First I ain't Warren Buffet, never claimed to be and never will. I am just a realist as I've said before and I see the world in black and white. I stated before that we are transitioning to a fully electronic world. I used to work in the Transportation industry for Freightliner. At that time an automatic transmission on a full sized 18 wheeler was a dream. By the time I left they had automated the first 3 forward gears and reverse. Now they have full automatic transmissions thus eliminating the need for drivers to double shift and taking a great burden off of them. I recently went back for a visit and was shown by my former colleagues a prototype truck that has the capability to drive it self sometime in the next decade. Kind of like self driving cars, this truck is the wave of the future in an all digital world. It can sense every vehicle around it, detect the weather like if it's raining or if the road is icy and a lot more.
What's my point? We are moving slowly but surely to a society where there will be no need to drive, no need to ever set foot in a brick and mortar store, no need to even leave your house if you don't want to. It's sad as hell on one hand but it IS 100% the future. Walmart rolled out test robots this month that will roll down the aisles of its stores and scan merchandise, replace missing or wrong labels and track inventory automatically. Mcdonalds is experimenting with total automation when you enter the store by using kiosks and bots that can cook food. Wendy's has experimented with the same concept.
It's just a matter of time before they one day eliminate thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of employees. Shopify is positioned to tackle the ecommerce business very well. I have downloaded their software and played around with dropshipping on Amazon. It is so extremely easy to use that an idiot like myself can do it with very little knowledge. As society moves gradually along towards that big ecommerce future, the same one that made Amazon a giant and the same one that Walmart is now dedicating Billions of dollars to, SHOP will be a dominating force.
Second, this is NOT my retirement and I never said it was. I said in my first post that it was simply extra money that I had in the bank and I had been wanting to try my hand at something else other than real estate so I decided to stick it in Shopify in the hopes that maybe it would one day buy me a condo in Florida or at the least be enough to put a down payment on one when I retire.
I stated that me the wife are ordinary hardworking people. We make a little over 104k a year which again I stated in my first post and all of that comes from real estate. I began buying property about 10 years ago and currently have 19 properties that generate $159,600 a year but I owe notes on a few so my net is around 104k. It actually is more but I put a thousand a month into a maintenance fund for the properties for repairs, plumbing issues, etc. I buy land and divide it into half acre lots here in Louisiana and place 16x80 mobile homes on them and rent/lease each for $700 a month.
Over the next 10 years before we retire our goal is to buy 20 more properties. We've been currently averaging 2 a year as we buy the mobile homes that are around 5-7 years old and refurbish them a bit when we set them up so it's a full time job for us. Our goal is by the time we retire to have a positive cash flow of at least $20,000 per month. We feel we are right on track. At that time we can turn it over to a property manager who will take 10% to manage it and we can begin traveling. I'd be 52 years old and my wife would be 50 so I feel we'd be young enough to enjoy life.
I don't rely on this investment for anything other than a bit of fun and a running joke between me and my wife that this is our Florida condo money. We really do want a condo in St. Augustine on the beach and I could probably invest in one now but we are too busy here in Louisiana to stop and enjoy it so that's why we said maybe when we retire. Our intention if we live that long is to travel for a few years and see the world.
As with anything in life, it's all a gamble. I've known plenty of people who were plugging along living a great life and then had an accident, got cancer or met an untimely end. Nothing is guaranteed and since I'm a realist I'll be the first one to tell you that this stock is not either. I'm not an imbecile who threw 38 grand away. I looked over the company, took a look at society and the way we are headed and then I made a decision to stick my money where I think the future is.
If you are so cautious about this company then please enlighten us as to what you think it will do in the next 10 years? Are you investing in SHOP? If so why did you stick your hard earned money into it? If you believe in the company then why would you have a problem with me sticking my money into it? If you don't believe in the company then why are you on this board? I'm just curious, nothing personal. Maybe you have some insight to this that I'm not seeing? A the very least allow me to wish you a happy weekend and let you know that I won't be sitting at home worrying about my investments. I'll be at a big festival enjoying some music and a funnel cake. I hope you take a little time to enjoy something cool this weekend as well :)
