Some friends asked me about the year end tax moves, such as the tax loss selling etc. Here is a good article on the topic – Tax-Loss Harvesting: What It Is, How It Works. My take on tax: this is at least secondary maybe even more down the priority list. The No. 1 priority in the personal finance/investing is don’t lose your money. Ideally we don’t want any type of loss. Tax loss is applicable only after we lose the money during investing. If we don’t have loss in the 1st place, would it be better?
But I do appreciate the mindset of 亡羊补牢。Or salvage whatever we can (not exact translation).
Another question is what to contribute if we need to contribute to the regular IRA account. The latter is an easier question. The deadline to fund IRA is actually usually the tax day (the middle of April), so we still have time. As to investments, I only recommend the S&P 500 index funds and I explained it more here.
With the enhancement of the 529 plans by the law passed by congress in the recent years, it becomes a tool for retirement as well. Read this for more details.
The thing I taught my 13 year old the other day, is the 12/6 compounded interest rule (snowball effect), an investment that grows 12% annually, in 6 years it will double. From 2010 to 2023, since I invested in S&P 500 index fund, and the S&P 500 index did well since 2010, the money I put in quadrupled. It was a small amount of money. But the compounded interest concept is important and we saw it in action.
Another thing many working people can consider is the HSA account. I heard it has even more benefits for retirement compared to the 529. So something to read about, think about and do something about 🙂
Like many good things in life, don’t rush it. Take the time, savor the moment, think it through, before jump into the market and make big moves: Rome is NOT built in a day. So was the business empire such as Berkshire Hathaway, or the GPU, AI chip designer nVidia. They are built in decades.
Hindsight is 20/20
Look at the about 1,137% or 11 times gain of $CVNA. Below is the YTD chart of Carvana vs CarMax ($KMX), Tesla ($TSLA) and S&P 500 index. But the million dollar question is: who bought and hold the $CVNA this year (until today)?
97年夏天我第一次来美国，我的飞机航班是东航上海虹桥(SHA) 到洛杉矶 (LAX, China Eastern MU 583), 当时好像用的是麦道11(Btw, 93年好像有一次事故），再从洛杉矶坐TWA航班飞圣路易斯(STL)。我在洛杉矶机场犯了一个不大不小的错误。我当时很想上厕所，急着从机场（入境处和海关）出来，结果一出来就拿错了行李。等我发现我拿错了，我已经出了海关，我赶紧用我的英语跟美国机场的工作人员解释，还好他听懂了，让我进去跟东航的地勤人员说上话，交换了行李（取到了我自己的行李）。这个箱子是当时上海第一百货的牌子，估计我们都是在一百买的，这个箱子实用也较便宜。这一次是我的口语第一次在美国派到用场。
PS: 大概在2005/6年在圣村的机场，又碰到一件类似的事情，这一次是Diplomat的灰色硬壳箱。对方把我的箱子拿到家以后，没有多想，直接撬锁。后来她通过航空公司陪了我大概是五十还是一百块钱(USD)：她没有拿我的东西，就是赔我的坏掉的箱锁。那个箱子今年回国才退休。Also: I have other stories with the diplomat luggage (1 and 2) back in 2007 when I tried to replace a broken wheel. So this one really last for a long time: at least from 2007 to 2023. I think I bought it before 2007 too.
Learning Englishin Missouri S&T at Rolla
Note the adults tend to stay or social with her/his own ethic group or friends, and use the 1st language he/she is familiar with. When I was a graduate student in Rolla more than 20 years ago, I used to have an American professor, and he made a comment which I agree: American grad students stay with the Americans, Chinese students stay with the Chinese, and Indian students stay with Indians.
I have Indian born advisor, and I talked to Indian born graduate students. One nice thing is one fellow graduate student sometimes corrected my English, and that really helped. Not many people would correct or point out. Btw, that particular grad student is now a technology VP at a credit rating agency.
