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Two cents from one of the most unsophisticated investors around.

Everybody and their brother, after they have given their pet formulas for getting rich by constantly moving money around and being lucky, states the following:

- Diversify
- Invest over time and get rich slowly
- Always pay yourself first - i.e., put money aside before buying anything else.

Easy peasy so that what I've been doing for several years now. I put a healthy percentage of each paycheck into our company's 403b fund which they match up to a point, that's done automatically.

I also put a few hundred dollars each month into Vanguard Index funds - their total stock market, international stock market and total bond market funds. That's a line item "expense" on my monthly budget spreadsheet just the same as paying the mortgage and utility bills. That takes advantage of dollar cost averaging. I buy $xxx worth of each fund around the 1st or 2nd of the month, I generally don't even look at the current price.

Took a big hit in 2008 like everyone else but recovered. Took a lesser hit just recently but with the diversification my total investments' net worth didn't dip too much at all. In fact when the market fell so badly that Monday IIRC I put a whole month's extra allotment into the stock fund that night to take advantage of the good prices.

I started really late in life so won't be retiring in my 50's but am on track for a decent amount when I do retire.



I read a book a few years ago called "The Best Investment Advice You Will Ever Get" or something like that. In the preface the author says you can read all twenty something chapters or skip to the very last chapter. The first chapters were all about the ins and out of investing, lots of technical details and historical data. Then in the last chapter he says, "buy broad based indexed funds. Vanguard and Fidelity both have good ones. If you do that and invest long term you will make just as much money as if you followed all of the detailed steps related in the first chapters of this book".

I'm sure there are more sophisticated ways of handling money if one wants to devote the time and energy to following the markets and prognostications. I happen to like the KIS principle in all things and the above seems to be working okay.