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PaperclipPerfector  23hr ago (text post)   1123 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 16, 2026

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My recent hobby has been investing. I'm putting a fixed amount of money into it and I'm treating it like a loss from day one. Given that I'm only really picking low expense ETFs for now, it's basically saving with extra steps. Nonetheless, I'm telling myself that every dollar invested is another minute closer to leaving the rat race.

Ahh yeah I been doing ETFs since I was like 17 hah. I thought you meant day trading! I've thought about that but... idk. Might look into it.

I'm not spiritually prepared for day trading yet. It's only been in the last year that I've even been stable enough financially and emotionally to invest in equities outside of a retirement account at all.

If you do get into day trading, please occasionally fill us in.

If "every dollar invested is another minute closer to leaving the rat race," every dollar spent day trading is another minute further from leaving the rat race.

"Picking low expense ETFs" and sticking with them, and which are hopefully well-diversified ETFs, is the way to go.

That's precisely why I'm sticking to ETFs for now.

It's still fun to do the research, back testing, monte Carlo simulations, and all that, even if I do end up just buying more VTI/VT, SGOV, and SCHD.

VTI/VT plus SGOV is a solid choice if you're looking for a less-than-100%-equity portfolio, but SCHD just means tilting further toward a subset of your VTI/VT allocation, which does not provide additional diversification.

I can sympathize. I was actually going to wish you well myself! It took me several years plus some good fortune before I really became comfortable with a decent amount of risk, and I know well that it could have been quite different if things had gone poorly for me overall. Here's the story in case you're interested.

Once upon a time, several years distant, I embarked upon a similar path, setting aside a nice chunk of seed money and telling myself that I was going to treat it all as a loss and invest it. It's been one heckuva learning experience, and the first lesson was that I learned is that when I told myself I was going to treat it all as a loss, my emotional self didn't get the memo. This should have been obvious when I just let that account sit for a couple of years, never quite being brave enough to pull the trigger investing the time and effort to make some serious picks. Then a certain US manufacturer landed in hot water and I decided to roll the dice and bought in. Said manufacturer's stock continued to merrily dip and I watched on in anxious fear for around a week or so as ten percent of my investment potentially evaporated, reinforcing my first lesson. It turned out that I still cared very much about the money that I was allegedly treating as lost from square one! When it thankfully rebounded several days later, I sold with a tidy 6% gain and learned lesson number two, which was that I was gambling and not investing. Said stock continued chugging right back along at 150% of the price that I paid for it, teaching me what paper hands were, because I had them. I've since learned that my best actual investing is in the index funds that I plow my retirement money into every month, and that the little chunk of change that I set aside as an investment account can be much more exciting and emotionally rewarding (and occasionally nerve-wracking as well) for me personally as a vehicle for speculation and swing trading. It can be tons of fun, but for me it was most so when my then-boss and I would talk shop about hot and volatile stocks and what moves we were making. That in and of itself was as much as, if not more gratifying than the sweet picks and the nice trades. The hardest part for me has been managing my own emotions as I try to grow and manage that account, but the payoff has been in finding something that I just know is undervalued, investing in it, and watching it grow like gangbusters. The old cliche really is true: you miss 100% of the plays you never make in the first place!

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