Mummy Brain Verses Consumerism: Investing for the future.

Posted November 30th, 2017

G'day.

Well, after smashing our last goal of home ownership I've been thinking about what is next. It probably won't come as a surprise to anyone that I feel that financial literacy is important. Even the self taught, curious mind kind like I have. I didn't grow up with people sharing their knowledge on the topic of how to build passive income. It was a background of hard work for a decent pay kind of upbringing. I guess I'm like a whole lot of other people in that respect.

I've met some really clever people in my life. I mean they have the smarts to grasp just about anything they set their mind to. I'm thinking specifically about a friend and her husband who I had the pleasure of sharing breakfast with. They were highly educated, and had even more than dabbled into investing in real estate. You know, because houses are a 'real' investment that they understand. Yet, when I asked about shares, they though that it was elusive, and didn't really understand it. They had brushed it aside because, heck, it seems really quite daunting to learn about. It wasn't just that couple. I've had the same statement form several other people too. So I'm gathering that it is something that the common grown up, simply wasn't taught along their life journey. So that is where my investing journey is going to start.

I'm going to get really specific here. Because you kind of need to. But before I do, lets weigh up the risk first. These are my options.

1. I don't do anything and earn 0.1% interest on my cash.

2. I invest in Super. Yay. I can't access it for a good 20 years. Super laws change and well, the government can change the law regarding this asset type between now and then. Yeah, I'm skeptical that this is the best place to park my money.

3. I could get a managed fund to do the work for me and pay them. But I probably don't have the $5K or so to even open an account with them, and they usually have fairly hefty fees. It also doesn't expand my knowledge much of what I'm actually investing in.

4. I can dabble and learn about the share markets. For the cost of a lunch out I can buy a parcel of shares. I only need just over $500 to start off the journey. About the same price as a jumping castle for the kids. I think I can easily make a more financial risky decision on buying the kids a jumping castle for Christmas and watching the plastic degrade and patch up leak holes.

5. I could invest in property, and max out the amount of money we owe the banks and pay it back plus interest while someone else lives in our property and we need to fix anything that breaks. While paying a massive amount of stamp duty and fees. This really doesn't sound like a great option at the moment to be honest.

6. EFT's may be a contender. An ETF is a type of investment fund that can be bought and sold on a securities exchange market. In Australia, ordinary ETFs are 'passive' investments that track an asset or market index (for example, the ASX200 Australian share index). But I'm not too sure I would learn much about what was being purchased and sold.

So, I'm leaning towards #4 in a big way. Not only is it fairly low risk, but it also has the added advantage that we can actually learn along the way, do it and build wealth as we go.

I'm no expert. I'm bound to make a mistake or two. But heck, that is what life is all about and to do nothing seems like I would already be loosing. My wealth of each dollar saved from the wheels of our consumerism culture, would just erode away by the inflation rate.

So.. here I go. On the search for some investments!

Thanks for your support.

Mummy Brain Verses Consumerism.

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