I think it’s important for readers to get a sense of who I am when they read my posts. I don’t want to be an anonymous blogger - I want to get out there and interact with readers and others in the industry. This is the main reason I decided to attend LendIt this year. In the past year, I have learned a lot about personal finance and eventually found my way to p2p lending. When I first invested in p2p lending, I blindly selected notes to invest in. This is in part why this blog exists today - to give me the best chance at solid returns (through education) while helping others along the way. Over the last few years, I have realized that my goal is to create multiple sources of diversified passive income through investing. I’ll outline the start my pursuits and how p2p lending fits in with my goals below.
Year 0
I graduated from college just 3 short years ago in 2011 and have been working as a software developer ever since. Specifically, I have focused on dashboards and analytics which certainly has lead me to appreciate all of the analytics sites out there in the p2p lending space. (Nickel Steamroller, Peercube, etc.)
At this point, I owned a few stocks that actually performed quite well. However, most stocks were recovering from 2008 at this point so I don’t view myself as a stock picking guru (more on that later). Besides a few small positions in stocks I did no significant investing besides putting 9% of my salary into my 401k.
Year 1 - Real Estate investing
I quickly realized that I wanted to dive into real estate investing. I had plenty of free time and some family with experience to help me along the way. Coupled with a fantastic real estate agent, this made my jump into real estate investing relatively easy. I became a landlord at 23 and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. The property is a duplex and I lived in half. I was able to save more than ever, but did not make any changes to my other investments.
Year 2 - Learning, investing and more investing
Late 2012, early 2013 I started reading personal finance blogs and learning a lot about investing. It started with Get Rich Slowly and my interest quickly grew to sites like Mr. Money Mustache, Afford Anything and 20 Something Finance. I learned what is possible with investing my money instead of letting it rot in a savings account. With the knowledge I gained, I pulled out of my individual stocks and high fee mutual funds and moved on over to index investing. Around this time, I discovered Lending Club and after talking to Brian (who still helps with this site from time to time) I decided to give it a try. I loved the idea that I could help others get out of debt (I don’t believe in debt beyond mortgages) with the potential to earn significant returns. Since most of my other investments are passive, p2p lending allows me to have a hands on approach.
The blog was created in May of 2013 and writing posts keeps me on top of what is going on in the peer to peer lending industry. Who knows what the future holds for this site, but I hope to continue to help other retail investors earn above average returns in p2p lending.
What I enjoy outside of investing…
How did you find out about peer to peer lending and how does it fit into your investing strategy? Love inboards too? Let me know in the comments!
I found out about P2P lending back in 2008 and began investing in early 2009. For me, P2P lending is a fascinating arena for analysis and watching the birth of a industry disruption. Long-term, I see it maintaining a position in my portfolio as an additional source of passive income.
Nice! I wish I would have known about it back then.
Very impressive for such a new grad. For your 401(k) I would suggest using a tool to help you pick the best options you have and it can includes any other type of accounts you have. ie. if you have a non-deductible ROTH/Reg IRA as well as you deductible 401(k). http://www.financialengines.com/ is one (I’ve used it for 20 yrs) and is free to many companies and accessible to many via fidelity or vanguard if you have investments there.
Thanks for the tip! I currently invest through Vanguard for my ROTH IRA and taxable investments. I currently have a variation of the Boglehead 4 fund portfolio (Total stock market, total international market, total bond, REIT index)
http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_portfolios
My 401k is setup to follow to total stock market as close as possible. I also aim to have everything in the most tax efficient place according to this page:
http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Principles_of_tax-efficient_fund_placement
I really have learned a lot about investing in the last year and feel like I’m finally on the right track. 2014 will be the first year I max out my 401k and ROTH IRA. My only regret is not starting even sooner.
On my vanguard account “Financial Engines” is under “Account maintenance” and then “Services”. Great forecasting to your retirement as well if you put in your monthly contributions info. Try this link once you are logged in: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/XHTML/com/vanguard/retail/web/acctprofile/view/acctProfile.xhtml
Looks like I have to have $50,000 invested to use it. I’m not quite there, but thanks for pointing this out – I had no idea this existed. I’ll be sure to check it out once I can. Besides converting my separate holdings to admiral shares, I now have something else to look forward to!