How to *Not* Lose Money Investing

I recently recorded a live training, and I've put the recording here in a handy place to access because it's sooooo good. 

This episode covers 4 major things you need to know, and where most people lose money when they first start out. I also talk about what to do instead... so that you can quantum leap with your time and finances. These are the things to know so you can profit and start winning the game from the start. 

You'll learn about things like stock picking, timing the market, where most investors leave money on the table (plus a whole lot more). 

To find out more about my signature money, investing and wealth program Investing Bootcamp head to www.investingbabe.com

xo
Simone

P.S. Have you watched the free investing webinar yet? Head here to get access: https://go.mswealthy.com/investingbootcamp

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LEGAL STUFF: All content provided by Ms Wealthy Pty Ltd (we, us, our) is for education purposes only. Any use or reliance on this content is entirely at your own risk. The content is factual information and general comment only and does not constitute advice. I am not a licensed financial advisor. The content does not take into account your personal objectives, situation or needs and may not be appropriate for you. The information that is found here are my opinions, and should be taken as such. 

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 You're here because you want more out of life, more money, pleasure, flow, freedom, luxury. Here we are all about an unwavering Southwest and a net worth. You love to talk about. My name is Simone Mercer-Huggins. I'm your resident unapologetic wealth queen. So far I've built seven figures from the ground up. And these community is now doing the same. The Ms. Wealthy movement is here to help you be more of the bad-ass queen. You were born to be so tune in for everything, investing money, energetics, millionaire, mindsets, and everything in between. If you want to be a powerful player in the money game, in the right place. Welcome to the kiss, my money.

Hey,

I recorded this IG TV a couple of weeks back, and I wanted to put it in a podcast app so you can access it super easy. Basically, I'm talking about the four mistakes. A lot of people make around starting to invest and the questions not to ask, but where people focus the most time and attention on. And instead the four things to know are the four questions to ask around. Getting started with investing. If say like, you know, you had a thousand dollars to invest what to know so that you don't lose money. And so that you can become the most profitable, at least starting out. So tune in, you're going to love it. And I'll see you next week.

Hi guys,

Guys say hi, tell me where you're from. I teach people all around the world, how to invest in particularly in the U S that UK and Australia. So I know those markets intimately. So just tell me where you're from. If you have specific questions. Hi, welcome. So I'm I, I'm going to run through the four things that four really like the top ways not to lose money. Hey, Texas. Awesome. Hey, and I'm also going to tell you what to do instead. So what can you can actually do next? And these are the things that are going to save you time, save you money, quantum leap, around investing, but also stuff that a lot of people kind of their assumptions or misconceptions about the stock market. And a lot of them are just assumed, but they're not actually always correct. Okay. So I want to empower you around this so that you can be independent and you can make your own decisions around money and you can control your money.

That's the whole point of Ms. Wealthy. We are all about empowerment and education so that you can be independent, not only like with your money, but also be independent in terms of financial freedom insecurity. Yeah. Okay. So let's dive straight in. So the F the number one, the F the first one I want to talk about is don't stock pick plays. Don't stop quick. Has anyone ever had someone else tell them, Hey, this is awesome stock. It's going to, it's going to go to the moon, right? This, you should really look at this company. You should really buy this company. It's going to be the next Amazon, the next Google, the next Yahoo, Facebook, whatever you should, you should really buy this company. And I have definitely had people tell me these ridiculous, like hot stock tips, which is what they're often called hot stock tip.

And a lot of people do full for it. And actually when I first started investing, I fell for it too, because I kind of just got up, you know, caught up in there. Maybe this is the right thing. They were really confident. They seem to really know what that was hoping about. And so I actually did buy, I remember this one company and I just watched it go down, um, and down and down. Yeah. Until I couldn't stomach it anymore. And I ended up selling it at a loss. I think I lost about a thousand dollars. This was ages ago now. So I've been an investor for over 13 years and a trader for like six or seven. So this was a really long time ago, but I kind of also that lesson for me. I mean, God, it hurt because when I first started investing, I started with very little, like, it was $3,000 that I actually started with because at the time it was kind of, it was difficult to start with less.

