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Like many of you I have read Jonathan writings from WSJ to Humble Dollar . I have been content to just enjoy reading without comment. After Jonathan health news and his hopes Humble Dollar will continue I decided to get off the sidelines and have started to add my 2 cents worth (which is only worth about half a cent these days) on some of the posts. This is my first post. What first got you interested in investing? I find peoples finance stories fascinating. For me it was a combination of things. When I was in 9th grade in my civics class ( does anyone even teach that now) we spent a semester learning about the stock market and we were given an imaginary $10,000 to invest in one stock. The Dow was around five or six hundred at the time. I choose Coca Cola Bottling just because my best friend picked Coke. During this semester I watched the stock every day. At dinner my dad would tell me stories of the nifty fifty stocks and how much he could have made if he had ever invested. He never invested a cent in his life. During this time my dad was in the Air Force, my mom was a homemaker and money was very tight. I always remember the time his sister lent him some money to help pay utilities. He was humiliated and I think I probably made him feel worse when I offered to give him the money I had from cutting lawns. He never took it. Back to the stock market game, when the semester was up my investment was the 2nd worst of the class. But the winner had made almost five thousand dollars. I said to myself I never want to be in the financial situation my folks were in and a light went on that as soon as I got my first job I could put money in stocks for real. How that played out over decades is for another post.
In a college marketing course in 1980s our professor discussed the presidential election cycle theory of investing. Although I never followed up on this idea, I did start to read investing tips and A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
I came of age right around the 07-08 financial crisis, and most of the messaging I had gotten about investing during my formative years had been negative and/or made it sound like a casino. However, watching my parents struggle financially and personally due to a combination of poor decision making and lack of planning gave me a strong drive to seek out financial stability.
Once I finally began full-time employment, I started doing basic online research about how to approach budgeting, saving, debt, etc. I work in a public library, and one day, I was sorting through a pile of returned items, when I stumbled across Bogle’s Little Book of Common Sense Investing. I can’t recall exactly what drew me to pick it up, but that book changed my life. It showed me a vision of investing that is simple, practical, and effective. I feel like I started my financial journey later than most, but that book helped me start it on the right foot.
I was most influenced by the writings of Burton Malkiel and Jack Bogle. Once you read their books you will be on the best path to wealth creation investing throughout your life in stock and bond index funds. Fifty plus years of proof in the pudding
Thank you for your post and keep posting!
As much as I tried to remember what got me interested in investing, I am not able to. I know it started around college and my first investment was Coca Cola. It continued when I started my professional career and I started reading the Wall Street journal and barrons and watching Louis Rukeyser on pbs. Also I remember going to the library to use value line for research.