Your excuse for not saving just went out the window with this article from the Wall Street Journal on Tin Can Curt. Here’s the gist:
To the outside world, Curt Degerman was a poor can collector.
The aged Swede, known as “Tin Can Curt,” spent 30 years roaming the streets of Skelleftea in northern Sweden in his blue jacket and ragged pants, collecting tin cans and bottle for cash. He was, in the eyes of most people, an ordinary street bum.
Yet when he died he left more than $1.4 million to his cousin.
How did he do it? Thrift and smart investing.
It turns out that in between collecting cans, Mr. Degerman spent a lot of time in the local library reading business papers and studying the stock market.
“He knew stocks inside and out,” said his cousin.
He used his tin-can earnings to buy mutual funds. He also bought 124 gold bars and also grew his cash with a savings account.
Amazing. Mr. Degerman passed away at only age 60, yet managed to amass $1.4 million. Imagine if he had lived another ten or twenty years (like Warren Buffett), or had another bull market to help his compounding rate!
Advisors have to deal with investors that have undersaved all the time—and yet still hope to retire with their working income. I’m sure Mr. Degerman followed classic principles: 1) keep your expenses down, 2) live beneath your means, 3) save like crazy, and 4) invest for growth and let compounding work its magic. If Tin Can Curt can do it, so can you.
