Building Investment Discipline: The Key to Success
The key to financial success is mostly to build investment
discipline. You have to keep putting money in, over and over. If
you adopt the tortoise strategy rather than that of the hare,
you'll end up ahead in the long run.
Many people want to invest in spurts. They don't think about it
on a regular basis, but only when they happen to have some extra
cash on hand. This is exactly the wrong way to go about it. You
should think about investing as if it's a regular bill that you
have to pay. Every month, you need to be putting something in,
and it needs to be the same amount. Don't decide that you can
cut it out for a month or just not do it. You'll lose your
discipline - you'll decide later on that maybe you don't need to
do it for two months, or three. After that, it's just a disaster
- you'll gradually spiral downward, losing your investment
momentum. This can be a terrible chain reaction, and it's a bad
idea to even let it get started. Only a regular investment
program can make sure that you're sticking a decent amount in
every month. You need to use an investment calculator to figure
out what your ultimate goal is, and how much you need to put in
every month to get there. If you skimp, you won't reach your
goal - and that can mean a retirement that you won't really
enjoy. You don't want to be working into your 70's, you want to
be enjoying your life.