When income exceeds expenses, it’s time to invest. The goal is to preserve the purchasing power of your savings and compound it over time. It is not trading. It is not stock picking. It is not about making transactions solely to take advantage of day-to-day fluctuations in price.
Investing takes very little time. Do it yourself. Pay yourself the fee because even a small one has a large long-term impact. Future-proof your investment plan. Avoid target date funds and the 60/40 stock/bond portfolios. They were built on theories from the 1950s and 60s when interest rates above zero were still a thing and government debt piles were going down. Those days are over.
Managing your own money is not that complicated. Follow the plan and then do it with just a few mouse clicks. As individual investors, we are so small that our actions don’t disturb markets, and that makes it easy for us to create and maintain an optimal investment portfolio. Fund managers and robo-advisors are simply too big to adapt, and because they know their competitors can’t do it either, all of them focus on lowering client expectations of future performance.
Goals don’t achieve themselves. We must make it so.