At one time, I was able to translate for the professors during a meeting. I think the fellow graduate student is from Africa and he has some accent, but it’s not too hard to guess or figure out.
Host family When I was new to Rolla, I got to learn the Stoltz family through the international office’s host family program. And they helped my English (via conversations), and get familiar with the America culture in many aspects. I still remember, the dinners, the trips to the Governor’s Manson, to Branson and the Xmas gifts.
Fraternity
At one time because I live with American undergrad everyday, and listen to their talking daily, I felt English is almost like “my native language”. Also once my “big brother” told me: you lived in a quite unique fraternity. And I agree: in the beginning of my stay there, I rode bike from school to the fraternity house every day. When the weather was bad I would call the house for help, and my brothers never failed to pick me up. That includes the rides in the snow days too.
I retook the English test again a few years later: got a “fair” grade from another Indian born professor.
TV and Movies are also a very important source of education for my Oral English. Back in those days it was mostly the Blockbuster videos, and just movies on the TV. Now it’s mostly streaming mostly from Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. American middle schools and high school tv 📺 or movies 🎥 High School: Gilmore girls (Netflix) High School: Breakfast club (I watched via Amazon Prime, free) College: back to school 🏫 (Amazon, for a fee)
Holiday themed movies
Love Actually (a classic, watch it on Netflix before 12/31/2023)
Romantic series: the Virgin River (Netflix, the series 5 just debuted and the last episode has holiday theme/Christmas celebration)
Other comedies:
Seinfeld
Friends
No Hard Feelings (Jennifer Lawrence, new on Netflix)
NPR
Most listened programs: morning edition, all things considered, market place, planet money and ted radio hour.
Listened in the past, enjoyed but no longer available or no longer listen much due change of taste or programming: Diane Rhem show, Fresh Air (Terry Gros), Car Talk, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Weekend Edition.
I taught in China. Many years ago in SH. Failed. Will talk more about that exp. later, hopefully 🙁
When I was new to Rolla, I failed in the Teaching Assistant (TA) English test – later I tried to practice oral English with a English teacher during lunch (once a week). I didn’t teach when at Rolla (again because I flunked the spoken English test), and had to look for RA (research assistant) job in the school. Later on I taught in Abacus Rolla, to a few fellow grad students, and I did okay. It was friendly environment too.
This fall I started teaching graduate course at Webster U. 韦伯斯特大学客座教授（其实就是兼职 adjunct professor 🙂 Couple funny things:
I was nervous before doing this, but my wife and 13 year old daughter were quite nervous too;
I think it’s giving me some energy interacting with younger folks (all graduate students are younger than me). I do interact with my kids quite a bit too: to be precise more than interacting with them, or Uber-ing them around. But most kids will eventually grow up and live on their own. That’s where interacting with young folks becoming more important: I believe that’s one reason Warren Buffett likes to teach at school sometimes, or hosting the MBA students at his company’s HQ or at the annual shareholder meeting. Also the BRK meeting, plus Charlie’s Daily Journal Co and past Wesco shareholder meetings allow both of them to interact with many people, including many young people too. That’s one secret sauce of their longetibity.
For hiking or walking. Some are paved, while others are not. By nature I mean there are trees etc. around the trail. I am adding difficulty levels (categories) for hiking or walking. By easy, I mean it’s suitable for family. By moderate, I mean, the old or the young may have some challenge complete the whole trail due to distance, or the surface.
Easy
Gentry Park at Bridgeton: paved
Malcolm Terrace Park: some nature walk, 1 mile round trip from the pavillion (the longer loop).
Millennium Park: paved.
Stacy Park: some nature walk, newly installed in last few years.
Venable Park: full name is Dr. Phillip Venable Memorial Park.
Warson Park: Stacy Park: some nature walk, newly installed in last few years.
