Investing – Growing Wealth

People often ask me about investing after they have figured out how to get out of debt and have covered the basic financial goals. (Mostly the Dave Ramsey baby steps. The final step of Dave’s Baby Steps are about building wealth.)

There are tons of strategies out there which work and which work well – and of course there are hair brained strategies sold by so called gurus which are losers. For the most part, I see people with no strategy at all. Dave would say – “invest in quality mutual funds with a 10 year track record.” That does leave you hanging a bit, but Dave’s business is not about investing and wealth building. For years I did this with my own research and efforts. While it worked – I was always questioning myself and my research.

Now I typically invest in funds and use the SoundMindInvesting newsletter as my guide. It is simple and has been very profitable.

NOTE: As of 2012, I no longer use this strategy. I think it still yields returns, but I have moved on to something that works better. 

 

Here is how it works….

You get the newsletter and decide on your investing strategy-

Upgrading

or

Just the Basics

. (upgrading requires monthly adjustment – Just the Basics requires only annual adjustments)
1. Open a brokerage account. (He tells you about them in the letter.) I have accounts with Fidelity, ScottTrade, and Ameritrade – all have pros/cons – but all basically the same.
2. Then from your account – you invest into the funds per his guidelines.

I have found the returns to beat the market and blow away most company 401k mixtures of funds.  They are down the last month or so – but overall do very well.

See the website at http://www.soundmindinvesting.com/ and the latest newsletter is attached.