My investment journey
On my way to deciding on real estate as the next step in my journey to financial independence, I have tried several other investment avenues. While I will share my opinion on pros and cons, the reason for sharing really is the journey and accumulated experience. I made some mistakes, and most likely you will too, but perhaps in reading this you can control your losses better than me.
1. Stocks
The first time I bought stocks, I spent a few hundred dollars on blue chip stocks. It felt like gambling and I fully expected never to see that money again.
As it turns out, blue chip investing is boring and slow for the most part. The stocks appreciated some 10% in a couple of years and I got yearly dividends worth about 3%. Of course, by picking specific stocks at specific times, you can do a lot better than this, or a lot worse. There is definitely a lot of variability in this investment class.
Ultimately, because I did not have time to truly analyze individual stocks, I picked companies that felt right, companies that I identified with. One of my largest investments was the company my father had worked at for decades. As any investment professional would tell you, that is a bad way to invest.
Compounding my mistakes, I also started buying with leverage. Leverage is when you buy more than you have in cash…
