Post: #1

Hey guys....


So I've done this... twice! Well I haven't come back yet from my second bust. Basically I got lazy, overspent, invested badly, etc. and the vehicle I used to make money has gotten way tougher but I think I can do it again and be more careful about keeping it.

Still a bit depressing sometimes thinking about how stupid I've been with money... but I guess it should be motivating that I've done it before and can do it again?


Have any of you gone through this?

Post: #2

Did well more than 100k net worth, losing half of it now thanks to the AWESOME way in which divorce works in the marvelous US.

But still more than 100k net worth, so I'll recover and do even better. Just blows goats.

Post: #3

Walk into any NA/CA meeting and you'll be sure to run into a few of em.

Post: #4

How old are you Riker?

Post: #5

almost 25

Post: #6

what the heck do you do for living..damn you made 100k? Congratulations G, good to see other young people hustling hard.

Post: #7

Yea twice.... but I spent and mismanaged it all! Online/Live poker, mostly online but now I'm playing more live since the fields online are way tougher. Basically people play better for 100 bucks now online than they did for 1000 bucks a few years ago.

Live has always and will always be soft because theirs alot of people that just do it recreationally and don't take it seriously. Problem is the expenses are higher and its way slower than playing online.

Post: #8

I have been in the same situation ( not 100k though lol) and i feel so stupid for spending my money in so stupid ways.. but now im almost recovering what i has before and spending wisely! it was a great lesson though,made me see money with another eyes

Post: #9

Yeah, I didn't lose a full 100k but when the stock market tanked in 2008 I was down at one point over $50,000. It was basically slow water torture for two years until the market started to recover. I'd look at my stock portfolio everyday and it looked like a murder scene. Thankfully I never sold at a loss like a lot of people did so I've recovered everything.

Sad thing is it could have been ten times worse because I didn't invest all my money and I didn't invest too much in individual stocks so I didn't get totally burned (imagine if I owned BofA or Citibank or Wamu).

So now I am a super conservative investor. I try to keep most of my non-IRA money in conservative allocation funds that will weather downturns better. I avoid individual stocks for the most part and once the S&P gets to 1400 I'm probably going to just get out of my index fund/ETF positions. I've learned my lesson and for the rest of my life I'll never trust the market.

Unfortunately, I don't think a lot of Americans have learned squat from the economic crisis. They still act the same: maxing out their credit cards, purchasing homes they can't afford, and not even trying to understand the basics of saving and investing. What I've learned is that you should NEVER worry about your salary because the truth is that someone making 250k could end up at the end of the year with less money saved than a person making 50k. If you do not take the time to learn how to manage money then no salary can save you from disaster.

Post: #10

I have a net worth north of 120k and I'm 29, zero debt and I own two properties that bring in about 1k a month total. At the height of my poker playing career which coincided with the height of the stock market value when the DOW was at 14,000 my NW was a little over 200k at one point.

But I think I'm doing good for my age. I live within my means and don't buy shit on credit. I take a lot of Dave Ramsey's advice, minus the religious BS, and would recommend his program of debt reduction, saving, and living off of a budget and within your means to everyone.

But to answer your question, I have never lost it all and came back. I've just been saving and investing since I was 16. I'm pretty conservative and old fashioned in regards to financial affairs.

Post: #11

I was lucky to have amassed a good chunk of money in an online game back in the 90s when I was still a kid in grade school, and I spent all of it. I think the lesson stuck with me, and I've managed to hold on to most of my money as an adult.

If it makes you feel any better, I can think of a few multi-millionaires who went from being multi-millionaires to negative net worth and back again. The hard part is the skills to make the money in the first place. If you made it from pure luck, well good luck, you'll need it.

Post: #12

Been there, done that. Started a company some years ago, made it an international player in its market; active in more than 26 countries after just 1,5 years, and lost about all of it because of some knifes in my back when I sold it (they didn't pay me without long lawsuits). Went from an income of more than +30k euro/month to about 500 euro's... trust me, a hard apple to bite. Some years later, I got the money (finally) and successfully running 3 companies, participating in some others (shareholder/investor).

Also something to remember: never let a girl & your love for her kills your business plans or let her take away your time. Been there done that Women are easy to get, easy to fuck and easy to throw away. Remember that while building YOUR future.

So whatever happens, just keep going. If you have it in you, noting can gets you down. Excepts your health (so take care of it!).

Post: #13

Well I just lost almost 20% of my liquid net worth in the stock market yesterday. Not such a brutal day for the market overall (3% down) but my largest position was down 10%, and what with margin and with some put options I had sold... Well, live and learn.
So yeah, been upwards of 100k and downwards too, I've been flip-flopping several times over the past 5 years, but I can't say I've lost most of it and came back.

Post: #14

Yeah in 2008 I lost it all... Got into real estate in 2006 (I was making a lot of money) didn't do much research, just jumped in because It seemed like the thing to do. I sank a lot of money into it for two years, finally I decided to cut my loses and did a short sale after 2008.

Also lost about 80% of what I had invested in the stock market, I wasn't really paying attention... just trying to spread my money around while I worked to make more, all this happened between 2006-2008. I also got laid off at the end of it all, as the icing on the cake.

