About Myself
My name is Ted. I am married and we live in Annapolis, MD. I am in my mid 50s and recently retired without a corporate or government provided pension or healthcare benefits. To get to this point I invested in both the stock and real estate markets to accumulate retirement assets. I have been a landlord for over 20 years and a portion of my retirement dollars is generated from rental income.
During my investment life I have made and lost money from both stocks and real estate. However, in the last 15 years, despite two major bear markets, I have made much more money than I have lost. I attribute this success to perseverance, discipline, and, most importantly, to educating myself in the area of personal finance, investing, and retirement planning. Having a decent retirement has always been an important goal for me. Therefore, over the last 25 years, I have read over 100 books on stock and real estate investing. I have read almost every research paper of significance available in the public domain regarding retirement ideas, concepts, and strategies. Perhaps my most important learning knowledge came from the “School of hard knocks,” i.e., actually being in the markets and losing money. For me, there is nothing like losing money that focuses the mind. But the money I lost taught me valuable lessons about investing & financial planning and I recovered the losses many times over. Gaining knowledge in these two areas are important building blocks for reaching your retirement goals. Today I still manage my own retirement assets. Therefore, to keep up to date, I continue to read many of the latest retirement/investment books and research information available in the public domain.