You can start with less today. So you can start with like $500,000. Um, but that obviously back then and losing like that much money was a lot, but it was my own fault. Cause I listened to stop, stop picking tips. And most people actually think that this is how you would best that you have to stock pick and who has heard of Warren Buffett, probably everyone here. Right? So he's probably the most famous stock picker. He chooses individual companies to invest in, but his methodology is to invest for like 20, 30 years in that one company. And so what happened is most people a think that you need to stop pick, and then B think that they're going to be really good at it. And unfortunately, I think that everyone here is amazing and you're incredible and you're smart, intelligent women, but most people can't actually win the game of stock picking.

In fact, about 4% actually in the world, I can actually beat the market. When I say the market, I'm going to talk about that later. So the game of stock picking is time-consuming and it's actually one that most people will lose that. Cause it's really hard to actually pick an individual company that's going to long-term profit. You need to be right twice. You need to be right when you buy and then you need to be right when you sell and getting those two things right. Is very hard. And it's also very rare and less. You're a trader and that's a completely different strategies. I'm just talking about investing what to do instead. Good. Thank you for prompting me. So what to do instead is to buy portfolios that are already done for you now, they're not all created equal. You need to know that from the outset, some have really high fees, some an active, somewhat passive, like so it's, you need to be really clear about choosing low cost and passive.

And they're called either index funds or ETFs and how these work, uh, essentially that companies that are picked for you in a portfolio. And it's based on numbers only. It's not some random person sitting behind like a fund manager trying to outperform the market, which is what the majority of financial plan is invest in because they're trying to outperform and remember only 4% do consistently over time. And like we're talking like they're unicorns, right? So it means that when you buy into portfolio, you're already diversified. You can invest in multiple companies, multiple countries, multiple sectors, a sector is like technology or health or, you know, the finance sector like banking, or you can even invest in property so you can invest in different sectors. And the great thing is you can also invest across multiple assets. So when I say asset, I mean in stocks, in real estate, in bonds, uh, so there's different assets based on who you are as an investor, whether you are know aggressive and want to take on more risk.

So there are different ways to do it and there's heaps on the market. So it's difficult to sometimes navigate, which is why I have a program that kind of runs through everything. But that is the answer. The answer is ETFs and index funds and they, uh, that they operate differently. So you don't always necessarily need a broker because some people ask that question of what broker do I use. And it's actually, let's start with, what do you want to invest in first? And then, then we'll get the answer. Okay. So what questions do you have on that? I'm going to move on to number two so I can keep this kind of short and staffy. All right. Number two is please ignore the hype. Oh man. The new cycle and the fear and the, Oh my God, the stock market's crashing. Oh my God, it's never going to rebound Evonne.

I'm going to lose all my money. Like who else has ever thought that seeing that experience that felt that right? It can be really scary, especially when everyone else is, is joining in the same. Like, Oh my God, like craziness. Here's the truth. The truth is when there's a correction and when there's a crash, it's actually the most amazing time to buy. It's just that. So many people can't really stomach that craziness emotionally when everyone else is going, Oh my like, everything's, we're all done. That's it. We're all done. But so the reality is the stock market does go up and down. There is volatility in the market and this volatility and pretty much everything. It's just that you don't see it if, say for example, with the housing market, because we're not buying and sell it. It's not trillions of dollars of that one house being bought and sold.

Right. But there are literally thousands, hundreds of thousands of one stock in one company being bought every single day. So that's why we see the volatility of up and down. Um, so there's always, there's always been corrections and crashes, both with housing market, both with stocks, both with, you know, there's fluctuations in every asset. So the most important thing is to know that it happens and not time the market. So most people try and time them up. What squats called time to market by going, Oh, I think that this is the best time to buy and I'm going to make lots of money now, and then I'm going to sell, right. Or this is not the right time to buy. And I'm going to wait three months because I think that's the best time what you're doing is timing the market. And no one has a crystal ball.

