The Best Investment I Ever Made

I am not a financial planner, just a guy who read and asked questions when I was a kid. My parents were not stock market people at all and honestly I am not really sure what prompted me to do this. I am by nature a saver. I tilt toward conserving as opposed to spending. 

So when I turned 18 I received from various people over $2000 in cash as graduation gifts. I spoke to a guy in our church and he invested $1000 of that money in mutual funds. From there I did  dollar cost averaging (DCA) every month and still do to this day. Yes, I did DCA even when I was in College. I had a good job and made some good money.  In those years I gave as little as $25 a month and as much as $400 a month. I checked on the balance some but never entertained the idea of pulling it out. I was fascinated with the idea of compounding interest. So from the time I was 18 until the time I was 37 I contributed every month. 

Let me say this, when I made more I bought another mutual fund and contributed to it as well. Then in my early 30’s I started contributing to an index fund. The bottom line is, I gave monthly to the stock market and just let it grow. Sometimes it was good and sometimes it was not as good. I didn’t worry about it. I just kept giving.

Over time it grew and grew. When I was 37 years old, me and a good friend of mine decided to go into business and we bought an apartment complex together. This investment will make us more money over the long term.  Since then we have purchased another apartment complex and we now own 22 units over 2 states. 

None of this would have been possible had I not started early and just shut my eyes and gave every month. This allowed me to create wealth not only now, but in the future as well.

This is not a get rich quick plan. This is a get rich slow plan. Consistency and delayed gratification are the keys to just about everything in life. Doing things you don’t necessarily want to do in the present because you know they will benefit you 10x in the future is a major key to long term success.