Blood and Money

Even though my bachelor's is in biology and I work in software, I've always been fascinated by economics. There are a lot of similarities between biology and economics and the two fields borrow pretty liberally from each other. On the macroeconomic side of things, there are all kinds of interesting things that happen with the flow and creation of wealth. I particularly enjoy reading the news, doing research, then saying, "I think thus and such is a good investment" based on what I find and then putting my money where my mouth is to see if I am clever (or lucky).

On the microeconomic side of things, I tend to be more philosophical. I like to think about what it means to be wealthy, the role that money plays in, "being of value to oneself and others", as the Buddhists say, and the relationship between money and morality. Is it true that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? Or does "living in the moment" mean not concerning oneself with saving for the future? Is debt immoral? Money and wealth (or the lack of it) and how people spend, save, and give, tells a lot about a person.

I was poor for most of my adult life... now I'm doing okay because I have a pretty well-paying job, but I have a lot of catch-up to play. For the last ten years, I've invested in the stock market as a value investor and done pretty well. But inevitably I'd sell off what I had for one reason or another and now my brokerage account is mostly empty.

One day, I had a thought: What would be an interesting experiment to do that would tie together all of my random thoughts of, and dabblings in, money and investment that I could write about?

This blog is the answer to that question.

I'm going to start 'donating' my blood plasma, then investing the money I make from it until I have enough invested to generate $300.00 a month and write about how it plays out and what my thoughts are along the way.

My guess is that if I'm very, very good (and/or very, very lucky), I can achieve that in around 7 years. Let's find out if I'm right.