During those times I got most of my news from the main stream media, and places like the wall street journal and new york times... All these places are full of shit for the most part. They rarely have people who know what they're talking about, but it's what most people listen to... Krugman is a joke, Andrew Ross Sorkin lol... please... Fast Money, Jim Cramer? God Help you if you listen to these people.

If you don't educate your self on these things you wouldn't know who's full of shit and who's telling the truth, who's on the right track and who's clueless..

After I got burned I started doing my own research, read tons of books about economics, (I basically got myself a self educated economics degree by all the research and reading I've done) and found smart people to follow and listen to so that this wouldn't happen to me again...

Since 2008 I've built back my wealth.... positioned what was left of my money after loosing almost all of it in 2008, and now I'm at about 200k... and I'm positioned well for the future... Making about 12-15k/month looking to be at 20k/month by the end of the year and hopefully at least double my net worth within the next year before I leave and start traveling again...

I'm grateful I lost all that money, even though it hurt. Without those loses I don't think I would have ever been motivated to learn so much about economics, money and finance, even real estate. It was definitely a learning experience. I'm happy I learned what I did at an early age, while I still have time to rebuild and get back up... I can't imagine all those baby boomers who spent their entire lives working and over the past decade have been wiped out because of the way the stock market and economy has been. And there's more wiping out to come in the next few years.... sadly most people don't know what's going on.

There's a great quote on iterative development from Goro Shimura, talking about his colleague Yutaka Taniyama in the BBC documentary about Fermat’s last theorem:

Taniyama was not a very careful person as a mathematician. He made a lot of mistakes, but he made mistakes in a good direction so eventually he got the right answers. I tried to imitate him but I found out that it is very difficult to make good mistakes.

Post: #15

(07-25-2011 04:59 AM)Riker Wrote:  Yea twice.... but I spent and mismanaged it all! Online/Live poker, mostly online but now I'm playing more live since the fields online are way tougher. Basically people play better for 100 bucks now online than they did for 1000 bucks a few years ago.

Live has always and will always be soft because theirs alot of people that just do it recreationally and don't take it seriously. Problem is the expenses are higher and its way slower than playing online.

great job on making all that $ playing poker Riker

i'm curious to try this out as well - which online poker website would you recommend for someone just starting out?

Post: #16

Some very inspiring stories here Gentlemen. Please continue posting.

Post: #17

Im losing it right now with the stock market, my biggest possition is down-20%

Post: #18

I've lost more than 10x that - from divorce 8 years ago.

But after a few years of struggling, I'm back and more successful than ever.

Money isn't the goal. It's just a means to an end.

Post: #19

Can't say I've ever lost it, though I did burn through some of my savings while I went to college much faster than I budgeted. Toys, unexpected expenses and an unwillingness to skimp on dining out daily.

I'm 25, my annual income is around $200k, and I luckily dodged having any open positions in the market for this latest crash - I was days from sinking about $10k in for my first foray into stocks when they started to really tumble a few weeks back. A post-nup saved me during my divorce, so I highly recommend them... but I recommend "don't get married" much, much more.

Now I'm deciding on whether to go back to school or to keep at it for a few more years. A very tough decision.

Post: #20

Online Poker is, for all intensive purposes, dead right now in the U.S. In case you missed the news, the U.S. effectively shut off all U.S. players from using the two biggest sites Full Tilt and PokerStars in april. Money in FullTilt has still not been returned to the players. You can still go to Cake poker or BoDog which is are still accepting U.S. players, however these sites do not get anywhere near the volume of players that were on the big two. Online games were already harder than they were when the poker boom started about 7 years ago, but it was still very lucrative if you were good enough. Even if the government figures out a solution to this problem and allows U.S. players to play again, I doubt online poker will ever be as profitable as it was prior to April. If it were to return, you have to believe that all those players who were profitable before the shutdown would return, and, because of a lack of confidence in the system, fewer fish would venture onto these sites. So I would focus on other endeavors where you have more control and are not fighting against the current.

coming from another 25 year old X-online poker player

Post: #21

If you play poker your net worth should be the average of your core assets, which is money stashed up for non-poker use, instead of deviations of your winnings.

Playing poker and building businesses are two different things, IMO.

Post: #22

'Has anyone lost 100k?'

Watch the bernie maddof piece on 60 mins

It shows a guy who lost his EIGHT FIGURE net worth and was in the process of moving out of his house...sad

Post: #23

(08-01-2011 12:08 PM)Farmageddon Wrote:  I have a net worth north of 120k and I'm 29, zero debt and I own two properties that bring in about 1k a month total.

Is the value of your homes really low? 120ish and owning two homes debt free seems a bit off, unless they are cheap homes. Or is just about all of your net worth in those homes? I’m just curious about how some people measure their net worth.

Post: #24

Yeah, I lost over 1/2 my assets in 2008 when the stock market tanked but I made it all back in 2010 and 2011.

Post: #25

I haven't had huge (100k+) losses, but I have gone through some incredibly profitable periods followed by some pretty big losses.

I think failure is probably the most essential key to success. If you've never lost any money or been in a vulnerable place in business, it will almost definitely happen in the future. It's not a bad thing, only another way to learn.