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Make Time Work for you!

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Wealth building can be a time-consuming activity, but that time element, (taking a long time to build your portfolio) can actually be a benefit. You can make time work for you. 

Imagine having a bare garden, nothing in it, it’s primed ready to go, but nothing has been planted yet. In two years’ time, it could still have nothing in it. Or in two years’ time, you could have an epic fruit orchard that’s starting to produce delicious fruit that you could plant again, and grow more trees, or you could start taking your first profits and baking a few cakes. 

The same is true in finances, there is never a better time to start than now because, in any set amount of time, you could either have something, or you could have the same thing you have now.  

HODL The Right Stuff (Hold on for Dear Life)

Time has another advantage, long term trends in stock and crypto markets are predominantly positive, which means even huge drops from large recessions and depressions, given enough time are likely to recover. I’m not denying how difficult financial stress in anyone’s life can be, rather I want to encourage you that the old saying “time heals all wounds” is often true in investments as well, rather, it can be with careful choices. 

Choosing individual stocks or coins is one of the riskiest approaches, any single project, any single company, no matter how large can fail and their stock be reduced to nothing, and failing bailouts, additional investments, etc, you can lose all your money and have no way to recover it given any amount of time. A better way to leverage the “healing” benefits of time to your advantage is to try to diversify your investments across whole markets and industries. While they can still fluctuate, historically they can be less risky than individual shares.

I have a philosophy in my life that a little investment every day adds up, and it’s been true in most areas of my life. A little time each day learning a new skill or language, a small amount of money each paycheck saved up or invested. Many of us procrastinate with one of the worst lies in history “I don’t have enough money to invest”. But the truth is in the western world, especially the US and UK, most of us could have a few pounds a month to put towards our future. 

In fact, for many of us, the way we spend our money is so emotionally driven that we spend what we have. We don’t tend to plan or organize ourselves and we often find ourselves out of money by the end of the month. We spend right up to our capabilities and often beyond them, forgetting the basics, (like that bills can come anytime in the month). 

Beginning your investment future can be easy, but it does take a small amount of discipline, in my life where I often struggle to reconcile my long-term goals with my immediate desire for gratification. I have found the easiest way to ensure I’m giving myself a chance is to set up automatic direct debits that come out like any other mandatory bill, right at the start of the month (before I have a chance to buy a new game or a couple of extra beers). 

It may not seem like much but £25 pounds a month (many of us pay more than that on phone and internet bills) can easily be turned into a profitable investment.

What’s the key ingredient? the secret sauce to this recipe?  …Time

Time is consistent it will keep coming, and in 10 years’ time you could have more… or you could be in the same place as you are now… either way, 10 years is going to happen, so what can you do to make it work for you?

For me £25 a month is an automatic investment into the share market (but don’t those go up and down, could you lose all your money?) the answer is yes, but again time can be your friend here, even with recessions and depressions possible, if your only investing an amount you can afford to lose a month, any money you had in the investment account was disposable anyway right? On top of that, economies tend to recover, on average markets have been increasing more than decreasing over all time, so if the market crashes, maybe keep your investment in until after it recovers. 

There are hundreds of apps and reputable exchange clients/brokers you can use to interact with shares nowadays, currently, I enjoy using Hargreeves Lansdown, and many of the funds that they offer allow automatic investment from as low as £25 a month.

With a 5% yearly interest, £25 a month could be £333… In 5 years it could be £1700+ and already have made £200+ in pure interest. Of course with the right choices, it could be more, and the market could always go down and be less, but for me, if that money could have been an extra Mcdonald’s meal, is now a new TV or more, then it was worth it.