USE an investment scrapbook to increase your chances of making your money grow.
In this scrapbook (hard copy or electronic) keep notes, headlines, articles, ads, newsletters - anything you use to help make investment decisions, along with notes about why you decided to make those moves.
Writing in CGA Magazine, Larry Short suggested that over the years, you will then be able to look back at the stock market crash of 1987 and subsequent recovery, the Global Financial Crisis, record low interest rates in 1994 and again now, and so on - and see how all these events affected your thinking and decisions.
You can then learn from your experiences, and make better decisions the next time around. You can leave your scrapbook to your kids (or other family members) so hopefully they will benefit from what you learned.
Talking of getting rich, a couple of U.S. professors concluded that staying in school, choosing the right profession, getting and staying married - all can help you become wealthier . . . along with the main strategy: living modestly and saving/investing regularly.
And talking about getting and staying married, whenever you start or end a relationship, make sure you deal carefully with financial matters.
Unfortunately, because of all the strong emotions involved, people either don't think about money (typically when getting married for the first time, for example) or they allow those emotions to cloud their financial judgment (during a divorce is the most usual example here).
Most people who enter a relationship for the second time are more aware of "his," "hers," and "ours." So perhaps if you are getting married for the first time, imagine how you would feel if this were the second (or third) time around.
The key - whether you are starting out or breaking up - is to treat the financial side in as businesslike a manner as possible. Force yourself to shut out the emotions. Use an outside expert to help you if necessary. And record everything in your investment scrapbook in case you ever have to go through the process again. [email protected]
