DIY INVESTING
Miss Piggy rocks it! That girl gets it right every time. Have you noticed how she doesn’t lift a finger, yet she totally always seems to kick-ass, have it all together and look hot while doing so? I think I discovered her dirty secret; she is not a DIYer.
I sure don’t want to do my own facial, waxing, taxes or dental cleaning. For pete’s sake, I don’t even like doing my own cooking – because then I’m forced to eat it. I do hire that stuff out and I’m way better for it. Do the stuff in life you love; the energy boosters, not drainers.
Any true DIYer will tell the saving-a-buck-DIYers that it’s not cheap to be a DIYer in general. Most DIYers are hobbyists; they enjoy doing their craft. If you want to be a DIY investor, it’s a lot of research, time invested in reading, learning the ins-n-outs, and the cost involved to pay for the top gurus to hand out investment advice; not to mention the cost on some of the great investment tools that are available online. And, truth be told, DIY investing can cost even more than what your advisor charges. I know personally that some of the top gurus charge thousands for their investment newsletters per year – and so they should.
Ask anyone who ever took a stock tip from the office watercooler, or from your best friend’s dad’s cousin who divorced the Wolf of Wall Street. Ask them how it turned out!
Everyone who’s been around the block knows there is no such thing as get-rich-quick, without intentional planning and smart hard work. In financial planning, there really is a thing called ‘the luck factor’, however, I will tell you from experience, luck befalls the folks who had a solid plan or goals in place and have been working steadily toward them.
My big point on DIY investing is this, if it isn’t your passion, hire it out. If it is your passion, then totally do-it-yourself. If you are trying to save a buck, and that’s your primary focus, then you may be better off putting your money under a mattress or hide it in your child’s messy bedroom – don’t worry – if it’s like my daughter’s room, your money will be safe – no one will ever find anything in that mess anyways!
Very VERY few people are true DIY investors; everyone gets info and advice from somewhere. The question becomes, who are you getting your trusted investment advice from? (Hey, I will be the first to tell you I get my investment advice from amazing experts, as do most advisors {very few do their own extensive research and portfolio managing}. Trust me when I say, being a professional investor is a full time job for a team of people.)
At the end of the day, the advice you get from your Investment Advisor is usually worth a multiple of whatever investment fees you are paying for. A 2010 study by Investment Funds Institute of Canada shows that people who work with financial advisors/planners have almost twice as many investible assets as investors who do not work with a financial professional.
I also find most investors get return CRAZY (or return comparingitus), which leads them to want to pursue the glamourized DIY world. That seems to be all anyone ever talks about or cares about. Guess what! When it comes to investing, it’s not all about returns. This is not about how much money you make, but how much money you keep!
When you go to the beach you need a large tote, not a clutch. The clutch won’t hold shite. Point-in-purse, what you hold for investments is not even half as important as how you hold your investments, meaning the type of account it is held in and the tax consequences of that account. Taxes will be a far bigger nemesis to you any day of the week than those of meager (but steady) returns. Hence, why DIY gets more complicated if you have to learn the investment world AND also brush up on the tax code at night. FUN!?!
So why not take a page from the amazing Miss Piggy – delegate some of the draining exhausting crap in your life (like all that financial stuff) and go kick it in areas of life that you love and leave you inspired and full of life.
