[Handsome Creepy Eel]

OP, there is no place in the world where $300k will last you 25 years, no matter how much your diet is fruit based. Not even in Africa - in fact, having a middle-class existence there with going out 3 times a week will be even more expensive than in say eastern/southeastern Europe simply because that sort of lifestyle is so rare there and relies so much on imports.

Accept that you can't retire at 26 years old, stay where you are, hustle hard, put your $300k into something stable that will grow over time and then you can come back to this thread and seriously rethink this stuff in 5-10 years.

[LionOfCA]

DISCLAIMER: heed this advice at own risk.

Keep in mind, your 300k is in a fiat currency. It's possible although not highly-likely that it can become worthless at any random point in the future. For this reason I wouldn't trust any sort of financial investing at the moment. The world still is facing uncertain times economic-wise. Don't forget this truth simply because the media stopped talking about it.

If I were you, I'd invest in a hard asset such as a hotel building/apartment complex with a third of your wealth (somewhere in EE/SEA/even SA.) Buy a humble home with the other third of your wealth. And live off the other third of your wealth.

Additionally, it's not a good idea to try and 'retire from working' at this point. If you were to buy an apartment complex and manage it yourself not only would you save money from having to hire a manager, but you would also not turn into a slob sitting around with nothing to do all day. Remember, investing in hard assets--such as a hotel/apartment complex/home--is always money you can get back in the future. I mention this because somebody who previously commented in this thread said, 'Real estate doesn't appreciate beyond inflation.' And while this is relatively true, the purchasing power of a fiat currency isn't guaranteed to appreciate beyond it's current purchasing power either. In fact it can depreciate quite quickly and unexpectedly. So if faced with the option of owning 90k worth of hard assets, or 100k worth of a fiat currency, I'd feel much safer financially (in the long-term) with the hard assets. Your main goal at this point doesn't have to be growing your wealth exponentially, but rather to preserve it and grow it marginally.

TLDR;

Invest in hard assets, because I wouldn't trust a fiat currency to withhold it's purchasing power in the long-term. Don't stop working--you'll become a lazy degenerate slob. Whatever you do, don't be an idiot and put yourself in a situation where your wealth is diminishing and you have nothing concrete to show for it.

[samsamsam]

To invest money you should/need to have some degree of comfort with it. Or experience or solid advisors. Guys advising a guy to go buy buildings in a foreign land are not taking to account where the OP is at from an experience perspective.

OP tell us about your experience with investing (stocks, re, currency, Etc). With buying property. Managing property. Repairing property.

[[email protected]]

300k USD ? Euro?

It's possible to invest all of it in dividend yielding blue chip stocks and just live off the dividends in a country like Ukraine or Russia. Eventually you sell the stocks that have appreciated in value. I just don't think this is an ideal strategy.

[digitalconquistador]

The problem is 300k isn't even that much anymore. At least not enough to retire on or even live on for 25 years.

Furthering that, even third world countries are no longer as cheap as most people in the west think they are.

So you should start investing. Sadly, the time to invest in condos in third world countries was 10 years ago. You would have made a 300% return. But even then, buying a condo as a foreigner carries a lot of risk, and you can't be sure of the quality of its construction. I've heard countless horror stories of guys buying condos in SEA only to have the entire building begin shifting and crumbling years later. I personally observed this in China. The foundation of the apartment I was renting was so bad, faux granite wall panels on the first floor kept cracking and shattering off, and workers were routinely hauling in bags of concrete mix to the basement.

One safer place to put it would be semiconductor stocks. They jumped ridiculously last year but are still somewhat undervalued, IMO, if you consider the countless applications in the coming years. VR. AR. Drones. Self-driving vehicles. Robotics, which is already becoming HUGE in China. It's pretty much a no brainer, as is $AMZN. You're not going to see massive gains there but it's as safe as you can get.

If you foresee the growth of SEA continuing, a small business there might be another good option. The amount of money people are currently spending in SEA is incredible. I know a Filipino guy who rented a section of a building with an outdoor area for roughly $1,000/month. He got a $10,000 loan for all the equipment needed for a bar/resto and 3 months later it's packed every night. Last I heard he's averaging $750/night in profit.

If you have the nuts and know a local you 100% trust (rare), you could go all in on a Subway franchise for about $150,000 total, I think. It would be cheaper, of course, to try your hand at your own restaurant/cafe, although riskier.

You could travel a bit and begin doing your own research. Go to any mall in Thailand or the Philippines and see for yourself how well the fast food chains are doing. For a real shocker, go to the Mall of Asia in the Philippines, and look at the 100+ famous western chains that are entirely packed at any given moment.

[[email protected]]

Agreed, 300k isn't much money. Can you stretch it out for 25 years in a poorer country? Yes, you can. Can you have a wife and raise 2 kids on it? Maybe.

At the end of it you'll be 51 years old with no assets and probably no marketable skills (especially with automation). You probably won't be dead like you thought you would be and have increasing costs of living. "B-b-b-but MUH life experience" won't pay your bills and don't expect guaranteed minimum income to be a thing.

