Very wise and much cheaper - why work to support a bank or lending institution?

exactly! :thumbsup


Although I'm still waiting for the photoshop plugin to create mine.. :winkwink:

yup, if you're at all able to - never let banks/credit own you. fight club!!

I disagree with you all.

Why buy outright, when leverage can help you maximize the ROI on specific projects.

Mortgages and loans are excellent tools to leverage your assets, as long as you use them diligently.

I agree with IMX... it depends on the situation...

Why support a bank? because the return of some investments are worth the cost of interest. ;)

i suppose it depends on your perspective.

my company is my investment - and the profit margin is so much higher than any possible outside investments, that i am not terribly concerned about my return on money that i choose to spend on cars or property.

property is very safe, especially long term. cars are a money burner - they depreciate like a mofo. but i don't care, i'm not purchasing them for anything other than enjoyment.

i have been debt free for years, and i intend to stay that way :glugglug

ROFALMO! that was funny shit man!

I doubt that many of the people on this board buy their toys for investment purposes. They're toys!

yes. so i would not be leasing/car loaning an exotic car in order to free up a small amount of money for investment.

if i was that hard up for cash, i should not be buying an exotic car...

Very interesting and instructive posts, FM, about your success biz, it was nice to read them, they're like the American Dream to me. Too bad I'm far away to be able to make even a tiny percentage of that :sadcrying
It would have been different perhaps to live in Southern California and work for a big company.
I agree that it's better to have the money and buy things upfront rather than take bank loans, but when you don't have the capital to invest in such businesses, you just need to take loans from somewhere.
But speaking about the real estate biz, isn't combining 2 different biz, like the adult stuff and real estate, too much time consuming?

What exactly is the american dream?

Making enough money to move to Canada someday.

hehe

The American dream is most of the things posted here: having a nice house, having a nice car, earning well, living in a beautiful area such as Southern California ... Don't you think this is what fascinated (and it will continue to do so), lots of people in this world?

I don't like or know brad but I have to say

Great car Brad, He's sure done 'ok' for himself even though everbody thinks he' a fat (now slimmed) idiot, but I don't think any idiot can buy and have what he has, and I'm sure he has more then 99% of the people on this board.

Brads somenoe you hate and hate even more cause he's successful!
Good/hot girlfriend too :)

FM,
Great post on real estate. Your program made me lots of money back in the days, too bad I spent a lot of it :)
Thanks!

this thread is cool , I like it a lot.

Not the facial structure. It's the nose. It's one of ours.

in 10 years he could be worth more than 100 billion. invest for the long term.

very good point. especially with an asset like real estate.

IMX did you ever hear the expression "the road to hell is paved with good intention"?

That what can happen when you live above your means by using your assets to leverage against.

In a few cases, borrowing money can give you the added cashflow necessary to maximize your ROI. In most instances though,borrowing money is what gets you into trouble.

That said, yes, taking a loan out to purchase a house is how to get started. But you should have a plan to pay down your mortgage faster than the terms of the loan by making additional payments against the principal each month. Otherwise, you will pay twice as much money for the house, just look at a truth in lending paper on any mortgage. If you make the monthly payments for 15 or 30 years the only write off you have is the mortgage interest.

It also depends on your age. If you're young, purchasing a house will be your largest investment and will help you start accumulating wealth thru equity. Once you have equity in your home, you can get an equity line of credit on your home loan so that when you purchase a car, you purchase it by taking additional loan against your house equity. This way you can deduct the interest you pay out for a car. If you just take out a loan on a car, you can't deduct any of that interest.

Be very careful not to borrow money you can't afford to pay back or you will lose all of you assets by defaulting on a loan. This has been the demise of many wealthy people, leveraging everything they have to live a better life style. When they finally can't afford to service their debt, they lose everything and who is the benefactor? The bank or lending institution ends up with all the assets you worked so hard to acheive.

On point, I would also add having a lovely piece of ass to use and abuse on a daily basis. :)



The Dawg

morning:) wonder what today will bring.
FM, great post buddy, hope to see ya in vegas soon:)

Kimmy, looking forward to a drink or 2 with of course;)

Great day here, sunny with a high of 65, time to go and enjoy it
*W-n-B*

you get great rates on a mortgage. if you are a great real estate investor, then you should be able to make more on the property than what you pay on the mortgage each year. just put up a large down payment on the property. or if you already own say 10 mil in real estate with 0 debt, take out 2-3 mil in loans to buy a property at a great price. there is increased risk when you start using debt, but if you use it wisely you will increase your income.

