It’s human nature to want to tweak our investment strategies. Tax-loss harvesting, optimizing your asset allocations, delving into real estate or even multi-level marketing are some of the strategies that we all try to use to give that additional alpha to grow our net worth. The basics of these principles are not rocket science, but implementing them does take time. Even with appropriate strategy, returns are never guaranteed.
Many doctors simply still don’t have enough time or energy to tweak our investments. One of the reasons why I haven’t delved into real estate investments is simply due to the lack of time, motivation, and the interest. Likewise, it’s okay to realize that you can’t win everything. There is no set formula to reaching our financial goals. The great news is that you can still win in the end without micromanaging your investment options.
I like to focus on mini-victories in my daily life. Whether it’s simply getting the laundry basket emptied, keeping the house clean, or even getting through a rough workday, these are all wins. On the investment front, I focus on simplicity when I do not have the time to tweak my investments.
Remember that the majority of our net worth comes from our savings, especially early in our investment careers. We can’t control the bull or bear markets, but the longer we are in the investment market, the more time we have to ride out any dips. This means that we ought to front load our investments to maximize our ability to win.
When you are too busy in your daily life to go for advanced tax and investment strategies, focus on your savings rate. The more you save, the more you can place into the market to grow (and ride out losses). Last year (2017) showed tremendous growth in the stock market, and even with very basic total stock market index fund investments, my pot grew by over 18%! Being able to invest heavily prior to these up markets can offset most losses outside of the worst recessions. This is all due to controlling your savings rate, nothing else!
The next time you find yourself struggling to find time to optimize your investment strategies, just remember on your savings rate.