How did you first learn about investing?

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

Around 5th grade, we studied stocks and had to pick a couple. Seems I picked Wrigleys chewing gum, and Brunswick who did bowling stuff and eventually got Zebco fishing poles.

When first married father in law got me hooked on the idea of buying dividend paying stock to pay my bills. I bought enough stock in a media company to pay my newspaper subscription. I did this for several utilities before I decided money was fungible (interchangeable) and did not care where the $$ to pay the bills came from.

 

[mrfeh]

Started investing 25+ years ago - used the financial adviser provided by my 403B. Wife and I managed things ourselves for maybe the next 10 years but didn't really know what we were doing...

Saw that we were a few years away from FI so we hired a professional for 1% AUM. After 2 years of that, we asked ourselves, "why are we paying this guy 5 figures every year?".

End of 2013 I found bogleheads and finally educated myself. Been doing things ourselves ever since then, using low cost index funds.

So, for most of our lives we were fairly ignorant, although we were never frequent traders/reckless. The thing that allowed us to be successful anyway was our very high savings rate.

 

[street]

Investing started with my career job. I learned the value of saving from a very early age from my mom and dad. They taught me it, went from there.

 

[aja8888]

We lived in a housing project when I was growing up as mom and dad were not educated and came from Pennsylvania coal mine families. We were just living from hand to mouth and dad was a serious alcoholic. The family fell apart about the time I left home at 17 after high school. Well, things got a little better for me after that and I joined the Air Force at age 20 (Vietnam was really heating up at that time) . It was there I learned about investing from a pal who was in like me but knew about "mutual funds".

I had part of my Airman's meek pay sent to Hamilton Funds each month. I had no idea who they were, but it seemed like and easy way to put aside some money. And I was not sure about my future at that time.

That investment helped buy me my first house about 10 years later. The rest is history.

 

[Aerides]

Honestly mostly here, mostly in the last 5 years before I ER'd in 2016.

Before that, I basically had my 401k, split into target date funds, stuff that looked good based on past performance, gut feel.
My taxables were pretty conservative, based on my direction to my FA at the time, mostly bond funds. Picked my FA because he worked for several work friends.
Did ok (pretty hard not to do OK from 2010+)
Set myself a savings goal for each paycheck - maxing 401k, and putting large chunks of the rest into taxables.

Stopped adding to my FA stuff and dabbled with VTSAX myself, then directed my FA to do the same pretty much with all the stuff we had there (to IVV). Once I finally realized my FA was simply pulling the triggers at my direction, I moved everything to Fido and picked off the bogle lazy list and we self-manage everything now.

 

[Unpaintedhuffhines]

In high school, had a few extra $ and wanted to invest. My best friend's dad was a chemist at Mary Kay Cosmetics and suggested that I invest in them, so I did (this was late 70s when they were still publicly traded). Made a decent return, which got me hooked on investing.

Subscription to Money Magazine, along with Megacorp offering financial assistance. Didn't invest in retirement plan for 3 years until 1986, when I invested $1,496. Told the financial adviser I wanted to retire before 60. I still have those financial statements.

My investing stepped up a few notches when I found out my Dad was 50 and had virtually nothing saved for retirement. Scared the s*** out of me. Now I have plenty. Whew.

 

[googily]

When I was in 6th grade, there was some after school class or some such that taught kids how to read newspapers, and one of the parts was how to read the stock tables. We had to pick one stock and follow it every day--I chose National Semiconductor, presumably because I had heard my dad mention that he owned it. This would have been 1975ish.

There was also a family joke around the same time that revolved around repeating my dad's lament about some other forgotten stock, "I shoulda sold at 80!"

So clearly it was instilled from an early age!

 

[CyclingInvestor]

Started delivering papers at age 9 and proudly buying CDs.

Introduced to 401k's in 1983, always maxed out into their high-fee SP500 fund equivalent. Other savings in CDs and bonds. Started reading Money, Forbes, watching Nightly Business Report, going to library to read Value Line (my biggest influence).

Started buying individual stocks in 1993, small at first, then big in 1997 when my 14 year 401k rolled into an IRA, mainly dividend growth stocks with Value Lines help. Have not really changed my investment approach since.

 

[athena53]

I learned from my dad at the age of 15, when I bought mt first stock.

