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Old 02-23-2021, 02:11 PM
Buckhead Buckhead is offline
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Strathcona County
Posts: 1,939
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I can only advise the OP what has worked for me. I followed my own simple rules and they may not work well for others.

1. I always paid myself first - no matter what. I always set aside the retirement and investment money first and then figured out how to live and pay my mortgage on whatever was left over.

2. I read everything that I could find written by Peter Lynch when I started to get serious about investing. I am an avid reader so read many other authors as well - some good, some bad.

3. I used dollar cost averaging to my advantage - put the same percentage of dollars in each month. It works well but you need a long time horizon - 20 to 30 years. Buys more when the price is low, buys less when the price is high.

As I have gotten older, I have become more conservative. Capital preservation is starting to be more of a priority then the rate of return.

Here is some info from my spreadsheets indicating the returns year over year calculated at the end of December going back to 1999. I don't have anything saved from before that.

This is only my account where I have mutual funds and stock holdings.

Year Return %

1999 72.0%
2000 59.5%
2001 42.1%
2002 8.6%
2003 38.6%
2004 15.7%
2005 15.3%
2006 19.2%
2007 16.7%
2008 -11.1% Negative return
2009 34.9%
2010 30.3%
2011 2.1%
2012 13.5%
2013 7.5%
2014 21.5%
2015 14.0%
2016 14.6%
2017 11.0%
2018 0.6%
2019 21.8%
2020 17.2%
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