Rich Dad didn't work for me

My dear readers, I'm glad you're still around. You can tell the difference between when I'm writing cheese and when I'm writing fact. This story is real.

I'm not superhuman. I cannot jump over tall buildings or dodge bullets. I'm just a normal guy working a normal job, although a job I actually enjoy doing at a company that treats me great and has good benefits. I do have a brother who was a tenth of a second from making the Olympics and I myself am a pretty good athlete, although not good enough to go pro. That's it. That's me. A guy sitting at a desk with a strong work ethic who likes telling jokes and loves sports.

Several years ago, when I first started blogging, I told you I've been following Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad advice. Some of you warned me against it, but I failed to listen. I do thank you for telling me the truth, it's my fault I had my ears closed.

So now looking back, everything I did was wrong. Before doing it his way, I worked hard at the job I went to college for, invested conservatively for the long-term, and made a lot of money. I took a lot of that money and re-invested it into other things after reading the Rich Dad books, namely real estate.

Rich Dad talked about assets vs liabilities. So I ran the numbers, bought three properties, and everything looked good. Right? Wrong. It's not easy like it is in the books.

Bad tenants destroying your properties take a positive cash flow and turn it into a negative cash flow. He didn't say that. Or that tenants skip out without telling you, or don't pay you period until you have to forcibly evict them.

Meanwhile, my buddy didn't read the books and did the opposite of what he was supposed to do by the books. He bought houses with huge negative cash flows and worried profusely how he would pay for them. This is exactly what Kiyosaki tells you NOT to do. Well, he timed the market right and turned out to be wealthy. Now, he's living in a million dollar house and I'm renting from him (and renting out our final house to people who have a long history of paying rent and not destroying homes).

Luckily for us, I didn't entirely listen to Kiyosaki. He says that 401k's and mutual funds are bad investments and the stock market will crash in 2010 when the Baby Boomers start to retire. We'll see. If he's right, I'll ride it out. The S&P 500 over the past 90 years went up around 10% a year or more. Sometimes it drops 20%, sometimes it goes up 30%. It's all good because over any given long period of time, it averages over 10%. So I simply have my 401k mostly invested in the S&P 500 index.

I did some research and found out that you were right. Kiyosaki is a fraud. There never was a Rich Dad, and the whole series started making money as a marketing tool for Amway (which changed its name to something like Quick something). Not only that, he's not super rich and in fact has a net worth a dozen times less than he's claimed. He is a millionaire though, but that's because of the books. He's never been a successful businessman nor investor.

So, don't be stupid like me kids. Stay in school, finish it. Buy a home and live in it. Invest wisely. Don't get divorced (divorce is one of the top killers of wealth) and don't spend your money on stupid shit. Follow that advice, the advice my retired father gave me, and you'll be rich.

Unfortunately for me, I listened to the wrong Dad when I was making a boatload of money. My father's retired. Kiyosaki's still working. They're about the same age. Sure Kiyosaki has more money (all from his book sales) but my Dad is happy. I sincerely doubt Kiyosaki is.

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As for 300, I told you all I'd do a review, but I sold it and no longer have exclusive rights to it. I gave it a 9 dead zombies out of 10. It's Frank Miller at his best, better than Sin City. Zack Snyder did a great directing job. Of course with Miller, don't expect historical accuracy and definitely don't take the kids. Very violent.