Just Do It!

 Off topic today, but I had some thoughts I wanted to get down on paper.

I've heard various financial "experts" over the years, repeat the adage, "Investment success doesn't result from timing the market, but from time in the market." After about three and a half decades of personal experience in my own life, I have to conclude that they are 99% certainly correct, and I only use that figure because it is possible that someone, somewhere out there is smart enough to do it, but if so, they're keeping their mouths shut. Anyone who claims to have a "system" is simply trying to sell you something.

Ok, so my wife and I have saved and invested for our future in a number of ways, but primarily through 401k contributions, as well as a couple of employee stock ownership plans. We have also purchased individual stocks and mutual funds in our brokerage account, put money in our HSAs, bought CDs (way back when yields were over 6%). I've made selection errors, and suffered high fees, especially when we followed the advice of friends who had become financial planners and sold us variable annuities. 

But despite the various errors, fees and disappointments, one thing remained constant above all...we never stopped investing. Regularly, persistently, consistently, and with a fairly high to extremely high percentage of our income. In fact, the last five years before I retired, I was putting 50% of my salary in the company 401k, and my wife was contributing 25% of hers during that time period, as well as maxing out our HSA contributions and taking advantage of all company matching.

All of this has taken place over about 35 years, half a dozen major market corrections, and other market peaks and troughs. We just never quit putting money away. Instead of spending everything we made or, like some folks, more than we made, we kept our expenses down, sacrificed some of our personal desires - though never any of our real needs - and put our money to work.

You might think that we were only able to do this because we were high-income earners. I'm sadly afraid that this has not been the case. For most of our careers our income was not significantly greater than the national average, and even in recent years, most recent college graduates have higher starting salaries than we have ever enjoyed.

When markets went up - we invested.

When markets went down - we invested.

When we got a windfall - we invested.

When things were tough - we invested.

Every paycheck. Every year.

The end result of our consistent policy of saving and investing for several decades is that we have enough money in our retirement plans and other investments to live comfortably in our old age, regardless of whether Social Security pays out or comes crashing down someday. This isn't to say that a black swan event like the collapse of the U.S. or world economy couldn't take us down, but in that situation, I think we're all going to have real problems.

I say this not to brag, or to claim credit for the blessings God has given us, but rather to encourage anyone out there who doesn't think it's possible, that the system is rigged against the little guy, or that you have to have a huge salary to be able to become wealthy. Simply follow a consistent and persistent plan of investing over the long haul, and you can reap the rewards. If you start early and young, the total results will be astounding.