Do what lets you sleep at night. This statement means something different to everyone. The only opinion that matters is yours. What brings me sound sleep is financial security. Not having consumer debt to my personal name it's reassuring. My wife and I recently acquired a mortgage on a reasonably priced house. Despite the inflated prices during COVID, our base wages alone would allow us to pay for living expenses and the house in a single year. The mortgage, insurance, and property taxes sit close to 7% of our net income. Not being leveraged with huge amounts of debt put me at ease. Not having vehicle or loan payments puts me at ease.

Be a lazy investor. I thought being a successful retail investor was a very complicated undertaking. So many strategies and investment options. After reading tens of thousands of pages of financial literature, my initial views could not have been any further from the truth. The key is time and consistency. Retail investors who used a dollar-cost average strategy investing in low-cost, passively managed index funds enjoyed returns similar to that of most smart money over time. Dollar-cost averaging simply means an individual invests a little bit of money from each paycheck into their portfolio. It doesn’t matter if the market is up, down, or sideways. It doesn’t matter if we are at all-time highs, or the bottom fell out. Just invest consistently. Lastly, don’t withdraw money from the portfolio for any reason. Let it ride.

Stay conservative. Conservative is relative. Using the example above, my mortgage paymeny is 7% of my net income. It doesn’t matter the size or cost of the house, just the relative expense to my income. Cost of living and investment rate are two major factors. Materialism is a mindset that has plagued America since WWII. This is the “keeping up with the Joneses” mindset. Because my neighbor has it, I must have one too! Income and debts aside, we must have the same! In just two generations, the average size of a house increased from 900sq.ft. to 2200sq.ft. while housing fewer people. I have relatives that were raised in that very 900sq.ft. farmhouse with their 6 siblings. There was a single family car. Maybe 2 vehicles if they were lucky. They all survived. Now the average house has more toilets and TVs than occupants! Even worse, millennials and gen-z folks are looking at their parents’ possessions and expecting them at age 35 when it took their parents until age 55 to afford it. I digress. Onlookers may admire your material possessions. They do not think any higher of you. They only visualize themselves driving your sports car or living in your 5,000 sq.ft. house. Don’t compare yourself to your parents, neighbors, or peers, do what is right for you. True wealth comes from what you can buy but choose not to.

Fear the dragon in the fog.

There are two dragons, one blocking your path to greatness and the other lurking behind you in the fog. Do you face the dragon standing in front of you, blocking financial success? This dragon represents financial discipline, living below your means, and taking responsibility for your student loans. It takes hard work to slay this dragon who guards the pot of gold that is success at the end of the trail. If you hesitate or stray from the path, the second dragon who lurks behind you in the fog may be your demise. This dragon represents uncertainty. I am certain it exists because uncertainty is the only certainty in life (and especially in finance). When on track to pay off that last student loan, the furnace goes out. Before the car is paid off, the transmission meets an unfortunate premature end. We are all one faulty, misfortunate step away from an ER visit filled with scans and surgical intervention. Be strong on your financial journey and battle the dragon guarding the path to greatness because the dragon in the fog will one day knock, ready to blow your house down. Slaying the dragon blocking your path presents the reward of an impenetrable dwelling, resistant to the dragon in the fog.

I teach what I do/did. I fault no one for how they handle their personal finances. If your parents borrowed money to keep up with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, that is the way of life that is comfortable and familiar. If your parents were not big spenders and buried coffee cans full of quarters in the backyard, chances are you are doing the same. If your parents lost everything in the 2000 dot com bubble or 2008 financial crisis, they are likely stock averse. After learning more than the average bear about personal finance, investing, and wealth management, I have strayed from the teachings of my parents. During conversation, this decision was met with disapproval, but the numbers don’t lie. This was the point in my life where Certificates of Deposit and EE series bonds were transformed into index funds. Now index and target date funds make up the bulk of my investing. Sure, I dabbled in stocks and ETFs with a couple dollars during the COVID crisis, but that adventure was short lived. I am most proud of our (my wife and I) investing rate which has hovered around 75% of our net income over the past few months, which is our goal.

Times change, but successful investors stick to their plan by dollar-cost averaging into historically reasonable investments (index funds) for the long term, putting emotion to the side. Don’t attempt to time the market as it is a fool’s errand.