Start Investing Already

A friend shared the article below with me a couple days ago and I just got around to reading it. It covers 2 investments. First, invest in you and secondly, invest in the market. I touched on the idea of investing in you back in December - Invest in YOU. So let me talk more about the 2nd one since that is where you really need to start working to plan for your future.

Before I get into investing, let me talk about why people don’t invest.

1) Don’t Know or Understand Enough

I totally understand and appreciate this sentiment, but you are robbing yourself by not taking sometime and understanding just a few simple aspects of investing. First, investing is not about knowing which stock to invest in. That is called gambling in my opinion, and I’m sure there are people that will argue with me on that one, but let’s be clear the market is driven by financial results of a company, along with public opinion. In general, I do not have the time, nor the energy to be bothered investing in single stocks. Those are for the financial investment gurus, so let’s leave their studies to them and we will focus on long-term investing. Long-term investing is called putting your money there and letting it just sit and grow, because you know the track record. This method of investing is pretty straight forward. There is an art if you want to make more than 8-10% growth year over year on your money, I’m not going to say I’m an expert advisor, but the S&P 500 index is enough of a gauge to show you that investing in a good set of mutual funds will allow your money to grow better over time.

2) Fear

I’ve talked about this one a few times as well, here is a link to one post just on control that touchs on fear (What Controls You?). This goes along with number 1, but generally this is for people that are just afraid and feel like they are going to lose everything. These are those that are looking at the news and seeing impending doom. Our economy is strong (maybe not today), but overall it is doing well. Companies are making money and we are surely spending plenty to support them. That results in stock growth overall. There is no worldwide collapse coming. So look at the track record overtime and just trust it. When you do step in, do not check it every day, just set it and forget it. The growth is coming, just wait and see.

3) No money available for Investing

Ok, so this is one I’m going to send you to look at your budget. No matter what you are making, you cannot afford to not be investing, otherwise you are like 70% of Americans and living paycheck to paycheck, just waiting for the next payday. Why live like that? If you need help getting on a budget and planning on investing, please go set up a free 1 hour call with me. I’d love to help you see what is possible. If you are paying lots of different Credit cards and loans off, I get it and understand completely, so let’s get that cleaned up and free up some cash to invest for your future, you deserve it. Just $100 per month invested every month over 30 years is $226K (10% Annual Return on Investment), add years or add more money and it grows exponentially. The average car payment is now $716/mo… I cannot imagine. I remember my first car payment was $350 a month and then I swore I was never going to go over $500, but then it got up to $530. It slowly creeps up as our lifestyle does and we let it. If you took less than half that car payment $300 per month and invested steadily for 40 years, you would have $678,000 in your account and only have invested 108,000. Instead at the end of 5 years, you have a car that you are looking to upgrade again. Today, I have no car payment, no credit card payments, no loans… and that frees me up over $1,000 a month to throw into investments for the future (In just 25 years, that equals over $1.3MM. Why, because we budget for what is needed, along with some wants, some entertainment for the family, and we don’t have excess loan payments that pay the bank and not us. Clean that up and free up some cash, so you can invest in your future.

Now, that I have given you some data on investing, hopefully addressed some of the key issues I see, the question remains, what will you do. Will you take some time to get educated and start investing, clean up your debt, or relook at your budget. The time is now to take some action and start investing. Invest in yourself and definitely invest in the market!

God Bless!

Article Referenced above: Make These 2 Investment Choices - Forbes