“Trying is the first step towards failure.”—Homer Simpson
My best friends in college were all business majors on full-academic-scholarships. I was a know-it-all journalism major, so even uttering the words “finance” or “investing” made my skin crawl.
I thought my friends would be blood-sucking vampire psychopaths by the time they were 25 (still time for that to pan out). So, I justified my financial ignorance and refused to understand their life choices.
This was a big mistake.
These guys were investors, marketers, financial analysts, and Excel wizards, and I asked them to explain none of it to me. I never humbled myself to learn what my friends knew. And what my college buddies knew was how to make your money work for you; a concept everyone could benefit from.
Roth IRA: So easy that Homer Simpson could do it
Business website Research Affiliates simulated 100 monkeys throwing darts at stock pages in a newspaper. The pages the monkeys hit in turn became their portfolio.
As you might’ve guessed, the monkeys didn’t do as well as the average investor — they did better.
The average monkey outperformed the index by an average of 1.7%, and have been doing so since 1964. If a monkey can beat the market, why can’t you?
The stock market doesn’t have to be your weapon of choice, but making your money work for you should be on your immediate to-do-list.
Some simple passive income ideas:
- Design and sell t-shirts or a brand on Teespring or Redbubble (free and relatively easy)
- Own or invent a business or product (Read Tim Ferriss’s The Four Hour Workweek, a classic amongst bloggers and investors alike)
- Invest within a Roth IRA and become a millionaire when you retire
- Invest in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) which are low-risk, low-cost investments that include tax benefits.
- Create a blog or continue to contribute on Medium (consistency is key)
Homer Simpson’s “Genius Philosophy”
There’s a great Simpsons joke where Homer ditches his responsibilities and drinks mayonnaise mixed with vodka. Although it sounds like a bad idea (it is) he couldn’t care less…
“That’s a problem for future Homer. Man, I don’t envy that guy.”
It’s time to stop screwing things over for your future self. Be prudent, pragmatic, and less reckless with you’re money. Any time you feel a sudden urge to “spend, spend, spend,” take a second and think, “do I really need this?”
The more responsible you become about your money, the brighter your future will be. (i.e. really consider that Roth IRA)