Quote:
Originally Posted by MyFinancialAwareness 
The key though is two fold:
1) Why do you hate investing?
2) Why do you want to become a millionaire by 45? My Financial Awareness |
1) My dad invested in mutual funds and followed a market timing plan reccommended by Doug Fabian which he did quite well with. However, it required watching the 30-week moving average of the funds and selling when the price dropped below that number, so you had to monitor everything closely. He reccommended to me that I have Fabian manage my money for a percentage to save me the hassle, which I did, but then the guy started using a different system because he was having trouble making any money after the .com bust since the market was so flat, and he lost some money for me. My reaction being to bury my head in the sand and not look at the numbers. I finally got my money out from his management, but have trouble trusting any other investment firm with my money. I read books by Peter Lynch and Warren Buffet and all said that it's best to invest your own money, but you have to do it right. And I'm afraid I won't do it right, that I don't have the dicipline to monitor the markets, and that I'll lose money. Also, once I started looking at ethical considerations, I realized that I didn't really want to invest in most of the companies in mutual funds/index funds anyways, even the so-called socially responsible ones. And then I felt overwhelmed by trying to pick my own stocks, and started feeling like maybe there aren't even any companies out there worth investing in.
2) The milliionaire thing goes back to my dad also. He taught me about "the miracle of compound interest" and I'd sit around and work up spreadsheets that charted my net worth going up and up and it just always made me feel good to think that I could do that. And money was important to him and I think he is proud of me that I am good with money and with saving for the future. I do have some conflicting beliefs though, because having 8 or 9 investment accounts is a pain at tax time and in some ways the money is a complication. Also, I feel guilty about not giving enough, but also a huge pull to hoard. I don't think right now I would be a "vibrational match" for a million dollars, and it could very well take me until 45 to get there, although I've started being open to the possibility that it could also be sooner.