I apologize for the lack of inspiring posts lately but I have a good reason for this behavior – I haven’t been thinking about investing much because I moved a chunk of my net worth [1] into passive funds. Instead of being very in-tuned with the stock market, I was beginning to be a passive investing convert.
For years, I’ve been buying stocks and while the investments were profitable, it was flat out stressful. I didn’t know how much it was consuming me but seeing my net worth jump 3%-5% daily was nerve racking to say the least.
It didn’t start out that way though. At the very beginning, I was excited to see that I could make money in a hurry. Some days, it was awesome, but other days, it just plain sucked. I realized that in order for stock trading to be profitable, I really had to stay on top of the investments. It didn’t give me freedom. It was another job and a very demanding one at that.
As I get ready to buy my house in a year or so, I moved much of my assets [2] into online savings accounts [3] and then it dawned on me to start trying passive investing. With half of my assets virtually safe and another big portion in index funds [4], volatility went way down and I started noticing that I was happier. That when the market was in flux, it didn’t bother me anymore. In a way, I felt like I was living again. I could play golf without checking on stock prices using my phone. I could have lunch without searching for places that showed CNBC [5].
Sure, I will still buy and sell stocks in the future, but most of my assets will definitely be in passive funds because even if I can beat the market, it wasn’t worth the time, energy and stress.
If you haven’t tried passive investing, perhaps you should give it a shot.