ETA
The crypto market ticked up a little bit today, so I am now 27.2% of the way to becoming a millionaire, up from 26.8% yesterday. Lately Bitcoin has been having pumps at the weekly close as bulls try to defend the 21-week EMA at around $43,500. Equities look to open modestly higher on Monday. I’m still deliberating the effects of upcoming tapering by the Fed, but that’s a post for another day and it’s not like I have any insights on that.
Although I’ve always longed for it, I’ve never really considered before when I will become a millionaire. Presuming I can achieve 5% returns, and presuming I can increase my $1,000 monthly contributions to my investments by 2% each year, I would be on pace to cross the million dollar mark sometime around 2038. I would be 57 years old.
I wonder how I will feel about becoming a millionaire at that age — would I then wish I was 40 again with just $250,000? What will my health be like then, and will I be more preoccupied with that? When I was 30 I think I had about $25,000 to my name, and I had a lot of anxiety about my finances, even though I had no debt and steady employment. I don’t think I would take a deal with the devil to be 30 again, although I’d seriously consider giving away my soul for the chance to be 20 again, even though at the time I had a negative net worth.
When I was 20 I was admitted to a PhD liberal arts program — 3 years later I basically flunked out and they gave me a useless masters degree as a consolation prize. Since then I’ve served as what Wodehouse would call a confidential secretary. I often wish I could have another chance to do it over again and pick a more practical major. But I probably wouldn’t take the chance to go back and change things, because it’s impossible to say how I would have ended up. Even if could have the chance to go back to 2009 and mine Bitcoin on a cheap laptop, I’d have to pass because it would have set me on a path where I never would have met my wife. And so I will have to wonder if becoming a millionaire will take me somewhere that I don’t want to be.
