site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2193 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for July 19, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Financial wellness:

What should I read or watch in order to become informed enough to make somewhat prudent and wise investment decisions?

I want to stop my savings from getting eaten by inflation and make some profit each year (or at least some likely profit over a 3 year or 5 year period). I can tolerate low to moderate risk.

Feel free to give straight up specific investment advice too.

R/bogleheads. 3 fund portfolio. Doesn’t get any easier for retirement prep.

3-5 year time horizon is a much different animal. If you’re looking for something guaranteed, a high yield savings account, CD, or money market fund are where you want to be. Anything invested in equities is going to be too risky for such a short period of time.

I don't aim to withdraw everything after 3-5 years. I meant to say I want something that'll go up over moderate amounts of time, even if it doesn't go up over just 1 year. I know there are swings. For instance, if there's another pandemic, I'd want my investments to come good after it, if not during.

Again, nothing is necessarily safe in a 3-5 year time horizon with the exception of a savings account, CD, federal bonds, or a money market account (others may quibble with the last one, but it’s generally true). So I think you need to have a better idea of what you’re saving for. If you think you may buy a house in 3-5 years, you can certainly invest your money in the stock market, but there is a risk that you will lose money. Now if you just have an amorphous idea of I want to have more money in 5 years but there’s nothing I really plan to buy, then going for an overall index fund may be the move.

Think I'll go for a fund that has beaten the index over the last 5 year period.

You do you, everyone has a different risk tolerance.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats