[Modern Family] Ch: 19 [Investing money] (Patreon)

[Two Days Later]

Warm steam followed Jason out of the bathroom as he rubbed a towel through his damp hair and walked toward the bedroom. He had spent almost forty minutes inside the tub, letting the hot water loosen his shoulders while his thoughts moved through money, property, stocks, businesses, and every expensive decision he had made since waking in this world.

The bath had relaxed his body, though his thoughts remained crowded.

After putting on casual clothes, Jason entered the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out eggs, chicken breast, cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise. He cracked four eggs into a bowl, sliced the chicken into thin strips, and heated both in a pan with butter, pepper, and a little salt.

Within minutes, the smell of grilled chicken and eggs filled the kitchen.

He toasted four slices of bread, added the cheese and lettuce, then divided the egg and chicken between them. Once both sandwiches were ready, he placed them on a plate, poured himself a tall glass of orange juice, and carried everything toward the dining table.

His new laptop sat on the table.

He placed everything on the dining table before opening the laptop and connecting the charger.

He had bought it for one purpose.

Keeping his money organized.

Jason took a large bite from the first sandwich while the laptop loaded. “I’ve already spent thousands on cards, computer, games, renovations, and random daily expenses,” he muttered as he wiped a crumb from the keyboard. “If I keep trusting my memory, I’m going to wake up one morning and discover that I'm broke.”

The desktop opened to several folders he had created yesterday.

BANK ACCOUNTS.

MONTHLY EXPENSES.

THE GRID.

POKÉMON INVENTORY.

PROPERTY INVESTMENTS.

STOCK PORTFOLIO.

TAX RECORDS.

Jason opened the main spreadsheet and reviewed the figures again. Every major purchase had been entered, including his computer equipment, recording devices, games, card products, storage renovation, insurance, food, gas, and the new laptop sitting in front of him.

The current balance still looked healthy.

Healthy enough that a careless person might believe it could never disappear.

Jason knew better.

He took another bite while opening his online brokerage account. The fifty-thousand-dollar wire transfer he had authorized the previous day had cleared that morning, leaving the money inside the account and ready for investment.

The number sat there quietly.

$50,000.00 AVAILABLE TO TRADE.

Jason stared at it for several seconds while chewing slowly.

He had delayed this decision more than any other investment so far.

Buying Pokémon cards had been easy because he understood the long-term collector market. The sealed products were physical, limited, and safely stored inside a controlled room upstairs. Real estate would also be understandable once he found the right building. He could inspect the property, calculate the rent, estimate repairs, and physically see what he owned.

Stocks felt different.

He could invest thousands with a few clicks, then watch the numbers rise or collapse without touching anything. One bad decision could turn a large chunk of money into an expensive lesson before he finished eating lunch.

“I can’t throw money into the market just because I remember a few company names,” Jason said as he opened the notebook beside his plate. “This reality has already changed too much. Jay married Sonia, Haley already went through something that should’ve happened years later, and I’ve apparently become a human cheat code.”

His future knowledge remained valuable, though it could never become an excuse for stupidity.

Apple had a powerful future in his original world.

Amazon grew into something almost impossible to describe by 2026.

Google became one of the most influential companies on the planet.

NVIDIA eventually dominated areas of gaming hardware, artificial intelligence, and advanced computing.

Netflix transformed from a DVD rental business into a global streaming company.

Visa remained tied to the growth of electronic payments.

Those futures had happened in his old reality.

Jason had no guarantee that every event would unfold exactly the same way here.

A different executive decision could damage a company. A new competitor could appear years earlier. A lawsuit, recession, political decision, accident, or unexpected technology could rewrite an entire industry.

He opened a document titled INVESTMENT RULES and read through the list he had written the previous night.

Rule One: Never invest money required for daily living.

Rule Two: Never place everything inside one company.

Rule Three: Keep enough cash available for property opportunities.

