Hey everyone, it’s Finance Fridays again. I don’t have all that much talk about today. However, when it comes to Finance Fridays and The Philosophy, I wanted to tackle a common problem: “Boredom”.

***Oops, apparently I posted this early on 4/12/2018 instead of 4/13/2018. Oh well!

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Boredom

The hardest thing about The Philosophy is that it’s so boring. I think that people kind of understand when you explain the concept of passive investing to them. However, just because you understand the concept, that doesn’t mean you can adhere to it.

When you contrast passive investing in index funds versus the wild, wild west of crypto, or something in the middle like daytrading or stock picking, then it seems downright boring. Here’s the thing, that’s point, it’s supposed to be boring.

If you aren’t bored from doing passive investing, then you’re probably doing it wrong.

Doing it wrong?

Yes.

Once you understand how passive investing with index funds works, you really don’t have any reason to look at your retirement portfolios anymore. If you have a target fund, you don’t really need to look at them ever. If you have a three fund portfolio like me, or some variant thereof, then you probably just need to rebalance once a year.

So what do you do then? It feels like you’ve left your future to someone else doesn’t it? Perhaps you feel like you’re not taking responsibility or ownership for your retirement or something.

I can understand that feeling.

However, I want to explain that you have taken responsibility and ownership. It’s just you’ve taken responsibility and ownership on the front end. You’ve already decided your investment plan and your retirement plan, there is nothing left to do.

It’s kind of like building a house. You gather all the materials and draw up a plan to build it. After careful research you’ve decided how big it needs to be, how long you want it to last, and when you can move in to it. You’ve decided exactly what you’re going to build and how you’re going to build it. So after all that, you just wait for it to be built, providing materials for it to be built every year.

You don’t have to be there every day to make sure it’s being built correctly because you’ve already decided on the plan. You just need to check it on it once a year or so maybe to make sure your plan hasn’t changed. Maybe you’ve decided you want to move in earlier than expected, then you’ll need to alter the plan slightly to make that happen. Or maybe the opposite happens and you’ve decided you don’t want to move in quite yet, you can alter the plan that way as well.

The house is being built whether you’re watching or not.

Ugh, but I’m bored… what now?

Well, I’m sure you can do other stuff with your time. However, if you mean you’re bored of your finances, then maybe you want to do something to accelerate your own retirement, like trying to find a way to make some passive income. Or maybe you can read some more books about the subject of finance, or you could learn about something completely new.

I have a lot of stuff I’d love to learn how to do. For example:

• I’d love to learn how to code in SWIFT.
• I’d also love to be a bigger part of the whole cryptocurrency movement.
• I’d love to write a book someday.

TL;DR

Being bored is good, it means you’re being passive and sticking with The Philosophy.

Just remember, “The house is being built whether you’re watching or not.”

If you’re looking for other things to do, why not learn something new?

-Sensei

Agree? Disagree? Questions, Comments and Suggestions are welcome.

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