Lester Golden
1 min readFeb 15, 2022

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My only car is new, has two wheels, full attention two hours/day and cost less than 700 euros. The last mountain bike lasted eight years.

Our monthly expenses with unlimited wine and chocolate and almost no travel during COVID are under 2000 euros. In three years my pension and my wife's will almost cover our expenses. For now dividend income and shorted put option premiums cover about 1/2 to 2/3 of expenses. I have several startup investments (3 confirmed losers, 1 confirmed big winner). High uncertainty makes it impossible to calculate EFA.

I'm de facto owner of a free to use beachfront forest national park 23 km from Riga. Use without official ownership comes with zero property taxes and overhead.

No debts. Wealth score using your formula: 6.79, but I don't feel rich except in not having to spend any time working with anyone I don't like.

This shows that after spending a quarter century living in high risk financial uncertainty, changed objective circumstances don't necessarily change one's psychology about money. And I taught this stuff in a business school for four years. Imagine how it is for those who haven't read a ton of books and written about it. Aging and making money don't turn us from dumb money to smart money. We just become dumb money differently after making some.

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Lester Golden
Lester Golden

Written by Lester Golden

From Latvia & Porto I write to share learning from an academic&business life in 8 languages in 5 countries & seeing fascism die in Portugal&Spain in1974 & 1976.

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