I hate stupid financial stories like this. I know how to calculate how much I have to save and all that. That is just cookbook stuff. What I need to know how do I get the G-D 6% without risking all my cash or spending all day every day watching the G-D stock market.
There are many ways to wealth.
But I point people to http://www.bogleheads.org/. The folks there believe in investing in low expense index funds. They recommend only owning a handful, and reallocating on a regular basis, but not terribly often. They don’t recommend watching the stock market on a daily basis. Just check out their wiki, ask questions at their forum. I think they make sense. If it makes sense to you, try it out.
I highly recommend Dave Ramsey’s approach. He recommends four good performing growth stock mutual funds invested in for the long term (and real estate purchased with cash only). Let the professional mutual fund managers watch the markets all day. That way, the only way you get hurt riding the roller coaster of the market is if you jump off....
I got to listening to him as the market turned down in late 2008 and 2009. While I was never “over my head” with debt, I had made the mistake of believing there was such a thing as “good debt” used to buy assets. But when those assets stopped producing as much income, it got uncomfortable... and my wife and I made some changes. We are now pretty much debt-free except for the house and can easily get by on my military retirement. — anything we earn is extra....And we are doing decently with our investments
Anyway, it works for us. V/R Bill