You can not, can not predict what is going to happen tomorrow. So the most important thing is to stay steady. It's actually really had to have a really solid investor psychology, which is why having a community of people around you is so important. And having other people that really you do get it rather than buying into the hype. Because most of the time, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but most of the time, all of the hype is coming from a, either the new cycle. So the whole reason, or the whole way that news gets eyeballs on this grains or on them, um, websites is by creating really, really like FIA mongering, headlines, like headlines, like pull you in. Have you ever like read a news headline and being like, that is not the story that the headline said. And so what happens is the whole reason is because then you read this story and then they get ad revenue.

So the more scary and crazy they make it the better for them, but it doesn't actually always predict what really happening or the other one is that I always hear fearmongering staff. People are like, it's going to crash. It's we're going to lose a lot of our money. Right. But it's actually just from people that had not investors that just scared and it's okay to kind of have some of that fear and like kind of like, Oh God, this is like really scary. And I'm freaked out about it. It's totally normal. But that freak out is really about knowing that it's okay. Once you have the knowledge, that's the most important thing, having the knowledge. Right? So a lot of the fear around that is once I'm actually just educated, then I know how this game works. Okay.

Number three, you guys are quiet. What questions do you have? I'm just scrolling up. Okay. Number three, this is really, really important because this is going to dictate how successful you are as an investor. And it's no the kind of investor that you are. So there are two kind of main things that are part of this and it's, what are your goals and what is your risk tolerance? And that kind of informs basically how you are going to invest. But what happens is everyone thinks that they have to invest the same way everyone else does. And that's not how you were going to be confident or successful long term, because could you imagine if someone was like, Oh, you have to invest in this one exact thing. Like, that's it you're done. Like it works for everyone when actually it doesn't because what if you have goals of saving for a house deposit in five years time, which is a really big one for a lot of people, instead of taking five years to save for a hundred thousand dollar house deposit, which a lot of people do spend that time, that cash is sitting idle, losing money, particularly around interest rates.

Right now we're getting like nothing like getting dust. So we're like losing money actually with inflation, that cash is going down. And so I hate thing. People sit on cash when it not be invested. And so knowing that invested that you are what your goals are and knowing how much risk do you want to take on and knowing what you actually what's important to you, what your values are. So some people are really interested in ethical investing. For example, some people are really interested in some sectors or some markets, something called an emerging market where there's a lot of growth, potential, but it's kind of volatile and risky. And it goes up and down a lot. Or some people are like, no, I need to be more defensive. And I want to focus on income, not on growth. So you can invest in a way that where your assets, your investment portfolio pays you an income.

Now you do sacrifice some of the growth in terms of going up into like capital gain. But it means that it depends like what you actually want, where you are in life and what your goals are. And there's no one right answer, but there is a right answer for you. And so would I hate seeing where people lose money is they invest in something that isn't actually matched for them. And they get freaked out because they're like, uh, they feel really bad. Like they know it's kind of not aligned. Right. They know it's like, not quite right, but this person told them to do it. And so they invest in it and then they're not confident. How can you be confident around something that doesn't match your values, doesn't match your risk tolerance. Isn't aligned with your goals. And so we need to get clear on those, those two things. I mean, there's a few things fast so that we can go, okay, great. Now it's informs what we want to actually invest in.

So in the saving for deposit, yeah. How scenario, how easy is it to invest your cash, then pull it out when you need it. So I don't want anyone to be investing in the stock market for anything less than kind of two to three years. If you relying on something and within like a two to three year framework, some people say even up to five years, then we don't want you to be in a position where while you want to pull it out in like 24 months, because now you're ready to buy a house. But what if there's a current dip in the market? So there's always gonna be like dips and corrections, like I said, but it doesn't matter because you haven't lost money unless you take it out. So it's important to know that risk and loss, two completely different things and not the same.

So there is some risk in the market and it goes up and down, but it doesn't mean that you've lost money. You only lose money when you take it out. So that's kind of the answer to that question. Sarah says, um, my mentor has a program of systematic trading, is my program the same or similar, good question. So trading and investing, uh, very, very, very different strategies. And it depends on kind of coming back to what I said around, knowing what your goals are, what your risk tolerance is and how you want to be invested in the market. So there's investing, which is more passive. It doesn't take up a lot of time. You can still make a ton of money in it. And then there's trading, which is much more active. And I only ever recommend systematic trading because mostly people actually where people lose money in the market is actually trying to be a trader without any knowledge because they're buying and selling companies.

