Lest you wish to drive yourself completely insane.
The truth is that in order for you to fully reap the rewards of any investments you may have, you really do need to keep a good tabs on what's going on with them. Yes, it can be a painful thing to watch your portfolio in the throes of its ups and downs. It can be particularly painful when there are bad days, or strings of bad days.
If you go into the process of looking daily at what you have with the mindset that this is just the way that the market operates, and if you have done your due diligence and have confidence in what your individual investments hold for the long haul, the daily nuances should not have the agonizing impact that they might otherwise have.
Going it blind, to me, just seems like a foolish way to go about things. Perhaps it is a stupid analogy. But imagine driving a car that has no gas gauge. You simply drive around having some general idea of where you need to be and how much gas is left in the tank to get you there. But you have no idea how much gas is actually in the tank.
At some point or another, or at various points, you are going to find yourself on the side of the road trekking to the nearest gas station, gas can in hand, to make up for the fact that you got it wrong. You'll even be filling up when you don't need to.
That's time, folks. And time is money. And it's a cog in the wheel that can throw your whole day off balance.
In order to manage your finances, you need to know how much gas is in your tank so you can make wise decisions about when you need to fuel up, when it might be a good idea to pour a few extra gallons in the tank, or even when you are safe to drive a little bit longer before doing anything at all.
But it does another thing for you when you are watching the daily nuances. It helps you to also make wise spending decisions. Look, let's be real here. We save money not only for the future. But we also save it to have it when we want it to do things.
Watching the money and knowing exactly where you are at any particular time can help you decide if now is the time to take that vacation, or replace the car, or go out to eat one night. If I see I am up for the week, perhaps I allow myself to take a little bit of that money off the table to take it out of the bottom line and do something I want to with it. Conversely, if I am down, I'm not taking money away from it making a bad situation worse.
Money is not the most important thing in our lives. Obviously. But it can certainly have an impact on the quality of our lives.
Again, going into the process knowing the mechanics of money and markets is key, and helps us even to see a silver lining. Remember when the markets lost half their value in 2009? It was a devastating thing to watch really. But, having an idea that we have been to places like that before, and seeing that we not only gained it all back eventually, and then some, gives you great insight into what you need to be doing in times like those.
You could say that back then, in 2009, the tank was running on empty. The choice would have been unwise to just keep on driving hoping you would still get to your destination. The wise choice would have been to put some gas in the car and drive a little less.
And by comparison...spend a little less.
You don't want to find yourself on the side of the road dead while all the other cars whiz past you. You want to be on the road with them, getting to the places you want to, and need to go. Pressing the gas pedal is intent to move forward. But you're going to need gas to actually make the car go.
If you really want to reach your destination, it is best to avoid guessing whether or not you will actually have what you need to get there, or what you need to do in order to have some influence on whether or not you will ever actually arrive.
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