10 Questions with Roadmap2Retire

Today is the 39th edition of our periodic guest post series called 10 Questions. We have a list of 17 questions we pose to fellow financial bloggers, and they are free to pick and choose 10 or answer all of them. Let us know if you would like to be featured in a future edition of 10 Questions.

I first discovered Roadmap2Retire when I somehow stumbled on this post about Apple. I was impressed. This article is smarter than 99% of the garbage that the mainstream press pushes out about the company. I also appreciated the long-term mindset.

I also noticed that R2R is a Canadian blogger. Perhaps I’m just suffering from Frequency Illusion Bias, but I sure notice a lot of Canadians in the personal finance blogosphere. To put it in perspective, Canada has a population of 35,000,000 – less than the state of California.

You rock Canada!!!!

Tell us about your blog

Tell me about your blog and why it’s great.

Roadmap2Retire was started with a few different things in mind. It was a way to share my personal story and all the mistakes and successes that come with investing. This way, others may learn from my experience and ramblings. The other aspect is that I love to write – and want to develop that story-telling skill over time.

Tell me how you’re going to change the world with your blog (dream big or don’t dream at all!).

My main goal with the blog is educating others through my experience. As John Bogle said “Learn everyday, but especially from the experiences of others. It’s cheaper!”. So, this blog is my way of sharing so that others may avoid those mistakes 🙂 I have shared my first stock investment failures in this light and continue to share similar stories when I can on a regular basis.

What goals do you have for your blog, short and long term?

My goal is to continue growing the readership and learn/educate about investing and growing my streams of passive income over the course of years. Over the long term, in addition to investing, I intend to start sharing more details about taxes, protecting assets and topics such as estate planning, educating kids etc. I do not know enough about these topics at the moment, but as I learn more, I intend to share my knowledge with the readers.

What post are you most proud of and why?

Lately, Ive started providing a series of Sector Overview on the blog which I am proud of. I take a sector that interests me (and others) and spend days digging through each company’s financials to understand the space and present a condensed post. These posts do not dive too deep into each company, but provides a high level view. Its takes longer to compose these posts compared to other articles, but I think readers love it – as the pagecounts indicate. It feels great to provide something valuable to the community.

Do you enjoy writing?

Love it 🙂

Tell us about you

1500 Days is about early retirement. Do you have early retirement dreams? At what age do you think you will retire?

While I would love to have the option of retiring early, I do not really have plans to fast track there. I intend to enjoy each stage of my life and live comfortably saving a decent chunk of my salary. I do not really have a target date in mind for retirement (yet).

If blogging isn’t your full time gig, what is?

I am a software designer for a tech startup.

When you are 90 and look back on your life, what do you hope you have accomplished?

A full diverse life surrounded by loved ones. Reading about stories from folks who are on their death bed regretting that they hoped to have spent more time with family rather than focusing on career makes me take a step back and re-evaluate my goals. Also, Ive had a near death experience myself in the past (I share some details here). I make it a point to have enough time for my health & fitness, family, friends, hobbies, and “me-time” to enjoy and appreciate all things big and small in life.

Money, money, money

What is the best money management or investment tool you have come across?

Believe it or not, I have not really come across anything that has really blown me away. I still continue to use spreadsheets and manage most of the things myself manually rather than one single tool that does all things right. Maybe theres a need here that can be filled with some good software (hint hint, entrepreneurs). To be fair, I do not try every tool that I come across – as I do not trust my financial data with third-party software.

How do you handle people with different views on money, ie spendy people?

If they can really afford it and it makes them happy, all the power to them. I do not have a problem with that. My problem is with people who still spend when they don’t have the money and everything is financed with debt. I have come across a lot of people in my lifetime who have no idea why they are poor and yet, continue burning through cash left, right and center. I cant help but shake my head and feel sorry for them.

Did you grow up with money? How did your money situation growing up influence you?

Nope. We grew up with very limited resources. While it never got to a point where we were going hungry, things werent that great. We were just making our ends meet. I made a resolution from a very young age that I would change that when I was an adult. Thinking long term and about retirement has always been something at the back of my mind well before I started working fulltime. When i finally graduated and got my first job, I made it a point to start putting a good part of my earnings towards saving for retirement.

Did your parents teach you about money as a kid? How so?

No. This is the other thing that I intend to do things differently when my wife and I have our own kids.

Random silliness

What is your favorite style of beer – and what is your favorite beer in that style?

Depends on my mood. At the moment, I am craving a light wheat beer. One of my favorites is from a microbrewery near Montreal called Blanche de Chambly – a Belgian style wheat beer. Also, some abbey and trappist Belgian beers are amongst my favorite.

We notice a lot of frugal people are into board games – what is your favorite?

Not really into board games, but I did play an insane amount of hours of Monopoly when I was a kid. Maybe thats why I love owning real estate, utilities and railroads 🙂

What is the best thing you’ve read lately.

I’ve read some decent books this year, but last year’s Windfall comes to mind that I really loved. It paints some grim picture about the hardships and the business challenges that lay ahead considering the changing climate conditions. But it also provides great investment opportunities that exist and how they will change. Overall, a fantastic read. I share my review here.

What do you do for exercise?

I train and teach Jiu Jitsu twice a week, a Japanese martial art that Ive been practicing for 9-10 years. I also play soccer once a week. If I still have any energy left in me after that, I drag myself to the gym for some spinning or weight training.

Thanks Roadmap2Retire for your answers today! Also, find him on:

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