NFO or 4million bucks?

[sevenhelmet]

Real estate market in many areas has gone crazy as well - rising interest rates are going to have an impact but my guess is that a demographic strong demand will keep prices steady unlike the speculative crash of a decade and a half ago.

As rental housing may become too expensive, we are considering buying either farmland or timberland as assets. Anyone here have experience with that?

I wouldn't be so sure about prices. There is a scenario where there could be a housing bust- remember what happened in 2008 was driven by sub-prime loans. With prices sky-high, ARMs are back again, and we're also in the midst of a giant student debt bubble, which already has 3x the rate of defaults that mortgages had when things blew up during the Big Short era. More than enough capital tied up there to spill over into the rest of the economy when that bubble pops.

Interest rates are going up... not saying I know what's gonna happen, but I wouldn't game my investments expecting R.E. prices to stay where they are.

+1 on your idea of timber or farm land though. I'd love to get my hands on some. And build a cabin off the grid for weekend (or "oh shit") getaways.

 

[Random8145]

as someone who changed careers from being a (very) bored lawyer to flying pointy grey jets.

i say go join the Navy man. As much as I hate to admit it (because active duty seriously fucks me off sometimes), joining the military was probably the single best decision I have made in my adult life. There is a surprising degree of financial security as an officer, and although I am only now starting to make what I would consider 'decent' money as an O-3, I have to say, if the nation truly required it of me, I'd have done it all for far less. I was bored out of my mind working in offices and felt like I was literally wasting my existence. I had zero sense of adventure. I just don't think corporate and office jobs generally lend themselves to any sort of adventure, regrettably. The military generally will put you into memorable and unusual situations, but flight training and military aviation (especially naval aviation) is one massive adventure. The only real, TRUE regret I have is not joining the Navy, in hindsight. I would kill to get to land Super Hornets on angled-deck boats. Maybe joining the Air Guard but you know, as much as active duty is annoying sometimes, sometimes you just have to get the full experience to truly appreciate it all.

You do you, but are you grandkids going to want to hear about you catching a wire in shit weather and a pitching deck somewhere exotic and dangerous? or the n number of hours you spent debugging lines of code? Computers and computing fascinate me, but they aren't going anywhere!

Just curious, what branch did you join?

 

[Renegade One]

Just IMHO, of course...but the OP doesn't seem to care what any of us says or recommends. I respectfully recommend that this thread have a stake driven through its heart.

 

[Griz882]

Just IMHO, of course...but the OP doesn't seem to care what any of us says or recommends. I respectfully recommend that this thread have a stake driven through its heart.

Our work here is done…

 

[MGoBrew11]

Our work here is done…
View attachment 34898

Great meme except the OP is supposedly making it rain with fat stacks instead of watching his flying dreams burn!

 

[Griz882]

Great meme except the OP is supposedly making it rain with fat stacks instead of watching his flying dreams burn!

In the end it is all the same…when the OP is 60 he’ll say “I wish I had been a naval aviator.” Across town a rugged old naval aviator will say “I wish I’d made fat stacks of cash.” Let it burn.

 

[taxi1]

Get the Wings of Gold and use them to marry rich. And remember, they're all homely over the age of 40.

 

[wink]

Lots of no shit value in this thread re investment, career satisfaction, regrets, etc. All that said, I was recruiting for Officer Programs when Top Gun came out. Every single day for many weeks we got several calls from 28-35 year old men telling us all they ever wanted to do was fly in the Navy and now wanted to apply. Why they hadn't applied when 22 or 23 varied a bit but was always something related to money/salary promised by a civ job offer out of college. Yeah, it was always their dream to fly until someone waved a fat payday in front of them. The dream evaporated, the payday wasn't satisfactory after a Hollywood version of a challenging, elite, but immensely satisfying and honorable profession was made popular to the masses. I almost enjoyed telling them, "no chance".

 

[Random8145]

My long-term goal is to become a wealthy entrepreneur. If successful enough, I will buy my own plane/planes. I would love to have a biplane as I've heard it's a great way to fly, not that high up and with an open cockpit, cruising along at like 40 mph, sort of like a country drive but in the air I guess.

 

[PMPT]

Agree. I did the opposite - naval aviator -> lawyer. I lost track of how many lawyers told me some version of "man, I wish I would've/could've done that." PMPT pulled it off, but very, very few can because of age, debt, or any number of other things. On the flip side, I knew quite a few naval aviators who wanted to eventually go to law school (or med school/MBA). Every single one did it, for better or worse.

I wouldn't change a thing. As many have said, the $ will always be there for those who are smart and willing to work. Personally, I would have regretted it every single day of my life if I didn't fly Navy. There is no way to quantify the experience.

and here's me wanting to go back into education eventually : )

 

[PMPT]

Sounds like you had a pretty cool go of it, how long were you a lawyer before making the switch?

A couple of years. I bounced around a bit after my Master's degree (post JD/LLB) ... had some unusual life circumstances that prevented me taking an exciting NGO opportunity in the middle east ... the result was that, for me at least, I sort of ended up torpedoing my legal career. Its a very conservative profession and hard to get into the 'right' job if you miss the key window to do so (i.e. while you are still boozing and schmoozing at law school).

I was bored anyways and was going to change careers regardless. Truth be told, I sort of ended up in aviation not quite by accident but not entirely on purpose either ... it just sounded fun so I decided to scrap my desire to go be a 0203 and give flying a go.

 

[PMPT]

Yep. I, too, am an attorney, though I did not really practice much before commissioning. While not possible for all designators--and while I too would have done certain things for less if necessary as I enjoy much of the mission--I did try to strategically maximize where I was stationed in order to increase my compensation via higher BAH/COLA rates, etc. For this reason, I requested and was sent to Hawaii for my first duty station. I'm in the DC area now and as an O3, I'd still say I'm making decent money. Looking forward to returning to Hawaii later this year for tour number three.

I'm very jealous. In hindsight, as an older, single man, I really should have listened to my brother (USAF) and thought more about quality of life and where you could end up stationed ... instead I bought into the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. I'd do lewd and lascivious things to get to fly rhinos or growlers out of Japan, Whidby, or Oceana, or AF jets out of anywhere that isn't Yuma or Eastern Carolina ... why the Marine Corps insists on having most of its tacair in such dire places, I will never know.

 

[PhrogLoop]

…anywhere that isn't Yuma or Eastern Carolina ... why the Marine Corps insists on having most of its tacair in such dire places, I will never know.

Thanks to the remoteness of those MCAS locations, Marines are forced to get creative to find diversions and that keeps them out of trouble. Always.

 

[Odominable]

Aw man, broken in Vegas again!? Who could have predicted this?

 

[PMPT]

Thanks to the remoteness of those MCAS locations, Marines are forced to get creative to find diversions and that keeps them out of trouble. Always.

hmmm the group of lances that hospitalized each other in a brawl at the el centro bricks suggests the capacity for stupid behavior exists regardless of where we are haha