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I can talk to you until I’m blue in the face about how to invest your money over your lifetime. But here’s the condensed version. Get a job, save until it hurts, and repeat for as long as you can. And in retirement, live within your means. In other words, be the caretaker of a lifetime of money for your family. And I’d add, there’s nothing wrong with making money S-L-O-W-L-Y.
Because the virtue in making money slowly is that you’ve spent most of your life keeping to a certain lifestyle. You plan. You make lists for special trips of what needs to be done, and it doesn’t get done until you have the money to do it. In other words, you are thoughtful about your spending.
You take care of your savings like you would a garden. You keep it alive. You tend to its needs. You don’t let it die. Because the death of money is the saddest thing in the world—you realize—AFTER it happens. Money is your responsibility. Sorry. It is your lifeblood that keeps food on your family’s table, and, more than anything, provides you with freedom.
Money is not greed. Money is the summation of all your decisions throughout your lifetime. Hopefully, your children will sit around when you’re gone and say you made good ones. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. How do I know? Because they tell me.
In a low interest rate world, the average investors (not you, I hope) can’t handle earning only one percent on their money. They inevitably reach for yield in an effort to meet the needs of their overextended lifestyle. They want their kids to inherit money and want the lifestyle too. Then one of Your Survival Guy’s deadliest markets this century takes place, and Mr. and Mrs. Lifestyle sell at the worst time so they can survive on what’s left. Sorry kids. We tried.
When you look at where the T-Bill rate is and understand it is GRAVITY, any returns above the risk-free rate (the T-Bill) are what’s called excess return. Where do you think the money’s going to come from when excess returns, the low-hanging fruit, are picked off the trees? Stocks, real estate, you name the investment, are like trees. They don’t grow to the moon. They all have a half-life.
Money is freedom. Don’t you want to give as much of it as you can to your children and grandchildren? Don’t you want your good name to survive throughout time? Either way, they won’t forget you. When you lose one single dollar, that dollar is dead. Remember, no one can afford to lose a dollar. Replace the word dollar with child, and you’ll get what I mean. It’s that serious and it’s exactly how I want you to think about it. Period.
Action Line: You need to build a plan to invest your money for a lifetime, I would love to talk with you.
E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy
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