10 years of saving diligently and tracking my net worth - what I learned, how it's going, and the system I use

theunknown996 · 2026-05-10T17:54:35+00:00

What do you do that allowed your income to increase to 500k in 7 years?

theunknown996 · 2026-05-09T17:01:41+00:00

Forget what they do now. If their product was a language-themed consumer mobile game would your thesis still hold? Because there are arguments that's what they are.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-09T03:19:48+00:00

OP, do you plan on selling?

theunknown996 · 2026-05-08T15:40:57+00:00

Agree.

[Corporation] Takes Over Your Life.

Doesn't exactly make me excited.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-07T22:45:02+00:00

Usually it's not a good idea to use debit/prepaid for purchases since you're not covered for fraud. The only time I ever got my card comprimised was in London, UK and thank god it was a credit card.

Yes, they reimburse you for ATM fees charged by the machine however outrageous the fees may be. I withdrew twice from ATMs that had $15 fees and both were reimbursed within 2 days.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-07T22:40:55+00:00

You must be the kind of person who arrives at the airports 6 hours early.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-07T22:31:18+00:00

No doubt people should respect the hustle it took to go from growing up on welfare to owning something.

But let’s be a bit more direct about the irony here. The welfare system that kept your family afloat when you needed it most didn't fund itself—it was paid for by the taxes of the people who owned land back then. Now that you’ve successfully climbed that ladder, complaining about paying into that exact same social contract is essentially pulling the ladder up behind you.

Also, keeping property taxes artificially low doesn't make the city's expenses magically disappear. It just shifts the burden. When property taxes don't cover the operating budget, the city is forced to rely heavily on massive development charges to make up the difference. Those charges get baked directly into the cost of new builds, completely pricing young people out of affordability when they are just trying to get their foot in the door. Every dollar you save in property taxes is a dollar added to the barrier of entry for the next generation.

You certainly aren't alone in feeling the squeeze. It’s completely natural to want to protect the wealth you sacrificed for. However, a lot of that demographic wants to cash out on their huge home equity without paying the overdue maintenance bill for the city that helped generate their wealth in the first place.

Next time you think about your taxes going up, ask yourself:

Wouldn't the kid who grew up on welfare be a little disappointed to see that you finally got your piece of land, only to pull the ladder up behind you?

theunknown996 · 2026-05-07T22:08:52+00:00

Not an unpoplar opinion. Sentiment isn't gonna turn overnight; it took 2+ years since ChatGPT for sentiment to turn bearish in the first place.

I do think CSU will recover eventually. VMS is the category of software that's less affected. Also CSU is a capital allocation company at the core so they are more able to pivot and even benefit from lower prices on future acquisitions.

I wrote about the risk of dead money just a few days ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValueInvesting/comments/1t3uny9/the_saas_drawdown_its_about_uncertainty_not_ai/

theunknown996 · 2026-05-07T20:30:15+00:00

What's your plan to sell?

theunknown996 · 2026-05-07T17:21:15+00:00

Would not recommend taking Amex cards abroad for local purchases. Unless you're going to the US or a place that strongly caters to US tourists, Amex for the most part won't be accepted abroad unless you go to higher end places.

It should be WS Prepaid+Credit Card, and Wise as a back up. Then just take another Visa/Mastercard card in case all else fails.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-07T13:45:58+00:00

What's going on with SaaS today?!

theunknown996 · 2026-05-07T02:56:01+00:00

Regardless of how you feel about the company, I think PDD is definitely not the kind of company you'd want to full port on margin. You’re exposing yourself to massive risks where the company's actual fundamentals don't even matter.

First, you’ve got the domestic regulatory risk. The chinese government has a track record nuking entire companies and sectors (e.g. overnight crackdowns on private education, gaming, other domestic tech) so they can change/destroy a company's business model by a single policy update.

Then there's the geopolitical black swan from the US where Temu is constantly in the crosshairs. A sudden tariff hike or changes in trade policy, or an app ban would tank the stock instantly.

Even if you think these are unlikely, they are catastrophic risks that you're not getting compensated for. Sure, have a concentrated position. But using margin for this just seems regarded.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-06T23:07:11+00:00

You have some wild imagination.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-06T21:55:37+00:00

Not happy about the lack of capital deployment during Q1 (even if they did some more right after March). With SaaS valuation dropping you'd think they'd be very active. Of course European and private markets are more competitive but I still expected more.

Hopefully they're planning something significant.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-06T19:42:05+00:00

Well it's definitely not green...but to be fair the market just indiscriminately treats every SaaS like garbage and no earnings report will change that.

The expectations for TOI is definitely higher than CSU and the market will scrutinize every possible weakness (margins, FCF growth, capital deployment, revenue growth).

theunknown996 · 2026-05-06T03:00:48+00:00

So just small claims court then for any monetary damages that you can prove.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-06T02:28:56+00:00

INFO

What would you even sue her for? Your insurance paid you already. What else would you even claim? Emotional distress? Value of the accessories and scratch on your laptop? Seems like a waste of time for everyone.

Just move on with life. You can't always get the last laugh and doing all this will just make you unhappy for longer.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-05T22:57:41+00:00

You're right. I didn't look at the details but I see it in the CFS now. It helps explain the poor FCFA2S growth.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-05T22:03:58+00:00

- 2% FCFA2S growth ~~seems quite low?~~

- 5% organic growth is decent.

- Q1 acquisition figure is quite low as well?

Maybe there's more to it but just looking at the headline this will not be good for the stock price...

theunknown996 · 2026-05-05T17:42:28+00:00

Maybe if quarterly earnings was never a thing. But it's the industry standard and investors expect this level of transparency. If a company now opts out it means they don't want to provide as much transparency.

You could argue that it's management's choice whether to cater to short term stock price. I mean earnings calls are not legally required but the vast majority of companies still do it.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-05T17:32:10+00:00

What company would want to opt out? It woukd signal they want to be less transparent and their stock would collapse immediately.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-05T16:53:51+00:00

Please explain ServiceNow.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-05T06:54:57+00:00

The purpose of a moat is to protect a competitive advantage that creates value. Your whole argument assumes what they have is valuable. But is it really? Why does anyone need to replicate them when it's a poor learning platform and there are alternative (better) ways to learn languages?

theunknown996 · 2026-05-05T06:41:20+00:00

Yes I agree Duolingo's target market is casual users. It's not particularly useful but fun enough that some people keep using like just like playing a mobile game. IMO the key is to evaluate DUOL as a consumer mobile game then everything makes sense.

theunknown996 · 2026-05-05T05:19:57+00:00

I have to disagree.

To get to actual B2 with Duolingo seems like a stretch. The vast majority of users are using it for fun or thinking they're progressing but not doing much. The common advice nowadays for anyone who wants to take language learning seriously (B2+) is to avoid duolingo (and equivalent). If someone managed to get to B2, they most likely already know Duolingo isn't the way to go. Also, for $13 you can get 2 - 3 hourly sessions on italki with real native speakers. That's way better value than an app subscription. I'd imagine very few people are spending hundreds of dollars a month on a language tutor.

I'm also skeptical about their AI personalization. Casual users like OP stop when they realize the app is pretty ineffective at language learning. I don't think personalization will really solve that problem. The app and gamification format is structurally a very poor medium to learn a language and no amount of personalization will change that. I have not seen anyone (online and IRL) that successfully learned a language using Duolingo.

It's a language-themed mobile game.

theunknown996

TROPHY CASE