facebookStarting out as a millenial, what do you all think about the woke salaryman’s view that you should passively invest up to 100K? - Seedly

Anonymous

08 Jun 2021

General Investing

Starting out as a millenial, what do you all think about the woke salaryman’s view that you should passively invest up to 100K?

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Discussion (9)

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Shengshi Chiam, CFA

17 May 2020

Personal Finance Lead at Endowus

I think passively investing beyond $100k, even to $1million, or to any amount, makes sense.

Focusing on your human capital and earnin ability when you are young take precdence in my opinion, so I totally agree with him!

We spoke about it in a webinar here:

https://endowus.com/insights/webinar-fuss-free-...

This number is not scalable and not catered to an individual's ability. As such I avoid such vague numbers. A better rule of thumb is to ask what is your current income and scale from there:

https://www.aaronleow.com/life-budget-calculator

While the 100K goal is a great milestone to hit, financial goals should ultimately be individualised. There are many factors to consider, including age, annual income, family situation and others. In "The Millionaire Next Door", Thomas J. Stanley groups accumulators of wealth according to this formula, which attempts to account for 2 variables: age and annual income.

The formula is: Age x pre-tax annual household income from all sources, except inheritances / 10 = your “expected” net worth

"Prodigious accumulators of wealth" are people who have a net worth twice their expected level. Instead of focusing on an absolute number (e.g. $100K), it might be more worthwhile using a formula such as this and reaching for whatever number is expected for your age and annual income.

Okay, correct me if I'm wrong but I think everyone here misunderstood your question. Since you specified passively, my intepretation is that you want to know if you should invest passively or actively before you have your first 100k.

It depends.

Honestly, let's first point out trying to beat the market is a fool's errand and 99.9% of people fail either due to lack of knowledge, emotions or uncontrollable circumstances. When stock picking, some times even good and logically sound companies picked based on a solid investing strategy can completely fail. As a young investor with small capital, this would probably devastate you and throw you off investing entirely. I'm not saying its impossible to beat the market, but know that its a tough and emotional journey.

On the other hand, passive investing allows you to focus on increasing your earning power without the stress and extremely likely failure.

Buttttt if you intend to actively manage your investments eventually anyways, my recommendation is go for it, even before you hit 100k. Firstly, the losses now from mistakes you make will be smaller than when you're managing a larger portfolio. Secondly, its good to get your feet wet and build experience. It'll also let you change your mind to invest passively if you decide to do so.

Cryotosensei

14 May 2020

Blogger at diaperfinancingfund.blogspot.com

I think it all depends on how self-motivated you are. in the woke salaryman's blueprint, he stated h...

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