I don’t know if this is what some people would call life changing money.
safe bet: long term investment for retirement or to buy a house.
dreamer me: study the piano bachelor you always said you wanted to do, even if it’s just the bachelor, and not a master, even if you’re doing it not for the money or fame, but just because you want to play and maybe teach part time, but mostly because is something I enjoy doing, even if teaching the piano is mostly a side job to my main job.
I don’t know what to do. Feel free to read my previous post, because it’s related to this one.
This. If OP got this $150k on Jan 1 of this year and put it in a boring old index fund tracking the S&P 500 OP would now have $168,810. That’s right, $18,810 in growth just from Jan 1 2026.
But bare in mind the economy is all kinds of messed up right now. That being said its the lowest risk way for your money to make money.
I’ll be the first to say that investing in the stock market is no sure thing. I’ll also say that past performance does not predict future results. I’ll also post this chart which shows the annual returns of the S&P 500 over the last 8 years. Even during the disruption of the global pandemic the returns were substantial.
With the exception of 2022, its been absolutely crazy crazy good! Even if someone invested at the worst time in 2022 absorbing the all of the losses from that year, they’d would have already been cash positive by the end of 2023.
The S&P 500 is not the lowest risk way to make money. It is maybe the lowest risk way to make the most money. US Treasuries or even an FDIC high yield savings account (or NCUA for credit union) are far safer, but don’t earn nearly as much.
Thnx for adding context and keeping me in check. I’m just a dude not a professional.
No worries at all. I wouldn’t expect anyone to know this unless they follow markets personally or professionally. Even what is said on the news doesn’t lay this out plainly.
The weird part is everyone knows we’re headed for a market correction, but nobody knows when. I honestly thought it would have happened years ago, but it keeps going up. I’m a long term nonprofessional investor, so I’m okay with the downturn for myself when it eventually happens.