Chesterfield central park: all paved
Creve Coeur Lake (paved), the loop is about 3.6 miles. Gets popular in nice days (weather). Note many St. Louis county parks have the exercises equipment or station along the trail, sometimes my kids would like to play with them during the walk. The only thing we need to be careful is: sometimes an equipment could be broken – stay away from it. Don’t attempt to work on the broken equipment, and got hurt (then sue the county park division 🙂
Powder Valley: mixed paved vs gravel. There are a few short distance trails.
Boot Leg Trails at Creve Coeur Lake: note this is a trail sometimes the bikers riding bikes. Most of them are mindful of the hikers, but in general try not to listen to AirPods (especially with the noise cancelling features) so that you don’t get hit by a bike. I think the Lost Valley in St. Charles are like that too.
Quneey Park: this along with the Boot Leg, are probably two popular longer trails in the St. Lous county. I recall I ran once at the park during the SnowBall series a few years ago (maybe year 2017 or 2018?). There are two popular winter run series in the STL area, the other one is Frost Bite. I am running the latter series last year and this year. Both are good. I had quite some memories over the years from the Snowball series, including once, had to run briefly in the Creve Coeur lake (paved) trail in the melted snow water: one gentleman fell unfortunately, and that’s the reason I remembered.
Lost Valley: St. Charles. We did a large portion of the trail during the rock runner morning run. Below is quote from Andy K. who is the organizer of Rock Runner
Technical Level Yellow as the trail includes a variety of the following: single track, gravel road, creek crossings, dirt and semi rocky trails, switch-backs, moderate climbs and descents
For the History Buffs among us, here is a great link with tons of information and pics surrounding the unfortunate events in the 1940’s in the surrounding area of the park. Lost Valley area history
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Mastodon: Jefferson County
More nature trails
I also maintain a Google doc that has more nature trails in the area. I intend to maintain that google doc as time goes. Probably hike (re-hike) some of those trails too.
During 2020 to 2022, we (as a family, many times with friends) hiked quite a few places, especially in the year 2020 and 2021 (due to pandemic, I guess the moms were worried about kids’s well beings, and they don’t like kids glue their eyes to the iPads all day). Unfortunately “gluing to iPads or computer” is the new normal now with the pandemic is largely behind us 🙁
In Summer 2022 I also joined the Rock Runner by Fleet Feet and got to hike or ran in some of the area nature trails.
PS: AllTrails has a nice website and app for the trails in the US. I used their paid app in couple years and they allow the map to downloaded so that even in the trails (a lot of times we don’t have reliable cell data), we can still have the map and GPS.
再过几年，如果不出意外(knock on the woods)，我会送我的老大去上大学。希望是一所她理想中的学校。今年是我大学毕业30周年。也就是说我是34年前（也就是1989年夏天）开始去上大学的。我家在宁波，我的大学在武汉。那时候国内火车没有现在那么发达。但是那时候有轮船，有客运的海轮和长江轮船。宁波到上海一般是坐海轮或是火车，上海（十六铺码头）到武汉（汉口，忘了几号码头了）有长江轮。大学生坐火车有半票，轮船没有这个优惠。火车要相对快一些，但是有时候（很多时候）会没有座位。轮船较慢但是有床位可以睡觉。可以说各有利弊。其实还有飞机，宁波到武汉有运七(Wiki, Baidu))的飞机，很可能是螺旋桨的飞机。我没有坐过（因为机票更贵），但是我有镇海中学的同学坐过。
总的来说，坐船比坐火车还是舒服很多。因为火车，尤其在春运期间，不仅没坐的位置，有时连站的位置也没有。我以前在这两个博客文章里也讲过, search for “train” (blog post 1, blog post 2)。我记得，有一次，我从宁波回武昌，从南昌转车，经株洲，最后到武昌，总共大概站了十几个小时。那时候是绿皮的火车。我记得有一段时间，我站在一个东阳到武汉大学上学的师姐（88级），她给了我一个苹果，削了皮的。
Imagine when a kid falls and how western parents and traditional Chinese grandmas react
Is probably the confidence. From the day they start to walk. I still remember the time my older daughter started to walk. I think most parents would encourage their toddler kids to walk when the kiddos were still learning. I guess the same goes for the potty training. Now I recall we gave our older daughter chocolate when she successfully used the potty without peeing or pooing in the diaper. when we started potty training on her. And I clearly recall she asked for chocolate at her toddler daycare place when she successfully did it there.
