06 Sep I Lost $800 Today and Why I’m Smiling About It

I wish I was like Spock. You know, pointed-eared dude from Star Trek with no emotions (actually they have emotions, they just really know how to bury them and think logically). To be able to think rationally in times of crises is a trait we look for in our leaders and role models. It’s important! It’s often why they are leaders and role models. You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to be a leader, but you have to know how to take charge.

The same goes for investing. We have to be in charge of our emotions. We can’t let ourselves get carried away by each inevitable fluctuation. If our hearts aligned too much to the ups and downs of the market, it won’t be long before we have an arythmia that’ll send us to the hospital.

There is a lot that goes into investing, but even people who don’t invest know this very true saying: buy low, sell high. I mean, if it was really that easy, we’d all be millionaires many times over. The truth is, it is that simple, but its not that easy. We are human. To err is HUMAN! We screw up. We do things we shouldn’t do. We do things we KNOW we shouldn’t do right before we do them! Have you ever bought something based on an emotional feeling and later regretted it because you didn’t really need it or it was bad timing financially?

When it comes to stocks, its not much different than buying a shirt from a store that has regular and varying sales (though it does admittedly require a bit more looking into than buying a shirt). You don’t want to buy it at full price. The best time to buy it is on a sale. But if there are regular sales, you don’t want to just buy when its 10% if you know a holiday weekend is coming up and it could be 30% then! And you don’t want to get a brand if they’re going out of fashion, you want something to with pizzazz that’ll elevate your look. Okay, running out of similarities here but I hope my point has been made.

Investing is the ONLY way you can truly get ahead with money. It doesn’t have to be stocks. It doesn’t have to be real estate. It can be in stamps or your porcelian Russian doll collection for all I care. As long as its in something that will go up in value consistently that you can eventually sell for cash and retire on (the easier to sell the better). Earning interest (and dividends help too) is a fundamental about money that too few people are taking advantage of. You can’t start soon enough. So why not start today? Don’t see how you feel about it. Take $50, $100, or $500 and just do it.

Then thank me in 10 years when you’re that much richer.