[stefpdt]

There's tons of good advice in this thread. Hopefully OP gets the message that he needs partial ownership of a company (through investments) or full ownership of a business to make the most of $300k.

I'd personally set aside $25k to live in Brazil or Thailand for one full year, and get to work on creating a stream of online income that generates at least $5k/month. Rinse and repeat.

[The Beast1]

OP should do nothing. Find a competent investment advisor and invest it in US assets for the time being.

Work an extra year and learn what it is like to have a lot of money sitting in the background.

Do some research on expanding income. Revist this in a year and see how you feel.

[elrubionordan]

thanks everyone for your inputs, will keep you posted.

[Thrill Jackson]

Honestly I don't believe 300k is enough to kick back and say fuck it.
If I was you I would move to a college town in the U.S, get a sales job that only works you 9-5 and game college chicks in your free time. Sales will up your game and that 300k will stabilize you until you get enough to not need that extra money (50k a year for 6 years). Most of the college towns have the best ratio of hot poon and low Cost of living. You could probably do 30k a year if you really want to stretch the dollar.

[samsamsam]

(04-10-2017 11:50 AM)elrubionordan Wrote:  

thanks everyone for your inputs, will keep you posted.

I'd bet 300k you don't.

[Jack Of All Trades]

300k is more than enough to relax in a 2nd or 3rd world country outside maybe the major capitals. You can live comfortably in bangkok with the passive income from that stash of cash.

[elrubionordan]

@Jack of all trades I am getting so many mixed replies here haahahah,,ive read people living with 800$ a month in thailand(beoyn borders i think said that) and other say 300k is not enough...regardless i thank eveyrone for your replies.
I can easily live with 800 or 1000$ a month in third world countries or even 2nd ...

[Spectrumwalker]

Go to Zillow. Find a place where housing prices are in that range and see what rent is like. You could buy a house with no debt on it, rent it out, hire a property manager to look after it and hightail it. Live your dreams, ain't nothing else to live for right now. Yeah you'll have to deal with tenants, taxes, insurance and maintenance but ask yourself if it's worth it. Assuming there's no mortgage and property taxes aren't ridiculous sounds like a good deal. If it's to much of a hassle you could always come back and sell it. Assuming it went up in value.

Get that cash flow.

[Jason55]

(04-10-2017 02:59 PM)elrubionordan Wrote:  

@Jack of all trades I am getting so many mixed replies here haahahah,,ive read people living with 800$ a month in thailand(beoyn borders i think said that) and other say 300k is not enough...regardless i thank eveyrone for your replies.
I can easily live with 800 or 1000$ a month in third world countries or even 2nd ...

Yes you can live modestly for $1000 a month in places like Thailand or the Philippines. But only for 300 months, and then it sucks all your cash is gone (and the price of living would probably go up over time, so no guarantee you'd make it 300 months). The mixed replies are all about trying ways to do it without losing all your cash. That is the very hard part.

[Jack Of All Trades]

Why would you live on 1000 a month?

https://oilandenergyinvestor.com/special...ield-mlps/

average MLP fund yield is 7.4% that's 22200/year

your getting 1850/month in income

You can ball out in bangkok with that much guaranteed income a month. Once you get a longterm lease everything goes down in price. Hell, you can live decently on 2k/month in most cities in north america for that much outside tier 1 places if your a single person.

It also depends on your needs, if your an older guy it doesn't make sense because your healthcare costs would be through the roof.

[Peregrine]

(04-10-2017 02:31 PM)Jack Of All Trades Wrote:  

300k is more than enough to relax in a 2nd or 3rd world country outside maybe the major capitals. You can live comfortably in bangkok with the passive income from that stash of cash.

Let's be conservative and say 3%. You can live comfortably in Bangkok on 750 USD a month?

[Jack Of All Trades]

conservative and say 3%? what are you doing? buying the S&P 500 ETF? you might as well stash your cash in Fed 20 year bonds

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center...data=yield

They yield about 2.71% and there considered the gold standard for risk free investments, with a little more risk you should be able to yield more than that and live comfortably. You realize that once you hit about 2500USD after tax income your living pretty well in north america as a single guy outside tier 1 cities.

[Peregrine]

(04-10-2017 08:18 PM)Jack Of All Trades Wrote:  

conservative and say 3%? what are you doing? buying the S&P 500 ETF? you might as well stash your cash in Fed 20 year bonds

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center...data=yield

They yield about 2.71% and there considered the gold standard for risk free investments, with a little more risk you should be able to yield more than that and live comfortably. You realize that once you hit about 2500USD after tax income your living pretty well in north america as a single guy outside tier 1 cities.

Well yeah, if you're "retired", you don't want to touch or risk the principal. Assuming 60 years (i.e. dying at 86), spending 30k a year results in 0 out of 86 (0%) cycles succeeded on firecalc. If you reduce spending to 18k, chance of outliving your money rises to 33.7% - still not great odds.

