How Risky Is Investing?
Yesterday I played the cashflow game with my friend Roland.
This time I tried a different strategy.
I was afraid.
I didn’t dare to buy real estate (dangerous, what if your tenant is messy and damages my property?).
I didn’t buy any stocks or share because we all know they are risky. And there was proof! One stock even fell down to $1!
I didn’t buy gold. My friend wanted to buy it for me. But what if my house gets burglarized? And they run away with my gold coins?
I was a teacher, and had 1 child, so ended up with less money left over every “month”, was 3 times out of job, and “amassed” $9’000 cash by the end of the game.
What About My friend?
He bought shares for $1000, and soon after he sold them with a $5000 profit.
Bought a house, soon after sold it with $60’000 profit.
Bought a house with 8 apartments for $50’000. Eventually sold that with $160’000 profit.
Bought 2 businesses… and so on.
So, in the end, he had around 90’000 cash, over 10’000 in passive income, and over $10’000 in cash flow.
You might now say, he had a lucky dice.
But I also had some good ones. Like I could have bought an apartment and one throw later sell it with 15’000 profit.
Had I been a bit more adventurous, had I learned more about real estate, about stocks and shares, about investing I could have increased my “bottom line” or in the game’s words:
my cash flow, the leftover from my paycheck after all my regular expenses had been paid.
BIGGER!
Instead, I was stuck in the rat race.
What do we learn from this?
Yes, investing is risky and scary.
But sticking one’s head into the sand is even more so, not to mention all the sand getting into places where you would not want to have any sand.
That’s Risky!
Don’t go and just buy and invest without knowing anything about it. That’s risky!
Ask people who do invest. Find out what they invest in. There are tons of teachers out there (and also at least that many scammers).
Do you know any affluent people? Made sure you don’t ask people who LOOK rich (they often are not), weirdly enough people, and neighbors who do not look it, are millionaires. Maybe they can give you some tips?
Find out what you are most interested in. Real Estate? Stocks and shares? Crypto?
Do you want to make sure your money is as safe as possible? Do you want cash flow? I personally want both 🙂
No More Scary
Stuff you “know” is suddenly less scary, isn’t it? The only risk we now have is to keep learning, reading, studying but not getting into it.
So far I had the excuse that my cell phone (iPhone 5S) is too old. And it is. I can’t even delete apps.
Today I went to the 3 stores we have here to see what options I have. I pledge to myself that I will buy a new one this week. Well, it’s not new, new. It’ll be the SE from 2022. It’s only a bit bigger than what I have now and it’s still got that button that is so iPhone.
I’m a bit scared of how much time it’ll cost me to set it up, download all the apps I still want, and whether I can somehow send the content to the new one, like photos, notes, and so on. But we will see. It’s probably less scary than I am thinking now.
Opportunities on Social Media
I personally don’t even look at “opportunities” I’m presented on FB and TG from people I have not even had a chat with before. They can’t lure me in with their 1% every day.
When I started to look into investing. What’s out there. Start reading and following people. Yes, I was tempted to look at those. And I did. A couple of times. But after been scammed last summer (though we still don’t know if it was a scam or “just” bad management), I look at sites closer. But that’s another topic.
Anyway. The few opportunities I looked at screamed scam at me. And I told the sender I was not interested. Their reaction? Also another topic I might one day write about 🙂
My time is too valuable to look at any of them anymore.
Last tip:
Be careful. Keep your eyes open but don’t stick your head into the sand.
I think we should not even open the emails scammers send. They have ways of knowing if someone has opened the email and read it. This way, they will select out those who open the email and send more. I always directly “REPORT AS SPAM” when I see such an email/direct message or comment. Thanks for sharing your take on this important issue.