So essentially trading is you're more active, right? So you're buying and selling apps like Robin hood really encouraged buying and selling a lot. And this is also why I don't particularly love the app because for a lot of other reasons, that being one, but when you're buying and selling without any strategy, I can only assume that it's going to blow up. Right? So that's why systematic trading is completely different. And yes, it's very, very, very different. So the answer to your question is the program same or similar. It is very different. It's not similar at all. I always say to people who want to become a trader and I am both right, is to know the fundamentals around investing first because you can't go in to learning to trade. If you don't know how the actual game works, if you don't know what assets are, if you don't know what the Dow Jones is, if you don't know how individual stocks make money, if you don't know things like, you know what dividends are, what happens inside of a broker or how to reinvest or how to dollar cost average, all of that sort of stuff, you need to know the basics.

And so investing bootcamp is a program that takes you from, I really have no idea how to invest. I'm kind of a little bit freaked out about it, but I'm really excited about it, but I'm really overwhelmed and intimidated. And I take you through how to become an investor. So you will become an investor by the end of the program. And then what happens is some people do move on and probably a big chunk, maybe 25% do then choose to become a trader after once they've invested. And then they take time to learn, to become a trader because there is a pretty steep learning curve trading. But in my program, you started investing straight away, pretty much that away. Um, good questions guys. Okay. So, Oh, one more thing on kind of knowing the invest you, and this is why it's so important because it's really, it's assumed that if you're 60, that you have to invest in things that are more defensive and more income based rather than growth.

We had 60 year olds in my program that are really aggressive investors and they blow my mind because it totally blows the whole notion and misconception out of the park about, Oh, you should really defend your assets. Like one, one woman in there. She's like, I love my job. I'm going to be working for another 10 years. Like, and I could weather out any different than market until then. That's fine. And then we have investors that are like in their early twenties that are more conservative. And so this is why it's like, why your age doesn't actually dictate how you invest. You have to know about you. Right. Okay. Number four is, does anyone know how much money is being left on the table because of time and said, but what I mean by that is if you delay investing by five years, what it actually means in terms of how much money is not in your back pocket, does anyone know, is anyone clear?

So it's cold compound interest and you might be like, Oh, boring. But it's actually the thing where you make money. So we can talk about returns all day long about what you can get in the stock market. And it's about like, literally if you Google stuff mock-up performance, since it began, you'll get about 10 to 11% depending on where you are and what country. So it's about 10 to 11% return year on year. And that's including crashes and dips and corrections. Like, let's just say on average, it's about 10%. So you've invested for 20 years. You get on average 10%, those 20 years, but it's not actually the 10% that matters. It's the time that matters. So when you invest initially, it's like you see it kind of creep up a little bit into a little bit, into a little bit, you know, like the first six months, like really this is kind of like watching grass grow and that's how it should be, but where you actually make a ton of money is with time, which only happens if you start as soon as you possibly can.

But what I see is people waiting and waiting and waiting to invest and leaving literally tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table because they didn't start. And I feel like I've heard all the reasons I've had all the reasons I'm too old. I'm too scared. I'm too intimidated. I'm too overwhelmed. And that like, it's okay that you feel intimidated, scared, overwhelmed, because honestly the financial industry is rigged against most of us, but it's just genuinely the truth because they don't want you to know how to do it yourself because then the entire industry of other people controlling your money and getting a commission off of you would collapse, right? So if you become completely and don't need anyone, it's not in their best interest. And so this is why it's like full of jargon and confusing information. I talk a lot about being mansplained too.

And that's actually what happened when I, I, I genuinely thought when I first started, before I started investing that I could not do it myself. I was like, who am I? I'm just this, I think I was 23 at the time. Like this was 14 years ago. I don't know anything about the stock market. So I went to a financial planner. I went to someone and I'm on Slack. I guess this guy is going to do it for me. Cause I don't know how, and I remember it so vividly because, um, my boyfriend who's now my husband came with me and the guy spent his whole time talking to my boyfriend and I was like,

you. It really got, it really me off so much. But what,

You know, if more was them explaining all of the phase. So I was intelligent enough to kind of go hold on, but that's a half a percent fee. And then that's another half a percent fee. And then it's like $2,000 just as an admin initial fee. And then there's like another 0.2% fee. And by this point where like, well over 1.5% in fees and you might be thinking, that's not that much. It is hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that's what I want you to understand about compound interest and the impact of time, but also fees because it seems so tiny in the beginning, like a 10% return or, Oh yeah. But like it's only 1.5% or even 2%.

