I was never taught anything about investing when I was younger. When we moved up here to the mountains from Florida, we lived in travel trailer for almost a year. My husband spent the year building our house completely by himself.
I looked for a job, but I was not a local, so no one would hire me in this small town.
The only job I could get was as a waitress, making $2.01 an hour. Tips were few and far between because the locals did not tip. On a good day, you might make $20 a day.
For a year, we lived on our savings. By then, I was interested in learning how to invest our money in something other than a bank.
I went to the library to look for books on investing. Back then, the library had NO books on the subject.
So, I started buying and reading money magazine. The magazine had lots of articles on mutual funds. After about 6 months of reading, I decided on my first mutual fund. It was a Twentieth Century fund called Heritage. I chose it because it was a no low fund and it had no minimum investment. (The name was changed to American Century Heritage)
Every night, I would come home from work and put at least 10% of all my tips in a small wooden box on my desk. When I accumulated some cash, I would send it off to my Heritage mutual funds. I eventually opened other mutual funds and then took the plunge to actually buy stocks.
Many of my other funds are at Vanguard cause I like there low expenses, but I still have my original Heritage fund. It has grown from $6800 (amount I put in it) to $48,667. The average annual return is 10.73%
I saved $5 using my bi lo card yesterday, so I am adding that to the $20 challenge.
Prev. total $592.00
today 5.00
new total $597.00 p.s. I meant no load fund.
How I started investing.
January 7th, 2011 at 03:46 pm
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I don't still have mine. I stick to index funds whenever possible now. Like you, I love Vanguard.
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I thought you said in an earlier post that you don't trust stock and bond mutual funds. You said all your money was in bank CDs and I suggested you needed equity mutual funds for growth.
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