Rule Four: Avoid emotional buying and panic selling.

Rule Five: Review every company instead of blindly trusting future memories.

Rule Six: Record every purchase, fee, dividend, and sale.

Rule Seven: Keep money available for taxes.

Jason nodded as he reached for his juice. “Responsible Jason is annoyingly sensible, though he’ll probably keep reckless Jason from living beneath a bridge.”

The fifty thousand dollars had already been separated from his emergency reserve, property budget, business fund, and money assigned to The Grid. Losing it would hurt, though it wouldn’t destroy his life or force him to sell the house.

That mattered.

Jason opened several market pages and began checking the companies individually. Prices remained beaten down after the financial crash, while fear still controlled most conversations surrounding the economy. News articles discussed unemployment, bankruptcies, collapsing property values, and investors who no longer trusted anything connected to Wall Street.

Some people believed the market had farther to fall.

Others believed the worst had already passed.

Jason remembered enough from his old timeline to know that early 2009 had eventually become one of the greatest buying opportunities in modern history. He also remembered that knowing the future from a history chart felt very different from putting real money into a market while everybody around him believed the financial system might still collapse.

He opened the page for a broad S&P 500 index fund first.

Individual companies could fail.

The entire American economy would need to suffer something far worse before a broad index became completely worthless.

Jason entered ten thousand dollars into the order field, then stopped before confirming it. His finger hovered above the touchpad while his mind searched for every possible reason to wait another week.

The market could fall again.

He might find a better entry price tomorrow.

Another panic could send everything lower.

He could wait until the picture became clearer.

Jason took another bite from the sandwich and chewed while staring at the confirmation button.

“That’s how people miss every opportunity,” he said after swallowing. “They wait for certainty, and certainty usually arrives after the price has already climbed.”

He clicked the button.

A confirmation page appeared.

ORDER RECEIVED.

Jason stared at the message, then slowly leaned back.

His first serious stock investment had taken less than thirty seconds.

“That felt disturbingly easy.”

The order would purchase ten thousand dollars of the broad-market fund once it is executed. It wasn’t exciting, and Jason knew nobody would ever create a dramatic movie about a man buying an index fund while eating an egg sandwich.

That was exactly why he liked it.

The investment gave him exposure to hundreds of major American companies without forcing his entire future onto one executive team.

Jason entered the transaction inside his spreadsheet before moving to the individual companies.

He assigned four thousand dollars to Apple.

His memories immediately filled with iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, app stores, wireless earbuds, subscription services, and years of people declaring every new product either revolutionary or completely unnecessary before buying it anyway.

Still, he checked the company’s financial information and recent performance before placing the order.

“Future knowledge gives me the shortlist,” Jason said as he typed. “Research decides whether the money actually moves.”

He confirmed the Apple order and recorded it inside the spreadsheet.

Amazon received three thousand dollars.

Most people still thought of it primarily as an online retailer. Jason remembered cloud computing, digital media, subscription services, warehouses spreading across the world, and a future where ordering almost anything from a phone became completely ordinary.

He entered the order, reviewed it twice, then confirmed the purchase.

Google received another three thousand dollars.

Jason understood the danger of betting against a company that controlled how millions of people found information online. Advertising already generated enormous money, while video, maps, mobile software, and other services offered even more room for expansion.

He confirmed the Google order before taking another drink.

NVIDIA received two thousand dollars.

The company remained closely connected to graphics cards in the minds of most consumers, which already made it useful to Jason. His future memories gave him reasons that extended far beyond gaming.

He placed the order, then entered every detail into the spreadsheet.

Netflix received fifteen hundred dollars.

Jason spent longer studying that one.

In 2009, Netflix still mailed DVDs directly to customers. Streaming existed, though the idea of it replacing traditional television still sounded ridiculous to many people. Jason knew how massive online video would become because he intended to build his own career around that same transformation.

He confirmed the purchase with a thoughtful smile.