I also have Dad to thank, although both Mom and Dad preached thrift, LBYM and paying your bills on time. Dad started investing in the late 1960s, before the Internet, discount brokerages, etc. He made a few mistakes (wrote naked Put options on stock that then went up) but it was with money that could be put at risk, not the grocery money or our college funds. I was fascinated by the charts and Dad answered my questions and talked a little about the trades he was making. I bought my first stock at age 20 (Republic Steel, where Dad worked at the time) but didn't really get into it till a few years out of college when I got connected to a broker who was a technical analysis junkie. (She'd started out as a Ballet major, had a degree in Psych, and had a highly successful career at Merrill Lynch and then Dean Witter.) Later I switched into more mutual funds, and now have a mix of bonds, mutual funds and ETFs. I've always loved watching my investments and have learned valuable lessons through the down markets.

Dad is alive and solvent at age 88 although he's failing physically; I have thanked him MULTIPLE times for those early lessons.

 

[thepalmersinking]

I had a Merrill Lynch broker, who charged me 2% in 1998. Take my money and promptly lose 50% in the dot com crash. He always sounded so concerned and worried. He was in both Worldcom and Enron at the peak and rode hem both to $0. He never once thought it would be a good time to take losses. I just sold a small company and was young and ignorant. It cost me $400K. I said I can do this on my own. I have ever since.

 

[Moemg]

I was in my early 30's and a single Mom when I woke up and realized I was responsible for educating my children and retirement for me . I started saving every raise I received in CD's . I then started reading everything I could about investing and got into mutual funds .By the time my children went to college I was able to pay for their education and I was well on the way to a secure retirement .

 

[kcowan]

When I started work with Megacorp, they offered a stock purchase plan, investing up to 10% of gross pay and getting a 15% discount on the stock. Even better, the price was frozen at July 1 or current whichever was lower.

After a while, the stock holding got very large so I got a stock broker to help me diversify.

Shopped around for different brokers until I found one that was to my liking. By the time discount brokers came on the scene, I was ready to do my own stock selection. I now maintain a portfolio of 25 stocks and a couple of mutual funds for international markets and small caps.

 

[timo2]

My Father was a Naval Officer who played a little in the stock market from the 1960's until early this century. I learned a lot from him. Thanks to his investments my now widowed mother has enough money to live well.

 

[Dawg52]

Louis Rukeyser and his guest probably influenced me the most early on. Also investment advisors with the company 401k plan were very helpful. And I read Money Magazine and Barrons for a while.

 

[WestUniversity]

My dad and a subscription to Money magazine years and years ago...

 

[marko]

Grew up around it; wealthy grandpa on Mom's side.

But, when I was about 9 or 10, I had a savings account with $2,000 in it. Dad took me to the bank so I could withdraw $20 (I forget the exact amount) for a baseball glove.

When I got back to the car, I told Dad that I thought they made a mistake because I took out $20 and my passbook still had the $2000 balance.

He said: "That's interest; they pay you to keep your money...that's how your grandfather lives without having a real job"

 

[scrabbler1]

The early seeds to my learning about investing were planted when I was a kid. My uncle bought me one share of Ford Motor when I was born so every quarter I was receiving a small dividend check from Ford. We got the Sunday NY Times at home so I was looking up the stock price from time to time. Some time in the early 1980s the share had a 5:4 split and I soon sold the share.


Also when I was a kid, I watched a Flintstones episode where an alternate Fred, pretending he was a tycoon, was asked some investment advice. His answer: "Buy low, sell high!"


I had a passbook savings account at a local bank. When my mom took me there to deposit something (such as the Ford check), sometimes the bank credited my account with accumulated interest. I thought that was pretty cool, making money without doing anything.


In college, I majored in business and took a finance course so I learned some stuff about investing.


When I began working, I began investing in a 401k a year later.


After I bought my apartment in 1989 and replenished my bank account in early 1990, my mom turned me onto investing my non-retirement money into a muni bond fund with Fidelity. That was the key introduction into investing my after-tax money into mutual funds, something which blossomed nicely in the last ~29 years.