In terms of teaching kids to walk or run, I also recall, that many years ago, in my college (China), sometimes we saw Western parents walk with young kids on campus. And occasionally, kids will fall, to my initial surprise, the western parents would usually let the kids get up by themselves, and in a way help them grow. This way of handling kids falling is totally opposite to what my grandmas would do: they would walk over, blame the ground, pretend hitting the ground, and so on.
Fast forward though, I think partially due to kids growing, partially due to our own aging, it seems we can use more patience as kids growing up. I know it’s easier said than done, especially for parents of teens, pre-teens etc.
I think the below tweet showed an excellent way the parent supported his kid. Lot of hard work, obviously. But it both improved her volleyball skills and perhaps equally important if not more, her confidence in playing volleyball.
Last year, my daughter got cut from her 7th grade volleyball team.
She made the first cut, and thought she had a good chance. But on the second and final cut, they called her name, and she put her head down and walked out to the car where her mom and I were waiting.
油管：my Youtube 2022 video for BRK HQ video below (narration mostly in Chinese)
Charlie Munger
We know Charlie Munger (Wiki) passed away recently, and he was the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway: he had some influence on Warren Buffet’s investments over the years, including See’s Candy, Coca Cola and so on. Here is the free online book Poor Charlie’s Almanack (you can purchase the paper versions through the links here). Also, the last interview before he passed away with CNBC’s Becky Quick (1 hour 42 mins, YouTube link here). I still think Warren makes most investments decisions independently. though.
四大金刚 (google; baidu baike, Wiki) is a common idiom in Chinese, and I think it may be suitable to describe the current top 4 men who works for Warren Buffett. And I assume they take over most of what Warren does today, should Warren decides to retire.
Top Two (Duo)
Greg Abel (Wiki): current Vice Chairman of BRK, responsible for all non-insurance operations, which also means he is in charge of the BRK Energy (formerly Mid-America Energy), BNSF Railway, many manufacturing and retail operations ranges from BH Home Service (real estate agents), Brooks Running, Clayton Home, Diary Queen, to ISCAR, Nebraska Furniture Market (NFM), Net Jets, See’s Candies, to Oriental Trading, Squish Marrow and so on. Note there are many business people may have not heard of. As of now, Greg will be the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway when Warren Buffett retires, in addition to his curent Vice Chair title.
Ajit Jain: current Vice Chairman of BRK, responsible for all insurance operations, companies such as Geico (car insurance) to reinsurance business.
Warren asked Greg and Ajit to be on the stage in last few years’ annual shareholder meeting, and they answered relevant questions in their portfolio. This is a good move. I think also, once Charlie slipped his tongue during an Q&A, and he said Greg will keep the culture (or something similar). So the world knows Greg is the CEO heir apparent.
Investment managers(also a duo)
Ted and Todd are two former hedge fund managers that Warren Buffet hired about 15 years ago (exact date please refer to their Wikipedia links below, or you can google it). Quite a few people including $BRK.A and $BRK.B shareholders would question Warren Buffett’s age and they are worried what if Warren suddenly became incapacitated or die. Who is the heir apparent. This is a tricky question or problem, because very few hedge fund managers would give up their career, at the same time would basically be prepared when this inevitable happens. It seems in Ted W. and Todd C. Warren found the perfect duo for this job. This is somewhat like the duo of Warren himself and Charlie.
Ted Weschler: Ted got a bit unwanted attention from his personal IRA investment. But his performance speaks louder than his words. Quote Wikipedia: in 2012, Weschler joined Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway, a year after Todd Combs joined as Berkshire’s first investment manager. As of 2019, he managed $13 billion of the equity portfolio and $8 billion in pension funds.
