Everyone has always told me to "invest" my money. However, every time I "invest" my money, I lose it. I was just looking at my 401ks. I lost 4k in one. 2k in another and 10k in the other. This has been a consistent trend. I can say that I have NEVER made money investing in the stock market. I have consistently lost money. It's very disheartening because this is hard earned money that took me years to save. I could have actually used that money to buy something REAL. Instead it just vanished because I was trying to "invest" money. Investing money is starting to seem like an awful idea. However, I will never be able to retire at this rate. I'm 40 years old. I have 120k in my 401k. It never goes up. It's just hard earned money that I have saved and never really invested. Realistically I need about 1 million to retire. I have no idea how I would ever be able to achieve that amount of money to retire. It's actually kind of a scary outlook. I have a good paying job. I make 160k. I probably see 90k after taxes. I guess if I tried to save 1/2 of what I earn, I could save 45k a year. That would be very hard to achieve, but I guess I could theoretically do it. If I did it for 5 years, I could save 225k. So that would bring the total to 355. I'd be 45 at that point. Not even close to 1 million. Geez... They should really have classes on financial education in school.
Old school man, buy land or rental property's or buy land and build rental property's. The end result, Someone else is paying the note for you.
save USD in AU and then its semi out of the loop till needed, If its in a bank /401 whatever its not yours
To make money via that kind of "investing" it turned into a full time job for me and even then its hit and miss. Unless you are doing insider trading like Pelosi you aren't going to make any real money. Luckily I invested in things I actually like such as BTC when it was $0.05 per and computer graphics card companies like Nvidia back in the 90s and 00s. Today, I'm going a different route but I don't really offer advice anymore. Make it yourself doing your own thing. NEVER follow anyone's free advice because it is worth exactly what you paid for it.
They DO have classes on financial education in school, but the only people that take them are business majors...or REALLY smart people that plan on being rich! Everyone should be required to take courses in financial education in high school and college that cover investments, borrowing, taxes, etc., but few do. Then they graduate, get a job, and sign-up for a 401k as an after-thought. Then 20 years later, they wonder if they will ever be able to retire. The best bet IMO is to invest yourself in a low-cost mutual fund, sector fund or market fund. Don't try to pick and choose the winners from the losers with individual stocks, that is for the pros...and they are wrong half of the time. The Spyder Funds are good as are the market funds that buy the DJI or S&P 500. Saving 1/2 of your take home pay is gonna be HARD to do, so don't try it! I mean, you could do it, but only if you don't have a family and don't plan on having one! Just keep investing, maybe even increase your contributions to your 401k, and in a few (or several) years the markets will enter a new Bull market and you will be on easy street. Until then, just remember that you are still young and have a lot of years (and market cycles) ahead of you before you reach retirement. Don't give up on investing in your future...I mean the only alternative is to give up, spend like there is no tomorrow, and pray that you die early!
One possible scenario: You're forty. If your parents, siblings and often aunts and uncles die before you, you'll have to settle their estates. You'll end up with ten copies of the same picture that you sent out at graduation. You'll also have to deal with scattered real estate, storage buildings and automobiles. Some of it won't be so neat and clean. You'll have years of dealing with nursing homes and hospice care. There might be something left, but not always. Enjoy the time with loved ones while you can. Do you sell Grandma's house, or rent it and have another income stream from the rental? Hire a lawyer. It'll be worth it. As you liquidate the remaining assets you can pile some cash into mutual funds, long term care insurance and life insurance policies. You might also want to share some with the youngsters that'll have to look after you in your old age. Everybody dies. Eventually you reach the end of your good fortune and you'll leave a bundle to the surviving kids, nephews and nieces.... or you don't. My plan is to go out with a zero balance at an extremely advanced age. Life is good. Another scenario: You are only responsible for you. You have cash in the bank earning almost nothing. You should increase your 401k contribution and live off the cash in the bank before it becomes worth less. Read that again. ... Worth less...worth less...worthless. You can try to guess on a stock or twelve, or you can depend on a brokor that knows what to do. Either way, you keep putting money in, getting your matching $ from your employer and reducing the taxes you pay. When the market is down you buy more shares each pay period, when it's up you buy fewer. The market has always, throughout its history trended up. I got in when it was around 8000. It was over 33k yesterday. You get comfortable living with an increased 401k contribution after the cash is depleted in the bank, and if you aren't happy you find a side hustle or three to bring in extra funds. If you find you have extra funds some months, invest in precious metals, guns, ammo, tools, land. Diversify your investments. Your successful side hustles take time, but pay well. So well that you can hire a kid to handle the work, pay him, and still make money. Hey, now you're the boss. Invest in the business. Get a good tax specialist. Where you go from here is up to you. It's fun when you find out how to make it work. I started out with a paper route, have been in the recycling business and speculate on antiques . Maybe you'd rather flip houses or sell "Southern cars" Up North. There's a side hustle for everybody nowadays. There are people selling bundles of long leaf pine needles and tumbled beer bottle "sea" glass online. Bottom line is do something now. The old bit about "Time is money" is never more true than with investments. Start young so you don't have to play catch-up later. Take the long view and enjoy the ride. The brakes will come on at the end one day.