Thanx - let's get together at the show :)

Your thinking is right on. You will make more money long term with real estate, if, you have a plan like this, than you will make with any business over the long haul.

Great car talk, investment advice, and a bit of soap opera BS with Brad showing his new girlie pics of laura. KK, stay cool !! Find a young stud and post your hot-tub pics.

FM, did you start out with any of those millions your father made? I have a friend who gives me daily advice about how I should be making more money. Of course, he was born into a family with mega bucks. He didn't have to work his butt off at boring jobs. He had money to invest which was given to him by his father. Not all of us have rich daddys or living trusts so we can open those doors. So FM, if you can share with us how much money you had when you started in the porn business, it might make your success story more meaningful to the rest of us. So many times, it takes money to make money. GFY is filled with young webmasters dreaming about following in your footsteps.

Why would anybody with half a brain buy a ferrari thats automatic?

Its all about the stick... Automatic is for pussys..

what a waste of a good car..

I suppose I'm the antitheses if the adult webmaster :)

When I started making decent money, I moved to a much smaller house in a less expensive area of the state, gave away everything in my old house, bought less expensive cars and kept clipping coupons and only bought ANYTHING during big sales. Even now I don't have all the furniture I need, lol!

What little investing I do is in land - buying homes to lease out is too much of a hassle, IMHO. I don't want to deal with renters and I don't want to pay someone to deal with renters. I doubt I'll ever sell in my lifetime - it's more of a something I can pass down. Though I still plan on buying a few hundred acres and plopping my little log cabin smack dab in the middle :)

I'm also supporting some family members, though a couple of them don't know it ;)

I had a g-father that died a multimillionaire and he bought and sold people as much as he did anything else. The only people that were his "friends" were those that received SOMETHING from him, be it jobs, investing capital, cash, loans, gifts, etc. And the number of "bad partnerships" he had with these so called friends was astronomical - seems like there was always someone that he was either complaining had just screwed him over, or he was bragging that he just bested. He measured his worth in how much money and "things" he had. It was a sad way to live, IMHO and money started meaning less and less as I watched.

What I consider my "fortune" is my friends. I've have some from as far back as kindergarten. There's still a group of us from high school (and it's been, ahem, a few years since I graduated ;) ) that get together 2-3 times a year. That's SO much more important to me than working 10-12 hours a day so I can make enough money to buy things I don't even need, lol!

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE money! And I like working - I'd go nuts if I didn't work. I'm comfortable knowing that I'll never go hungry and I'll always have a roof over my head. I travel frequently and have the money to buy whatever I need - but I honestly don't see the reason to HAVE more than I need. Being successful buys ME time. I'm able to go back to school and learn, able to volunteer, able to take off at a moments notice, rent a boat and spend a few days on the lake :) Very few "work" related people even know how to reach me, hehehehe. I'd rather work less and make enough to buy what I need than work more and make millions to buy more and more "stuff" But as I said, I'm the antitheses of the adult webmaster - or I'm just a freak ;)

Peaches, if friends make you happy, wonderful ! But friends, like enemies, can turn on you at any second. It sounds like you are one of the lucky ones who has very good friends who give you happiness. I have been reading about Ron Levi for years. It sounds like he has been able to work hard and play hard. He works with D$ every year to put on The Players Ball. He races cars. He buys wonderful gifts for his friends...and probably his enemies as well. He travels. He parties.

If you can combine money and friends, you have it all ! Try being without money...I mean really no money! When you can't pay the rent, buy food, pay the insurance on your car, afford doctors, then money becomes of prime importance. It all depends on where you are in life.

Um, post my hot tub pics? In case you haven't noticed confucy, I stay away from the camera, and I don't post many pics of myself at all.

Not that I dislike everyone in the business, but I've always felt the fewer pics the better...

Thanx for the question :)

It was my Grandfather who I was speaking about and actually when my Grandparents passed I received $10,000 which I still have in a CD because I never wanted to spend that money.

My Father died when I was 19 and the money he left to my Mother was squandered away because she never knew how to handle money.

I have been working since I was 11 - first in the summer time loading furniture on containers. Did that every summer until I was 18.

By 19, I was working as a sales manager of an outbound telemarketing company. I dropped out of college soon after my Father passed because my Mother couldn't afford to pay for my education.

