A Foolish Fan of Various Foolishness
Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, used to say “there are only three ways a smart person can go broke: liquor, ladies, and leverage.” While a dictionary might suggest that leverage simply is another name for debt, leverage often is associated with very high multiples of debt (200%+) used by “sophisticated” investors. Leverage continuously […]
Many people fear debt and want to be completely debt free. Owing money to anyone else forces you to pay them money before you can pay yourself and out of control debt can wreck your financial future. However, debt is really just a tool. Do we want to be free of cars, scissors, or butcher […]
Everyone suffers a bad day now and then. An emergency fund can make a bad day temporarily painful instead of a long term burden. Without emergency savings, people may need to resort to credit cards, payday loans, or worse! Let’s first examine why you, and everyone else, needs an emergency fund, then we’ll examine the […]
My father invests very differently than I do. He embraces the safety and security of US treasury bonds and purchases them directly as the majority of his investing. I interviewed my father to draw upon over 40 years of his investing experience in US treasuries as a non-professional, or retail, investor – like us. Since […]
Last week I introduced resources for information and how to compare major fund types in How to Pick a Fund. This week, we’ll dig into a practical comparison of three specific exchange traded funds based on the S&P 500 Index so you can follow along with how those resources can be used. What is the […]
With so many investment funds now available, we need to evaluate them to pick what is right for our needs. We’ll start by looking at the key factors for fund analysis and then cover useful resources to locate this information. Key Factors for Fund Comparisons When evaluating all types of funds (mutual, closed-end (CEFs), or […]
Investment funds create baskets of assets and package them for investors. Most funds stick to publicly traded stocks or bonds, but some funds will include commodities, real estate, cryptocurrency, or other more exotic assets. Most likely, you will start your investing journey with one of these funds either because you want to start simple or […]
To make good investments, I try to make purchases that will be worth more to me in the future than they are worth to me right now. While this sounds very simple, it often will be complicated by exactly how to determine the worth, or value, of the investment. Precise valuation requires effort, market analysis, […]
After starting to Pay Yourself First, cash starts to accumulate. That is when we Put Our Money to Work (our rule for early retirement #2), but to do so, we must pick both an investment and an account type. However, trying to cover both in one blog takes too long, so for today, we’ll focus […]
Many new investors never start because they fear losing money. I get it. Losing money is extremely easy, even after you gain experience and become a good investor. It is also built into our minds that we experience more pain from losing money than from gaining money. Fortunately, with standard stock investing (more exotic types […]