Shortly after paying off my house my boss looked at me with what I thought of as newfound respect. Then he told me I should be dumping money into stocks specifically Facebook.
This was in 2015.
Flash forward to December 31, 2019. Four and a half years later.
We had taken some vacations. Used money on renovating our house. Saved some. Spent some.
I had heard about Robinhood when I was listening to the Harmontown blog. I thought it sounded cool and resolved to start investing or at least dip my toe in.
Back in 2016, I had purchased some Bitcoin and did not have the Authenticator app on my phone to access my Coinbase account. I knew it had to have grown some but that was my only experience attempting any sort of investing.
My wife and I had a few properties but ended up selling them. Although I am grateful for the experience and all the people we met, in the end, “Real Estate Investing” was more of a job for me.
It’s important to learn from your mistakes, but it is BETTER to learn from other people’s mistakes, and it is BEST to learn from other people’s successes. It accelerates your own success.
Jim Rohn
Having made a resolution and starting my account I purchased my first stock of Facebook in February. Watching as the price rose and then fell immediately was nerve-wracking. It was only 200 bucks but it felt like a huge mistake.
Now seeing that stock at $256.99 I wished I bought a lot more.
Seeing that it went to $293 in August and November and knowing it will again, by my same logic I should buy more now.
If I tell people anything about my one year of investing it would be this:
First, start now. You have a little money that you spend on BS. Starting later you will only kick yourself for not starting sooner.
Second, invest a little bit at a time. I would spend $20 here and there on stocks or Bitcoin. When Bitcoin was at $32k I put $1000 in. I felt like I really messed up then a few days later it was at $40K and I felt amazing.
Third, keep your emotions out of it. As in the previous example, riding that emotional rollercoaster can not only make you feel anxious but I’ve seen people make dumb decisions too. Investing little bits at a time, nothing you can’t afford to lose helps with that.
Along with keeping your emotions out of it and investing a little at a time, set up automatic investments. I put money on Facebook and Google every week no matter how I think they are doing.
But it helps to check in on your investments. I had automated investments to Amazon but I realized it wasn’t growing so I cut it. Maybe that will work out in the long run and maybe it won’t but I choose to get out.
Also, have fun. I invest $20 in SHW because it was my initials and SAM since it was my name. It made me a few bucks. Cool. I talk to anyone investing and ask what is doing well for them. I’ll look at the charts and put $20 down, see how it works for me.
I also made a badass spreadsheet that keeps track of my returns and ROI.
So far I have not sold anything except part of a free stock Robinhood gave me and some Dogecoin just to see how selling worked.
This is obviously an inexperienced investor’s opinion so seek out professional help or whatever that disclaimery stuff is. But if you ever want to have ten hundred thousand dollars you have to start somewhere.
So if you have ten bucks to burn, start now. Use my link https://join.robinhood.com/samw948 and we will both get a free stock.
