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Do it with low cost, well diversified mutual funds. Hire a fudiciary advisory firm with a significant research arm. Do your part, Consistently invest overtime. It adds up, you can end up sitting on millions but it takes time.
The best time for individual stock trading was during the dot com boom years. I had days that made or lost over $100K, a bad day was making only $5K. At the end I lost over a million of my gain.
I knew quite a few people who lost it all during that time. It seems nobody could say "Enough" and walk away. For some reason I didn't get caught up in the irrational exuberance. It wasn't because I was smarter than everyone else.
IMO, the best way to make money on equities is to get stock as a gift or incentive.
buying the dot coms was speculating not investing .... speculating you try to profit way above what markets are returning by trying to pick just the right stocks , at just the right time , in just the right sector .. the problem is even if you got all that correct , you still don't know what the competitors have on their drawing boards
That's how I got there and I'm a multi. Assets first hit $1 million in 2005, and I'd been working exactly 30 years. Part of that was $300K capital gains from 2 houses DH and I sold in 2003 when we married and moved to a LCOL area but, OTOH, I had some "lean" savings years when I was married to my Ex, who was a spendthrift and was unemployed the last 5 years of the marriage.
I'd also say it's pretty hard to become a millionaire WITHOUT investing in stocks unless you're very good at real estate investing and being a landlord. CDs won't do it.
I can't go into all the lessons learned here- just educate yourself, start out simple (a few good mutual funds or a reasonable allocation of ETFs) and don't throw everything you have into what's hot or panic and sell at the bottom.
I don't know... We own very little stock, other than that granted as compensation from various tech firms and we're doing all right.
My main concern is earning a big enough return to exceed inflation so that the purchasing power of my nest egg doesn't decrease over time. My long-term average rate of return is 6%, and my net worth has increased by 2.9%/year on average in the 4.5 years since I retired, AFTER withdrawals. Both reassure me that my crazy travel budget is sustainable.
Your picture may be different, especially if you have COLA pensions in addition to SS- I have only SS plus a couple of small non-COLA pensions that won't be worth much 20 years from now.
My main concern is earning a big enough return to exceed inflation so that the purchasing power of my nest egg doesn't decrease over time. My long-term average rate of return is 6%, and my net worth has increased by 2.9%/year on average in the 4.5 years since I retired, AFTER withdrawals. Both reassure me that my crazy travel budget is sustainable.
Your picture may be different, especially if you have COLA pensions in addition to SS- I have only SS plus a couple of small non-COLA pensions that won't be worth much 20 years from now.
Nope, no pensions, though it must be nice to have one. Or two. Or three.
Our retirement income will be from RMDs, an annuity, rent receipts from the Silicon Valley house, SS for each of us, REIT dividends, and draws from my online business.
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