It's actually freaking,

And this is where all the money is made or lost. And it happens by really learn phase and starting as soon as you can, because the more time you're invested, the more money you make, because what happens is you make money on the money you invest. And then that money makes money on the money that you've earned. And then that money makes money on the money you've earned. But it only happens when we have more time. So if I could show you a compound interest like visual, it's like, it seems so tiny in the beginning. And then it just becomes like fatter and fatter. It actually becomes exponential. I mean, Albert, Alan's done Coles, compound interest the eighth wonder of the world because it is actually mindblowing. Like when you get it, it's like, Holy. And this is where we start talking about making money in your sleep and how real it is and how possible it is. So I don't even want you to let being scared, stop you or thinking that your questions aren't like, or us stupid, like, Oh my God, can I tell you the number of times I've had conversations and people say, this is probably a really stupid question, but it's not a super question. Okay.

Um, I hear a lot of people say I'm so-and-so years old, so it's too late for me. Yeah. To start investing and get anywhere. No, that's not true. Is that true? No, it's absolutely. I, I hear that a lot. And obviously, you know, unless people tell me their age, I don't know exactly so India, I'm having these conversations and I hear it a lot from kind of 40 year olds ish in that range. And it, it blows my mind because we're going to live to like what, 80 to 90 everyone's living longer. Women live longer than men, 80 to 90. So technically you're about if you're in your forties, we're about halfway through your life. So you can be invested for 40 years. It is not too late because when you invest, you don't investing and then you aren't just like take out every single, like your takeout, your mil million dollar portfolio.

When you get to whatever retirement age you want to retire at, that's not what happens. You just live off the income or you just sell tiny portions of it. If you want to, or you just do both, you live off some of the income and then sell Tonya portion. So you have like a really large chunk of money still invested when you hit retirement age. So is it too late? No. So don't think of like, well, if I want to retire, I don't know, whatever 16 don't think I've got 20 years to invest. No. How long are you going to live? How long do you want to live? Um, what kind of life do you want to have? If I can show you, if you want to see some examples of what the impact is, then I have a webinar. I have a free webinar.

So if you go to, I'll put the link in the comments after this, because it's really good. It shows you exactly. Like if I just invested this much, if I just started with this much and to answer the question around what you can start with, it's about 500 to a thousand dollars, depending on the broker, because we want to take like make fees. Ideally it's the thousand dollar Mark. And then you just keep building. The most important thing is you start, start now, start where you are, start with questions, right? And this is what we take you through inside investing bootcamp. So what questions do you guys have? Anything else I can answer for you? I want to help you.

I want to make sure that you can actually go and take action on some of his now and Hey guys, thanks for joining. I want to tell you also a little bit about investing bootcamp. Is that okay? I'll tell you what's in the program, how it works, how we support you, how you become an investor, because this is the program that takes you from not really sure, not even sure if like how to manage my money. Maybe you're in student loan debt, which is very common. And even to that point, if you have debt, you need to know that you can have debt and invest at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive things you can do both. You just need to know how to manage your money, which is actually something that we include inside investing for your cam, because it's the basis of financial success.

It's like literally how you win the game. Long-term so that you, then you have money to invest with that is completely and utterly nothing you're dependent on because you have all your finances sorted. Like you've got your financial sorted, right? So I have a program as a bonus inside investing vape camp called command your cash. And it takes you through how to manage your money. And it's not Excel spreadsheets and boring budgets and stuff like that. It's probably the best money management system that exists them. How do we figure out our risk tolerance? Good questions. So there's a lot of factors that come into play with this. There is your risk appetite. There's where you, you are like literally your life. So are you about to have kids? Are you about to become a stay-at-home mom or you batch COVID tour? Are you, do you want to buy a house?

