I have continued to sell things around the house on eBay. It has turned into a bigger project than I ever thought it would be. I initially started selling things off because I had a bunch of clutter taking up a lot of space in my apartment. Then I realized that selling all of this loose stuff was adding up very quickly, and I had a newfound incentive to keep selling old junk in order to generate more and more investment capital.
Throughout high school, college, and medical school, I have accumulated a lot of stuff. I don’t use 75% of it, and it clutters up my apartment. This stresses me out for some reason. That was one of the initial incentives for me to clean everything up. A cleaner, decluttered apartment is so much more pleasing to come home to especially if I am already stressed from the usual med school crap. On top of this, I move apartments every 2-4 years, and it is a pain in the ass. I moved in college three times, but thankfully I have only moved once in medical school. All of this extra stuff in my apartment equates to about 9-10 extra boxes when I move. For someone like me this saves a lot of trouble.
And of course the more stuff I get rid of to make space, the more money that goes straight into my investment account. My new totals are up to 456 items sold for a total of $11,115.40. This is the biggest win-win scenario in recent memory for me. I get to declutter my apartment and remove potential sources of stress, yet I also get to add $11,115.40 to my investment account. I don’t need this money at all, so I have the privilege of investing it for 30, 40, or even 50 years.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have already calculated the future value of this money. If I let this $11,115.40 sit invested for 40 years at a projected rate of 10%, then my holdings will have grown to around $590,000. If my holdings have an average dividend yield of 3.5%, then I will be receiving $20,650 a year for doing nothing. This is almost double the initial investment value! Once again, this is all because I decided to make my life a little more stress free by decluttering my apartment from all of the stuff I had accumulated over the years.
I always say that the key to gaining great wealth is no secret. If you can minimize the number of “wrong” things you do (not necessarily wrong – merely those decisions that are counterproductive towards building wealth) and continue to do the small things right, then you end up with a series of small financial decisions that add up greatly. This $11,115.40 is not going to make me rich. In fact, the primary reason for selling this stuff was to destress my life and clear up space; however, if I make enough of these minor but significant sound financial decisions throughout my life, then I will end up rich by age 65 or probably much sooner. I will more than likely be enjoying hundreds of thousands of dollars from dividend payments rolling in every year. I will be able to afford vacations with my family and a very nice home in a great neighborhood. I could have a job that pays $50,000 a year, yet have a net worth upwards of $10 Million by the time I am age 65. A lifetime of these small decisions can compound into a greater wealth than you ever imagined. Selling clutter around the house is an example of one of these small financial decisions.
Money and Medicine for Millenials 