 

[RenoJay]

Senior year of college I had significant savings from summer jobs. My roommate’s friend was an intern at a brokerage and pitched me on a “can’t lose” stock pick which was going to have a huge jump on a specific day. The pitch was tempting and I considered putting all my life savings into it. Reluctantly I called grumpy old dad to tell him of my found treasure and thank G-d Dad talked me into vastly reducing my planned investment. Needless to say, dad was right, the stock plummeted and if I ever see my roommate’s friend again I’ll punch him in the nose. But shortly thereafter dad introduced me to mutual funds including the “Vanguard 500” which I bought in 1994 and held forever. Thanks, Pop!

 

[nativenewenglander]

My Dad was SVP at the first publicly traded mutual fund back in the 50's, He made me look up stock prices in the WSJ everyday when he got home from work. I guess it was all I ever knew! Glad he did it, as it sure beat the hell out of working for a living!

My dad bought some shares in the Stock Fund for my brother and I then set each of us up in a local bank with and account. He wanted us to watch how it did over the years. This was in the late 1960's and it did poorly. I remember putting birthday money and other earnings into it. We did follow it in the local papers financial section. Both my brother and I became interested in the markets and are retired as we learned to invest. Thanks, Dad

 

[foxfirev5]

1972 put $1200 of my first summer construction job into Massachusetts Investor Trust. 1974 sold at $900 for my first term college tuition.

I learned a lot and have never sold at a loss since. Also I learned to match my AA to my time horizon. Over the long run they were very cheap lessons.

 

[HFWR]

Lou Rukeyser and Scott Burns

 

[RobbieB]

Back when I was a teenager Pops told me all I needed to know about finance. It wasn't real hard stuff.

1) Son you can make a million a year but if you spend a million a year you ain't never gonna have feces, so save some dough.

2) Save enough so you don't have to take out loans for appliances or cars.

3) Save some more for a down payment on a house. The mortgage should be your only debt.

4) After your savings recovers from the down payment start buying stocks. Stocks are where your really make some dough.

I followed his advice and it worked -

 

[Bir48die]

Lou Rukeyser and Scott Burns

Man, I forgot all about Louis. Used to watch him all the time. After bombing out of pre-med I decided to go into Business at school and then from accounting into finance. I took investment classes along with accounting and it really interested me.

When I graduated I was looking to get into portfolio management but the conventional way was to be a bank teller and work your way up the banking ladder. They paid $600/mth. So I passed on it.

Long story short I kept my interest and started reading Barrons and WSJ along with watching PBS and Louis. Now Nightly Business Report is my news since I don't watch conventional news anymore.

 

[racy]

Back in 1970, our TV was limited to about 3 channels, one of which was PBS. I tuned in to watch "Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser" every Friday evening. I was a junior in high school at the time.

 

[jollystomper]

Though I understood investments in stocks and bonds in theory via various classes in high school and college, I had gotten the impression that is was no different than gambling. Everyone I spoke to was focused on making a large, quick return. In the early 1980s I made the mistake of listening to a sibling who had a "hot tip" for a stock that was supposed to triple within 6 months. Of course after 6 months it had lost 75% of its value. When the sibling's broker tried to convince me to move to another "hot" stock, and included in his reasons for why the stock would grow whether an AFC or NFC won the Super Bowl, I ran away screaming into the night from this. Along with high trade commissions, and money market funds that then were paying very high rates, I avoided anything but money market funds.

In 1984 my older co-workers finally convinced me to open a 401K. At that point I started understanding asset allocation and reading about mutual funds, subscribed to Barrons and Money Magazine, and started to read the Wall Street Journal. I started hearing about folks like John Bogle of Vanguard, Peter Lynch at Fidelity, John Templeton, and Warren Buffet. I took a personal finance course at a local community college. I started investing in mutual funds outside of my 401K in the late 1980s. I got into (at a small scale) individual stocks in the mid 90s, when our savings had grown to where I felt comfortable risking some money there, and discount brokerages for cheap trades became popular.

In addition to Barrons and Money Magazine, Key books for me in the late 1980s and 1990s: there was a "New York Time Personal Finance/Investment Guide", I think that was the name. I forget the author, a female I believe. It gave for me a very comprehensive introduction to personal finance and the role investing played within it. "Master Your Money" by Ron Blue. "The Truth About Money" by Ric Edelman. "The Millionaire Next Door". These all helped me see investing less as gambling and looking for quick returns, and more as a long term strategy for asset growth and retirement planning.