Todd Combs: in addition to his investment duty (along with Ted), note Todd is also the CEO of Geico (and technically for that role he reports to Ajit). Here is a picture of Todd during “invest in yourself 5k” during the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting. Here is a picture of Ted, Todd and Tracy Britt Cool during that run. Note Tracy used to work for Warren as well, and she started to work on her own investment partnership in recent years. Maybe someday she will come back to BRK: if the right opportunity arises.
Board
Howard Buffett, Warren’s older son, plans to take over the Chairman role when Warren retires. Susan Buffett, Warren’s daughter, and a few others will be on the board. They may need to add one or 2 board seats because Charile used to be a board member.
One thing it’s interesting is Warren likes #pairProgramming, or #pairWorking, because he has two pairs of magnificent managers for CEO and investment managers job.
This topic would be on my list of things I like least about St. Louis. It’s something I’ve never experienced anywhere else, and something I simply don’t enjoy. I did grow up in St. Louis and did go to high school in St. Louis, before relocating, and actually enjoyed my high school experience a great deal, and would recommend my high school highly to anyone who asked. I do also enjoy St. Louis a great deal of course and still spend a lot of time in St. Louis. I have a few friends who’ve recently moved back to St. Louis and immediately were reminded of the whole high school mentality, and they simply say they were home schooled or from out of town and usually the other person asking quickly loses interest in them and walks away. I generally think I have a good tolerance for things and a sense of humor, but where there’s smoke there’s fire, and despite the friendliness and simpleness of the topic, to me it represents the fragmented mentality of a medium sized metro area, or big small town if you will, and the sizing up one person vs another. I’m just not a fan. It’s sort of remniscent of the person who enters a party and the first thing they strike up in conversation is, “So, what do you do?”…because they can’t think of anything else to say.
Last but not least, these old google reviews on Ladue Middle School: it seems most of the one star rating is form the Clayton (Wydown) Middle school? This is similar to the sports “trash talk” between STL Cardinals and Chicago Cubs 🙂 Or the rivalry between JBS and MICDS which I will talk a bit below. Note there is a small rivalry between Ladue High School and MICDS too: the rivalry on the Warson road. Incidentally both have ram has mascot.
In a way I think Ladue middle or high school is a bit like my middle (high) school – Zhenhai Middle School. I wrote a blog post; also you may read the wikipedia entry 🙂 Recently there is also a story floating around at the Chinese media, both inside and outside China, this again emphasize the importance of mental health. Btw, I noticed in the US, the medical community is paying attention to this topic too, as I saw the survey questions on the annual physical exam for my kids.
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I think it’s important for a kid going to a good school: both middle and high school. Equally important though, if not more, is the school is a good fit for the kid. Obviously money is a consideration too. I mean the tuition and other costs for the private schools. I don’t think the more expensive, the better the school though.
And I heard good things about them here and there. But I am not going to comment on any one of the private schools in the area. Btw, there is the website of the independent schools in the STL area.
I actually did some research or tour some area private schools over the years: The Wilson school (toured when my old daughter was one year old :-), Whitfield school (toured when looking for a high school potentially for a family member, it reminds me of the Hilton hotel btw). I visited MICDs and John Burroughs too: went to MICDs and Burroughs mostly for my old daughter’s basketball or Lego competition, and a summer camp at MICDs. Now I recall they had a “play” which is good and cool. I think they all have wonderful facilities. I also visited a few Catholic schools in the area, because both my daughters did one season of CYC basketball, the campus of Villa stands out for me.
Keep things in perspective
I started this blog post due to a few factors. I do agree “what high school did you go” is very much a #STL thing, and sometimes this is rightly, or wrongly, a snobbish question.
