Two thirds of 2021 are in the rearview mirror. You should probably spend a few minutes figuring out if you’re doing what you want with your money.
- have you built a solid-sized emergency fund?
- if you’re in a toxic work environment, have you bought horrible-boss insurance?
- are you investing for the future while also living in the present?
- are you meeting your savings targets?
- have you forgiven yourself for making mistakes with your money?
In other words, is your money moving you closer to or further from your life’s goals?
Maybe dealing with your money is just one-more-thing, and you’re dealing with enough. I get it, really! The pandemic is lasting way longer than we’d expected. The climate change consequences are no longer something to worry about later. The impacts are being seen and felt right now, every single day, all over the world. There’s a lot going on and it’s not all good, so that might make it harder to focus on mastering money.
Be that as it may, there have always been lots of significant events going on in the world. Gues what? There always will be. However, while we’re striving to make the world a better place, you still need to put your money to work. The state of the world doesn’t absolve you of the responsibility you have to Future You.
There is a straight-forward way for amateur investors such as ourselves to invest. It’s our best bet to improve the odds that we’ll be able to live comfortably when we’re no longer sending our bodies and minds to work every day.
Allow me to share my secret with you, again. Put your money on auto-pilot! You’ve got enough to worry about and investing money for your future need not be on that list. Set it up once then let the magic of computers do the rest.
- Set up an automatic transfer of a set amount of money from your chequing account to your emergency fund.
- Set up a second automatic transfer to your investment account. This can also be your retirement account.
- Buy units in equity-based exchange traded funds or index funds with management expense ratios below 0.25%.
- Don’t withdraw money from your investment account.
- Save. Invest. Learn. Repeat.
- Live on whatever’s leftover after these transfers have gone through.
Doing these few things will save your bacon when the time comes. You might feel that you want to spend all of your money right now. After all, tomorrow is promised to no one and you only live once, right? There’s a certain seductive allure to that perspective. Resist! You’re going to need money for all of the tomorrow’s headed your way. You might not know how many of them you’ll get, but the odds are very good that you’re going to need money for most of them.
The bottom line is that you should be doing what you want with your money. If you’re not, figure out why and do what needs to be done to change that situation.