Hopefully if the Repubs take the house and they have some balls they will launch an investigation of this witch.
the legislative branch isn't going to investigate insider trading on itself. Both sides of the aisle benefit from making the rules for business. How else can you explain peeps going in with nearly zero net worth, making sub 200k and then in a few years wind up multi-millionaire networths .. yes, insider trading and favorable treatment. I'd guess that it's pretty much even across R's and D's. DC is full of sinners and state houses aren't far behind.
I've made quite a bit of money from the stock market; however, I have loss quite a bit also. Luckily, I made more than I loss. There are a few things you should understand before investing: 1. No one will care for and do a better job investing your money than you will. (Note: My broker was even a good friend of mine and still loss me money. Why? Because they weren't his losses, simply numbers on a spreadsheet and the firm forces brokers to push certain stocks. BTW I fired him.) No one handles your money better than you - period. 2. Investing is gambling. There really is no better way to put it. I have gone into a stock after researching it for months just to have the rug pulled out from under me for in days from something I didn't know about. So, most of the old quotes about gambling pertain to stock investing like, "The odds always favor the House" and "The game is rigged but don't let that stop you from playing." This also pertains to not only the stock market but government because they get their percentage also on your profits, a big percentage. It matters not that you purchased the stock with taxed dollars and took all the risk. The capital gains tax is alive and well and they get their pound of flesh if you win. 3. Never invest with money you can't afford to lose...just like gambling. The odds are you will lose it. You will also lose sleep and make bad decisions if you constantly are worried about losing it. 4. Invest in things you know and understand, like technology or energy. I remember a story about Peter Lynch who made a ton of money when his wife and daughter brought home a new type of panty hose. They were so thrilled by them that he immediately bought shares in the company. It was simply, he could understand it, and he saw the consumer loved the product. Stay away from stuff like Biotechnology unless you understand it and can afford the high risk. Example, the guy that invented time-release fertilizer owns a major portion of the land around here and receives royalties from damn near everywhere but what do I know about fertilizer. Biotechnology is indeed the future, especially Gene Engineering, but again if you don't understand it then how can you invest wisely in it. I got out of investing because I have not enough time in my life left to make up for any losses - simple as that. Age matters in investing (probably should be item 5 above) as you either have time or money but seldom both. Also, like I said, "the game is rigged" and I got fed up with the Casino. The thought that the DOW is 30,000+ simply is insane so...no way I would invest anymore. What I do now it place money in safer things with smaller payout like bonds and CDs. Currently, I am not doing either as the interest rate (payout) simply isn't worth it to tie up your money that long. I normally invest in these for maximum of 1-year. Why? Because things change, in the world, and in your life. A one-year investment isn't so long, pays a decent percentage for the time (better than saving/checking accounts), is safer, and aligns with yearly taxes. You can get a CD that pays 3.5%, so it is getting better now that all that money the Democrats flooded the economy with is drying up. It should continue to go up in the near future as money gets tighter and tighter. You also should look to eliminating debt as one might actually win bigger doing that and is much safer. Some people would disagree, but I believe, this is the very first thing a person should do before one even considers investing in anything - be free of debt. I call this Investing in yourself first.
Agreed on get out of debt first. My wife wanted to pay off the mortgage for several years, but I was opposed. The numbers just weren't in our favor. Then two years ago, the numbers aligned more to my liking, and I borrowed $50k from my 401(k) at 0.41% (and that pays back to my account) for five years, take $46k from my IRA and $16k from my Roth IRA (tax free). I think we paid about $16k extra on the $46k, but the peace of mind since has definitely been worth it. We had the cash to pay the taxes. Not smart to be hitting the IRAs to pay taxes on the previous year's distributions (that's a vicious cycle).
My investments are through a local Edward Jones brokerage. The funds in my profile are diversified with very little in growth and a majority in bonds and annuities. But that is after i retired. Before that I invested in the S&P500, and other growth vehicles. That was during the Reagan years when the government was pro American and pro-business. In today's economy you need to talk to an honest broker about where your money should be invested. Frankly, I would point at sheltering as much as you can in something stable until the economy turns around.
If you got into BTC at 0.05c you have fuck you money. If you have fuck you money, why are you even associating with us? Unless you had it on FTX or Mt. Gox.
According to fidelity the average investor with an individual commercial account makes about -1% per year. What it seems most of them do is put their money "in stock funds" then the stock funds take a shit, the person hears the stock market took a shit on the evening news, then moves into their money into "bond funds". Forgets that it's in "bond funds", many moons later the individual hears "the stock market is on its way to a all time high", the person moves money back into stocks. The good old sell low, buy high. Nearly everyone would be better off if they left it alone and never moved it.
Just a quick observation that relates to this topic. I've never seen a tattoo that earned compound interest. Same for all varieties of piercings, cosmetic tooth filing, caps, etc. It might make you feel better about your appearance, but you can't trade it for food. You'll just be the homeless person with the brightest smile.
Not going to talk about my personal assets but if I mined 50 coins in my garage back in the 2000s it wouldn't even be a million today. A million's not a lot of money unless you are already poor and I suspect next year it wont be worth anything. What you do with that money after that is what really makes the difference. Its like going to school, when people graduate they think their education is over, when in reality it is just starting. To me investing in gold, silver and BTC is not where you make money, its where you protect the money you already have. Poor people worry all day long about making money, getting a job, winning the lotto. People with money worry all day long about how to protect it from friends, family, lawyers, girls, thieves, and government (redundant). The line between being poor and rich is very small... I could talk about it all day long but people only hear what they want to hear.
