Meaningful Returns

I wrote something yesterday about two of my favorite things: Craigslist and the stock market.

But let’s back up. What is investing FOR?

Many financial sadnesses eventually find their genesis in someone (or a family of Someones) not getting clear at all about their answers to that question. Or they are crystal clear about their answer, and it’s just a really bad one (i.e., “Investing is for growing our money as big as we can.”) Some might say that’s not necessarily a bad answer, but I say it is, and this is my blog.

Everything about investing comes back to that key question. The amount of risk you need/can accept, the length of time you hold an investment, the emotional well-being you experience while holding the investment–all of this is simply a symptom of the answers to that question.

So answer it. But don’t bother me with the bad answer.