Um, there's also like literally emotional, your emotional reaction to how I feel about the market, um, and how much I can tolerate seeing the market go up and down. Remember that risk and loss than not the same thing, but some people will like, it's fine. I totally get it. And once you get educated, once you actually have the education, you're like, Oh, now it's like, now I know it's fine. Cause I'm not going to touch it for 10 years. So this correction is irrelevant, right? So there's a lot of factors of how to work out. Your risk tolerance has a lot of things that come into play. And it's something that we go through in investing bootcamp. It takes a little, like, there's just a few questions we need to know. Right? And there's also, you need to know too, that it can change throughout your life based on where you are in your life and how much you earn or where you are at with your family.

What other goals you have, who you are like literally as an investor, your age could determine it. So we go through all of that, so that you're super, super clear. And in the program, there's four modules and we take you through exactly step-by-step these are the assets. This is how you ask the allocate, meaning this is how you allocate your cash to certain investments. And what if I want to add cryptocurrency or what if I want to invest in other assets as well outside of the stock market, most things you can invest in on the stock market. And it's not just companies, it's things like commodities and bonds and even real estate. So we go through the four modules, we get command your cash as a bonus because you guys need to have it. It's the, like, it's probably one of my favorite programs ever.

And then we learned about other stuff like cryptocurrency or millionaire mindset, because your psychology around being an investor is really big deal. It's a really big, the whole point. The whole aim is to learn how to invest, but to keep investing, investing is not a one time thing. So I want to get you to a hundred K and beyond your, your portfolio so that you're confident and you can continue building from there. But the whole point is so that you keep investing because that's how wealth is built. If you go to investing babe.com, you can get the info. So all the testimonials, everything that's included, I haven't run through all of the bonuses. One other really big bonus that you should probably know about is that we have office hours every week where you can get questions answered. So when I'm in the private community and answering your questions on anything that you have, so it doesn't matter where you are in the world, us, UK, Australia, I answer all of your questions on what you need help with.

I'll put the link in the comments after I post this, but it's, if you just had to invest in babe.com, if you start the program today, how long will it take before you can start investing? So the fastest is two weeks, you know, learn the content in that first week. And then in the second week, set up your account and start, but I don't want you to rush it. Okay. I want you to start as soon as possible, but I also don't want you to be like, Oh my God, it has to happen tomorrow. Is that that's not, that's not what we're here for. We're here to make you a confident long-term successful investor. Not it, it's not a get rich quick, like overnight thing, but the fastest is kind of two weeks. Ideally you kind of go through the program, get your money, sorted.

If it's not, then do the pro the content. And then in the action plans inside of the program, then we'll show you exactly how to take action and open the right broker for you based on what you want to invest in and then start investing. And then we have a continuation. Okay. Now what do we do? Right? How much would be needed to start? So ideally a thousand dollars, but you can start with 500. So some things, um, you know, some people start with 20,000 are plenty of different people at different levels, but the minimum ideally is a thousand. You can start with 500 depending on where you are and what broker you use and kind of the fees I run through a lot of different scenarios around that. Does that help a hundred came beyond. Sounds wonderful. Yeah. I mean, obviously the whole point is to make you wealthy.

Like that's what investing is for, right? So you can get to, you get to a hundred K pretty quick. It just depends on how much you want to start with, if you can and continue with. So if you're content starting and continuing with a little bit less than it takes a little bit more time, right. But what's mindblowing is once you get to that first hundred, K that growth becomes starts becoming exponential. So you can start investing with, you know, additional a hundred dollars a week, extra buck, and then continue from there. Some people do a thousand dollars a month. It really depends on where you're at with your income. Okay. That's it. I want to, I want you guys to be invested, right? Have an actual portfolio, have an active portfolio and continue investing in building wealth. That's what we do inside a messaging bootcamp. All right. I love you. I hope to see you in there.

If you are not part of the Ms. Wealthy movement yet, make sure you head over to Instagram and hang out with me. There I am at Ms. Wealthy official. And if you need anything else, head to Ms. wealthy.com. You can get all the info that you need. Find us on Facebook as well. And Hey, I'd also love. If you can drop a review on iTunes, it supports us massively, and it means the freaking world.