Yeah, that’s what I thought too. All through my 20’s I just assumed that only rich people understood the black box that is investing. Regular people don’t invest, right? Don’t get me wrong, I had a 401k at all my jobs but I had no idea what I was doing with it. I just knew that I was supposed to put money in it. Isn’t that what grown-ups do? I never cared if the market was up or down, it didn’t impact me.
Then one day I happened upon a group of people on the internet calling themselves the #debtfreecommunity. I was intrigued. Most of these people were Ramsey-ists following the baby steps to get out debt. So many accounts of people posting about the huge numbers of student loan debt they had and paid off within 1-5 years. I resonated with their passion to improve the quality of their lives and their families. But how could I apply that to myself? I was taught to be afraid of debt. I never racked up credit card debt. I got a scholarship for college, so my measly $10k in student loans was paid off already. That is when I started to hear about investing. All these ‘regular’ people were investing after paying off their debt. Yes, I was technically investing, but I wasn’t paying any attention to my accounts. So I logged into my Vanguard account and saw that my $30k rollover was now $70k. WHAT??? I wasn’t even paying attention and it doubled. That piqued my curiosity. What if I STARTED PAYING ATTENTION? Hmmm??
I saw a recommendation to read the Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins. I went to my local library and checked it out. (I’m cheap, so I am not buying it.) After reading that book my overwhelming thought was THAT’S IT??? Are you telling me investing can be THAT EASY? Why do all the movies make it seem like it’s a mystery and a crap shoot? So many images of people losing their shirts in the market would make any normal person afraid. I wonder if that isn’t the point? Who benefits from all us ‘regular folk’ not understanding or participating in the stock market?? I’m not going to fall into a conspiracy theory well, but I am sure you can put it together.
Pensions barely exist anymore. Social Security can be peanuts for some. It’s not enough to retire for most. So if you’re not investing, and have no pension…that means you are working until YOU DIE! Read that again, I’ll wait……..
Investing is not as hard as people make it out to be. All you have to do is read ONE BOOK to get you started. You could follow one Instagram account and get a whole investing strategy for FREE. I happen to love @personalfinanceclub. Open your mind that YOU TOO can become an investor. You need to have a budget and a plan to do so, but what is stopping you from learning today? My ebook is a great place to get started. You do have time and it’s not boring, so stop the excuses. If you need someone to hold your hand, I can do that too. Book a 30-minute goal-setting session and let’s talk about it.
Photo by Patrick Weissenberger on Unsplash