“If internet video fails in this reality, I’m going to have much larger problems than this investment.”

Visa received the final fifteen hundred dollars from his individual stock purchases. Digital payments would continue growing as online shopping, international travel, electronic banking, and card usage became more common.

He confirmed the last order, then reviewed the total allocation.

Broad-market index fund: $10,000.

Apple: $4,000.

Amazon: $3,000.

Google: $3,000.

NVIDIA: $2,000.

Netflix: $1,500.

Visa: $1,500.

Total invested today: $25,000.

Cash remaining inside the brokerage account: $25,000.

Jason looked at the untouched half of the account and resisted the urge to invest everything immediately.

The future might look obvious from his memories, though markets rarely moved in clean lines. Prices could fall another ten or twenty percent before recovering, and Jason wanted enough money available to purchase more during future weakness.

He created a second spreadsheet tab titled PLANNED PURCHASES.

The remaining twenty-five thousand dollars would be divided across five future investment dates. Every few weeks, he would invest another five thousand dollars across the same portfolio after reviewing company news, market conditions, and any major changes within this reality.

The strategy wouldn’t give him the absolute lowest price.

It would protect him from investing everything at the worst possible moment.

Jason finished the first sandwich and picked up the second while the order confirmations continued appearing. Green check marks slowly filled the screen beside each company.

He felt a strange mixture of excitement and nervousness.

Twenty-five thousand dollars had moved from cash into pieces of businesses he couldn’t touch. They were just electronic records and ownership percentages so small that nobody running the companies would ever know his name.

Still, those tiny pieces could grow.

After entering everything, he saved the spreadsheet, then saved another copy inside an external drive connected to the laptop.

He looked at the duplicate file and smiled. “Adobe Premiere turned me into a backup addict.” 

After clearing his plate, he carried it into the kitchen and returned with another glass of juice. The brokerage dashboard now showed every order as completed, and the value had already shifted slightly.

A few dollars had disappeared.

Then some returned.

Jason watched the total move for several seconds before closing the page.

“That’s enough of that,” he said as he pushed the laptop farther away. “Watching every dollar move is how normal people become conspiracy theorists.”

He opened the main financial plan instead.

The numbers now showed a clearer structure.

A large emergency reserve would remain untouched.

Another portion would fund a cash property purchase.

70k had been reserved for a laundromat or another small recession-resistant business.

15k remained assigned to The Grid.

25k had entered the market.

Another 25k remained inside the brokerage account for future purchases.

Jason studied the numbers while tapping his fingers against the table.

He closed the investment spreadsheet and opened the property folder. Several listings sat inside, including small apartment buildings, duplexes, triplexes, and four-unit properties being sold by banks across Southern California.

One listing immediately caught his attention again.

A four-unit building near a university had dropped in price twice within three months. The photographs showed faded paint, overgrown plants, damaged kitchen cabinets, and one broken window. The structure looked neglected, though the description claimed that three of the four units remained occupied.

Asking price: $214,000.

Estimated repairs: $18,000 to $25,000.

He rubbed his chin as he thought, "Potential monthly rent after renovation could go upto $3,200 to $3,600. Minus the taxes."

Jason scrolled through the photographs again while taking another sip of orange juice.

A cash buyer could close quickly, which gave him an advantage over buyers who needed mortgage approval. Banks were drowning in foreclosed properties, and many sellers cared more about a reliable closing than squeezing every possible dollar from the deal.

Still, Jason refused to throw more than two hundred thousand dollars at a building because the listing agent had uploaded a few carefully angled photographs.

He needed somebody to inspect the property properly.

Someone needed to confirm the title was clean, check the tenant records, examine unpaid bills, estimate repairs, compare rents in the neighborhood, and make sure the building wasn’t hiding a disaster beneath a fresh coat of paint.

And he knows the perfect man for the job.

Phil Dunphy: The "I Can Sell It" Guy

Next Chapter: Meet Phil