my wife and I, but somehow life makes us drift away from what we learn, and we forget to apply what we learn. We hold it either as knowledge, or something that we use only at work.
The Cashflow game, includes an income statement and a balance sheet, that is very practical and extremely simple. we played the game for one week and then we decided to build our own financial statements. statements that has our actual financial figures. Just seeing those numbers in front of us, made our minds start planning how to improve this figure, and how to make better use of those funds…etc.
That was the day before yesterday. On the same night that we built our financial statements, and last night, we would put our plan for ventures and the financial statements and begin to plan moves and tasks. We register them and each starts to implement those tasks.
We are building this evening habit, which we find much more entertaining than watching a movie, series, or anything on TV. It is also much more interesting and of great mental value. We don’t feel that we are working, we are simply having fun.
Conclusion
My wife and I found the Cashflow game much more interesting than the game of Monopoly, yet we are planning on getting back to playing Monopoly as it has been years since we both last played it. We want to draw a recent comparison.
Tonight we are going to play a different board game, but this one is more strategic. We want our minds to have a wider scope in its strategic training. The board game is more about tribal wars and conquering more lands and defeating the opponent’s armies. It still has other factors of how to utilize the resources available around to gain more economic power and strength, based on the locations you choose on the board.
We are creating a daily routine and a plan with the end goal to create a passive income that would cover expenses; from there we would move into growing this income to cater for other life interests.
The Investor
Tuesday 14 February 2023
About The Author
I started to look into individual stocks in January 2022. I created this diary initially for myself to track my investing progress, and second as a place that I can share my ideas publicly hoping that others will share their ideas and learn from each other, and lastly as an online business where some links that I share are affiliate links, and if anybody bought anything by clicking those links I will get a commission based on that successful sale, which of course will not affect the price that you are buying the product or service at.
For a more detailed information on my affiliate disclosure please refer to the Full Affiliate Disclosure page, and if you are interested in building your own online business you can check this post here.
Furthermore, this site is in no way or form is giving any financial or investing advice, nor it is encouraging or discouraging people to buy or sell any financial instrument. This is a personal diary in which I track my own progress and share for informational, educational and entertainment purposes.