I got into the 976 business (phone sex) when I was 36. I would hand out cards on windshields of cars for them to call the 976 lines. I started that business by getting a 976 number from PacBell (very small investment). Soon I had a crew of people handing out the cards, then I started placing advertising in secondary newspapers and publications.

When the national 900 product was released in '87, I had already purchased computer equipment for our 976 lines and this equipment could be used for 900 so I became a service bureau. This is when I started making some serious cash. At this time I was working 7 days a week, 20 hours a day.

When the internet exploded in late 1995 I jumped into the AdultNet and the rest is history.

So the answer to your question, I did everything with my own money and hard work. Nobody ever gave me anything other than the $10k from my Grandparents and I still have that CD and it's now up to about $25k. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

You really can make it on your own in this country. All you need is a game plan and a lot of hard work!! :)

Hope this helps :)

Oh and I forgot to tell you confucy -- IF I were looking, it wouldn't be for a young anything. It would be for a man with brains. But there's plenty of time for that, it's not like I have any sort of weird insecurity or inability to be alone and had to have someone around. :)

Oh, I've been without money! I can remember when I was first divorced having to mix store brand mac and cheese with water because I couldn't afford milk :( But as soon as my friends found out, they were there. And I would and have done anything and everything for them. We've all been through some tough times together!

I have to honestly say I've never had ANY friend turn on me. There are acquaintances that have, but they were never friends. I know I'm lucky in that respect and it's not something I take for granted :) I'm happy with what I have and I PERSONALLY just don't need anything else :thumbsup But again, I'm probably a freak for thinking this way, lol.

nice car

One thing Peaches left out of her story is the fact that she was CE's first customer service person. She worked for us in Atlanta as one of our first off-site employees. I knew her from her previous job where she was working for an audiotext service bureau. She has gone on to make it on her own. Congrats on your success Peaches!!

And you're right, friends and employees can turn on you with no advanced notice. You think everything is fine, but they have a different agenda and can have many things going on in their head that you know nothing about .

KK, I have seen more pictures of you and Brad than anyone. They weren't shown by you, but by Brad, Serge, and webmasters who met you at porn events. Pretty damn good pictures, too. Now, don't rule out the young rich ones. You'll see them in LV next month.

I'm VERY lucky in that I've never had that happen to me. I've seen it happen, thankfully I've somehow avoided it personally.

And if you're trying to insinuate that *I* had a different agenda, I can promise you that ANYTHING I felt was said to you honestly: With the increase in traffic, I was working 12+ hours a day, every day. It was just too much. :( I think a lot of the problem was that w/o me being there, you only had my word to go on by how much I was doing instead of seeing first hand that I was just overwhelmingly swamped. There was nothing more than that then and there's nothing more than that now. :)

and big brass balls.

amen.

I have big floppy boobs - does that count? :winkwink:

Peaches I wasn't insinuating anything. I was responding to gooeycandy's post and she made the mention fo how friends can turn and I was agreeing and added employees. This was more about Sharky than anybody else. You know his father still works for us.

I'd love to move forward with you and bury any ill feelings, it's been quite a while, don't you think?

Peaches your post reminded me of the Contented Fisherman parable. The holidays were a good time to read it again. Thanks :) Congrats on your success and happiness.

---------

One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach, with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf. He was enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and the hope of catching a fish.

About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working hard to make a living for himself and his family.

"You're not going to catch many fish that way," said the businessman, "You should be working harder rather than lying on the beach!"

The fisherman looked up, smiled and replied, "And what will my reward be?"

"Well, you can get bigger nets and catch more fish!" was the businessman's answer.

"And then what will my reward be?" asked the fisherman, still smiling.

The businessman replied, "You will make money and you'll be able to buy a boat, which will then result in larger catches of fish!"

"And then what will my reward be?" asked the fisherman again.

The businessman was beginning to get a little irritated with the fisherman's questions. "You can buy a bigger boat, and hire some people to work for you!" he said.

"And then what will my reward be?"

The businessman was getting angry. "Don't you understand? You can build up a fleet of fishing boats, sail all over the world, and let your employees catch fish for you!"

Once again the fisherman asked, "And then what will my reward be?"

The businessman was red with rage and shouted at the fisherman, "Don't you understand that you can become so rich that you will never have to work for your living again! You can spend all the rest of your days sitting on this beach, looking at the sunset. You won't have a care in the world!"

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, "And what do you think I'm doing right now?"