The last decade has lead to a massive amoutn of new instruments in the FinTech
world. There are so many instruments to choose from. I got caught up in this
world with money moved all over the place leading to all sorts of issues.
It has made my finances brittle. Because I got caught up I ended up speculating
in things I had no mindset to invest in like real estate, crypto, and futures.
This splitting of energies is painful and not fruitful. It becomes impossible to
read a financial statement and you have no idea how you are performing. How do
you value a speculative futures contract with a real estate investment and
equities? You have to read them differently and if they are on the same balance
sheet it becomes impossible to read.
So I am focusing on something very different from what I was doing previously:
focusing. I am taking the cues of JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon and building a
Fortress Balance Sheet. As I noted before my balance sheet is a mess. There are
accounts all over with little pockets of money causing me all forms of
confusion. To look at my balance sheet it is impossible to know how I am
performing. So this is the primary focus of my next two years.
- Move from the 10+ institutions I have assets to two. One for business and one
for personal. Most of what I need are available at two banks/brokerages. I will
be closing any other accounts I have and moved to similar resources within these
two institutions. I will be moving away from neobanks alltogether.
- Get rid of debt. Currently, I have a bunch of debt that I just can't seem to
get rid of. So I will be doing whatever I can to get rid of this debt from the
books even if it means becoming cash poor for a while.
- Building deeper relationships with the two banks. Instead of spreading myself
thin I will focus on building long term deep relationships with the two banks I
am going to use.
The end result of this consolidation means I will only be focused on two
businesses:
- Investments. Focused completely on the personal side of things I will be largely
investing in public markets based on the methods of value investing.
- Ventures. Optimize for the same things I do in the public markets. The only
reason I will take out dividends is to pay off debt, otherwise I will only give
myself a base salary. The rest of the money will be reinvested into the growth
of the Ventures business.