Mental healthand Happiness
Recently I have seen my 13 year old got nervous about two things: one is the All Suburban Middle School Jazz Band. Her main worry is she needed to do jazz improvise. She said she regret for trying out the Jazz Band audition. She even tried to write out the music notes that she was going to do during improvisation. So far she went for 3 rehearsals. She felt better now. Another one is the YPCO at CMS (Webster U). She said she was not prepared well enough before the joint rehearsal, and plus they are getting a new conductor (director).
A good example to show she was not happy or was nervous: yesterday afternoon, I was probably late for 10 mins per the plan, to pick her up, and she was really upset. I told her we had sufficient time to get to CMS. That didn’t help. She was not talking to me on our way there. This is quite different from after the rehearsal.
Recent episode reminds me one major responsibility for parents: pay attention to kids’ mental health, and make sure they are developing the right skills for time management, prioritize tasks, and feel safe at home. Sometimes (maybe a lot of times) when they feel safe they could also show lots of emotions at home.
(Update 01-07-2023) Today is the day my 13 year old will perform at the All Suburban jazz concert. Things got better recently as she found a friend (new friend) at the jazz band (also a 8th grader girl), and incidentally this girl goes to the YPCO as well. I think in a lot ways, parents influence may not be as good as friends 🙂
Foundation for life
I think overall school is a good place for the kids to try different things, explore, make friends, and to make sure they are prepared for the future, and in ideal situation, find their true passion. I saw a good example the other day. Private or public school may be a factor, but to me this is the ONLY factor.
My comments: personally I don’t like my kid having phone at school. But at the same time it’s a convenience thing for communication as my 13 year old has after school activities to go sometimes. It seems she largely avoid using the phone when in school. In the past I recall former colleagues mentioned the school would hold on the phones in school day (pre smartphone period). Smartphone distraction is really everywhere: I also recall a VP of software engineering doing blackberry when she was meeting with us in a meeting (around 2005 or 2006?). If we really want to do this: as a minimum the leaders should lead by example.
Conversation I had last week with a guy I'd just met while traveling. After we exchanged names and basic social niceties:
Me "So do you enjoy living here now?"
Him "Yeah, it's so much better than when I was staying in Boston."
I still think during the holiday season, it’s best to spend more time with the kids as they do grow up so quickly. Enjoy the moment when we can. I recall one of the best preschool teacher and administrator, also a Montessori educator in the area, Susie Dodge-Shelton, once said something like this, basically she said “hug your kids more” during holiday season. We knew Susie since year 2008 (?, I think), and knew her husband David who was the director of Hope Infant Toddler Community (HITC): HITC which is next to the Hope Academy in Creve Coeur (HACC, and Susie served as director for the CC campus for many years), there is a short cut between the two campus as I recall. Now they are behind the giant BJC west campus (there was more trees and greens in the front of HACC. They are both wonderful couple and educators. And I believe they are both happily retired.
With that being said, I am aware of winter break camps, and we have been to some of their equivalent summer camps in the past. Below is not a complete list, to be updated as new information arrives.
Don’t Let Stress Ruin the Holidays (copied/pasted from my employer’s benefit email) Stress often goes hand in hand with the holiday season. There’s the pressure of buying the perfect gifts — and making sure you don’t go broke. Holiday party after holiday party can stretch you thin. And for many of us, missing loved ones who are not around can make celebrating difficult. Many adults deal with stress, anxiety, and depression during this time of year. Here are several strategies to reduce stress during the holiday season.
Lean into healthy habits. Virtually any form of physical activity can act as a stress reliever, so get regular exercise during the holidays.
Know your limits for time and money. Consider saying no to some invites to avoid felling overwhelmed. Set a realistic budget to prevent stresses from overspending.
Limit social media. Social media may increase potential negative effects on your mental health. Try to use time around the holidays to step away from your phone and enjoy in-person time with loved ones.
