Best investments for 2018 – what I will do to get richer and what you can do

This year is coming to an end, so it is about time to plan the next year. I will write a bigger post on the various angles of my life, but I’d like to cover the financial aspect right away, as I review some good investments for 2018.

First I need to say that 2017 was way different than what I anticipated. I actually thought about doing a gap year, by my type-A personally didn’t let me rest as much as I needed; I was offered a well-paying part-time position, which I took, and I did more business than ever before.

Planning things for 2018

Next year, I will be dividing my time in the following way:

  • Mondays. I will continue to have a part-time position which will pay me enough money to live off of so that my basic expenses are covered.
  • Wednesdays and Sundays. These are the days I will take to rest, and I will not think about work at all. I think I will benefit from resting sparsely throughout the week, thus splitting rest between Wednesdays and Sundays. On Sundays, I will also
  • Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. These days I will be working full time on my RE company, which hopefully will grow tremendously in 2018. I am aiming for a total revenue of €75,000, which is great as I won’t have full-time employees (only people to work with me seasonally and part-time).I will also have to invest a lot of time on my second RE holding, which will be easy to manage but may consume a lot of time during the process of negotiating lines of credit and acquiring assets. The projections for this holding were calculated here.
  • Saturdays.  I will use this day to work on my side hustle, which guarantees my company a fixed amount of money every month. This is enough to pay for the fixed costs of the company and help me focus on other, variable and more risky investments that will hopefully help the company to grow.

This only applies from April 1st onwards… In the first quarter, I will be resting, as I want to fully reverse my adrenal fatigue/CFS and, even more importantly, my dizziness.

  • Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday: full rest.
  • Tuesday and Thursday: work on FromCentsToRetirement, my side hustle and on my RE company (I have suspended my part-time job in the first quarter. I will write a big post on this (and the first quarter as well).

How my RE company will operate

Having done almost €40,000 this year, I know exactly how to run the company and scale it. As I said, my goal is to hit €75,000. This is what the company will focus on:

  • Selling homes. This will be the biggest chunk of the revenue, I am sure. I have partnered up with another RE company which will probably help me sell even more. I may also hire some commission-based employees to put some gasoline in the fire. From this channel, I will probably make €50-€60k.
  • Market studies. This is a good thing to sell because you make it once and you can sell it many times. I am not sure what the size of the market is, but I guess I will learn that quickly. 🙂 This is an advertising play: I don’t think people will come up to me and ask for this service, so I will have to invest a lot into advertising (on Facebook, Adwords and e-mail marketing) to sell these reports. They are usually targeted at real estate investors who want to invest in Portugal or business owners who want to expand within the countr. I hope to sell €7,000 of these in the first year.
  • Dividends and rents. You got it – I also want to make this company a holding. This is because the dividends and rents I will get will allow me to build up some fixed income, thus allowing me to pay for the fixed expenses of the company and employees’ salaries. In the first year, I hope to bring in €1,000 from this channel (and boost it to €10,000 in 2019).
  • eBooks, online courses, and consultancy. I have identified a niche in the market which I can “easily” explore. As I bring in more people to the Facebook page and e-mail list, I will sell more. I’d be happy to have 10,000 people altogether in the lists during 2018. This should roughly translate into €10,000. In the second year though, I hope to sell more of these than selling homes, because this is way more passive.

Unless I really have to, I won’t cash out dividends from the company – I will re-invest all the profit back into the company and grow it as much as possible, so I make at least €150,000 in 2019 and €350,000 in 2020.

2 tips and info for you to invest in 2018

The stock market

As I said many times before, we’re in the second largest bull market ever. This is not a good indicator of a possible crash in the stock market, but …

As a result, there are various industries that seem to be about to break out. Thus, investing in stocks in these industries seems wise even in a very bull market as we are right now. Some of these industries are:

Cannabis

cannabis best investments 2018 2019

Ideally, the best way to invest in these startups is to create one or be involved in the process from the beginning. As this is extremely hard, my fellow blogger Cody Shirk launched explorer partnerships that allow you to invest with him in these hot markets.

Car manufacturers 

I personally think that we are walking towards a model where car ownership will be less and less relevant, and cars will be fully electric and eventually driverless. Thanks Tesla!

This will massively change the landscape of traffic, cars and… commodities. I expect that as the car industry changes, the other industries that depend on, influence or are related to cars also change.
Just so you have an idea of what is crossing my mind right now:
  • I believe that real estate will change a lot, because garages over the long run will be needed. As for short-term changes, we may see gas stations becoming obsolete and turning into stations of superchargers. Plus, as we see car ownership become less and less common, perhaps the need for parking lots will diminish.
  • Uber and uber-alike companies will become even more prominent and own the market entirely. As we move towards electric vehicles (and drones that deliver packages), we will witness massive layoffs in the transportation industry. If you drive a truck, consider starting doing something else.
  • Eventually, trains and plains will retain the technology that is being created for cars. Yes, I believe they will be electric at some point…

So, what is my point? Car manufacturers that are taking the lead in the electric revolution will be appealing investments.

Let me know if you agree or you have suggestions for good investments in 2018.

Ben