The title of this post is inspired by a comment from long-time reader of my blog Rick Stratton .

The whole side project thing has become ultra hip the last few years. It was probably a few putz stock rich kids at Google that really accelerated this whole ‘Side Project’ trend as they gloated about 20 percent spare time projects that they endorsed.

Side projects sound fun and hip, but they will get you broke as fast as day trading if you don’t respect the work it takes to succeed.

There is nothing dumber than calling a portion of your investing money ‘Vegas Money’. You treat it like Vegas and you will lose it. When I lose money in an investment – public or private – I get pissed. I am the sorest loser of all time. Vegas is dumb. Vegas sucks. What happens in Vegas….NEVER stays in Vegas….it ends up on YouTube!

It is the same thing as side projects. The ‘side project’ gloaters that show up on Donnie ‘I am tanned and love myself or just plain asshat’ Deutsch are the needles in the haystack. You grow your investments by busting your freaking ass 32 hours a day. You make money investing and or trading by investing thousands of hours studying markets. Of course there are a few ‘outliers’ but you are not one of them.

‘Vegas Money’ and ‘Side Projects’ are just terms for lazy thinkers. I embrace the people that float these terams because that is who I am competing against. These people make my impossible job just a little easier.