You didn't account for inflation.

[AneroidOcean]

I wouldn't make ANY big decisions until you've educated yourself, talked to some knowledgeable people, and then educated yourself some more.

Adjusting your life plan based on this money is not a bad idea, but retiring completely at 26 is silly unless you already have a significant skill-set and a paid-for home.

ALL the people I know who are "retired" are still working doing something they find interesting and growing their holdings. They may not be working on that a majority of their waking hours, but a significant amount of their time is spent on this. As they get older they definitely delegate more, but they don't exactly just sit around and do nothing.

You will eventually tire of sitting around and doing nothing and your money won't necessarily dissappear if it's doing nothing, but it is definitely constantly being spent even if you're living really cheaply.

[Travel Museums]

Here's an alternative perspective. Spend it.

The only sure fire way to get your value out of money is to spend it.

On what? If it were me, I'd be once in a lifetime experiences like travel abroad. I'd rather have all my free time in my 20-30s, than 60s-80s. Consider it an early if not temporary retirement. Maybe you'll find yourself and realize where you belong or what you actually want to do in life.

I'm not saying buy a bunch of useless crap. I don't know your education or safety net. I have a degree that gets me back into the workforce relatively easily if I'm willing to take a shitty position/location for 6-12 months.

I have other resources. And the USA has a social safety net for old people so if I run out of money or have to work part time bc I'm an old broke-down man I can still live a basic lifestyle.

If you don't waste the money on airfare (fly to a foreign hub like Bangkok then don't fly anywhere else but home after 6-12 months) you can stay in dorms and travel by bus/rail all over. You can reasonably live on $20-30/day as a budget. You can also live for free by working in hostels.

If you're not a moron that much cash could see you through the rest of your life. But you will have to be frugal and take advantage of cheap or free living expenses as well as international currency arbitrage.

Or you can invest it like other recommend. Some investments are liquid enough to net you a nice monthly check while giving you wiggle room in an "emergency".

[Moreless]

(04-10-2017 04:10 AM)samsamsam Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 10:59 PM)Brodiaga Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 10:41 PM)captain_shane Wrote:  

Partner with a hard money lender and make 12-18% a year on that money.

Can you give some examples of hard money lenders and explain how to partner with them?

Also, this rate of return is much higher than what you can expect from investing in index funds, for example. If so, aren't more people partnering with hard money lenders instead of investing in index funds?

Hard money lending requires you as a lender to have a handle on a few critical facts. And it depends on which route your are going. Either you are lending money to an owner that either needs it quickly or can't qualify. Or you working with a guy with a deal in hand and needs funds to close the deal. Or close the deal and cover the rehab costs.

Biggest risk overestimating the value of the property and having no cushion to protect your debt. Misjudging it means you have a property that won't sell or you sell and take a loss on the property and your debt.

Obviously other stuff like title, underestimating rehab costs etc. big risk is if the deal is expected to be sold at a price not seen in the market before. Or if the guy who brought the deal doesn't have much experience. If you don't have a ton of experience in rehab better to stick with the cosmetic rehabs and avoid things like foundational work. Or crazy deals where people move houses from one lot to another.

If you are just lending to someone who needs cash. It is a function of LTV and ability to pay off the loan. If it is short term make sure you have some early payment penalty of else you are wasting time on 2 months of payments while they are going after better financing. Understand foreclosure laws they are different in each state.

Best thread I've seen on the subject of Hard Money Lending: Data Sheet equity lending

[Freebird Flying]

I would probably let it get to 500k at least before you start taking money out in my opinion

You could read the new Tony Robbins book about Investing - "Unshakable". It' very good.

[Freebird Flying]

Actually, starting off by taking a 3 to 6 month mini retirement, and reevaluate sounds like a nice idea......

Just chill for a bit. Don't throw the money in a bunch of apartment buildings somewhere if you don't even know where you want to be living at yet

Try living on your projected budgets. Enjoy!

[booshala]

(04-10-2017 04:01 PM)Jack Of All Trades Wrote:  

Why would you live on 1000 a month?

https://oilandenergyinvestor.com/special...ield-mlps/

average MLP fund yield is 7.4% that's 22200/year

your getting 1850/month in income

You can ball out in bangkok with that much guaranteed income a month. Once you get a longterm lease everything goes down in price. Hell, you can live decently on 2k/month in most cities in north america for that much outside tier 1 places if your a single person.

It also depends on your needs, if your an older guy it doesn't make sense because your healthcare costs would be through the roof.

MLP's are notoriously volatile and many slashed their dividends significantly in the past downturn. That $22k per year could quickly become $10k in the course of 6 months of a bad recession. There's a reason Coke/JNJ/Colgate/MMM are such beloved stocks - year in and year out they increase their dividends despite what's happening in the general economy.

Even then, BP and Shell already have yields in the high 6%'s. If I somehow decided to put my entire net worth in energy (I wouldn't) I'd much rather go down that route with the tax advantaged dividends than some dicey oil MLP's.