Stay present and be proactive. If you feel tension or worry building, address it before it becomes all-consuming. Giving yourself a chance to catch your breath and refocus may help you feel better. #holiday #stress #health
Anyway, I think for most people who are still in the wealth accumulation stage (I think most people before retirement is in this category), low cost stock index funds, plus some low cost specialized stock funds (value, growth, small, mid, large caps) that has a track record, are the ways to invest. I have both in my 401k accounts. And I usually look at them once a year, and do some rebalance (mostly very small adjustments) as I see fit. I do this for my HSA and 529 plan too. The latter 2 are much smaller than my 401ks. But I feel HSA is overlooked by many people and I am also aware of some new changes to the 529 plan (and they are good changes).
有朋友问我401k的投资选择：我一般推荐S&P 500 index funds. 过去十年/二十年 S&P 500 index return 有可能比历史上的9.81% 还稍高一些，应该是可以beat inflation 的。工资不一定，我2000年第一份码工工作工资是$56,000, 现在圣村entry level 的software engineer 大概给个六万或稍多一些。那时候一个新的Camry LE 大概不到两万，现在要三万。当然硅谷大厂的码工收入要高几倍：entry level 也是如此。做OpenAI 等相关热门行业的更高。
还有就是不一定非要买magnificent 7 stocks, 其它一些市值小一点股票也有长时间不错的：比如$CMG, $MA, $MCD, $MNST, $SBUX 应该还有不少beat S&P 的。当然loser 更多. On this note, we need to be careful on IPOs and SPACs. Think $BHIL.
My own stupid mistakes on my 401k and IRAs, and turnaround
At one time, probably year 2010 till 2013, I converted my 3 small 401k accounts to an IRA account at Vanguard, then I traded stupid stocks (yes they are stupid stocks looking back), such as Arch Coal (I worked for the company in 2011 and 2012), Alpha Natural Resources (also a coal company) and also “the one time smartphone wonder” Palm. Long word short, I probably lost half of the money when I did all this. Luckily I found out my stupidity and decided to change my strategy. I was able to turn around from year 2017, the pivotal point was actually in year 2015, when I started trading on the Robinhood platform. I know my favorite person or investment great Charlie Munger dislikes the Robinhood (for encouraging frequent trading, basically make it more like a lottery or gamble). But for me personally no trading fees plus some trading that has a purpose or a theme works better for me (I hold a stock from a few days to a few months on Robinhood).
So in other words, if I’ve put the money from my three small 401k accounts into $NVDA or $TSLA stocks and hold them all this time, I would be an IRA multi-millionaires. But I am just happy with my turnaround and my S&P 500 index like performance. Expectations, expectations and expectations, are the key to happiness 🙂
Old blog post back in year 2006, I believe I wrote it 2 days after meeting my wife. We didn’t meet at Starbucks though, we met at a tea place at the Zhongshan Park and later was changed to a bank. I used to drink a lot more Starbucks and I recall about 10 years ago, sometimes I brought my old daughter to Starbucks in St. Louis. Around holiday season they have the hot chocolate ☕️ for kids, I vaguely recall it was $1.75 for a small kid cup. Once at the Craig/Olive road store: a lady commented “start that young? We live in a wonderful life.”
Now being a teenager and probably inherited the sugar tooth from me, she likes the Starbucks a lot. So are many of her friends. Sometimes when I go there to get food or drinks for my kids, at the Lindbergh and Clayton road store, I usually see some middle school and high school kids. And this morning I got my own cup too: the holiday special, chestnut pralines latte (the cup I got this morning is shown at the top of the blog post).
(12-05-2023) I bought some $SBUX stocks.
(12-07-2023) Yesterday I heard the store at Lindbergh and Clayton was closed temporally. Today I learned that the reason was a customer used insulting words to the barista, and barista was not happy, probably threw some words back (again this is just what I heard). Later the management suspended two workers involved in this. The store is a unionized store, all the union workers started striking to protest. Separately, I read in the news quite some people (and in different countries) protested against Starbucks due to the Gaza situation. So in other words, I understand the holiday drinks are luxury compared to people in Gaza get clean water and so on, but at the same time, maybe some barista depends on the income from Starbucks for food and milk too?
