Gratitude: Investing on a Shoestring — When You Really Can't Afford to!

One of the things I ”learned” a long time ago was that investing was really not for ”regular” people.

Granted, my introduction to investing came many, many years ago… at a time when the whole idea of ”making an investment” was something reserved for those who were standing by with at least $5,000 in hand, ready to start. In many cases, minimum investments were $25,000.

As a relatively young adult, I dreamed of building an investment portfolio over time, but recognized that the need to have $5,000 or more in hand was a huge barrier to entry. Most of the time, I was barely able to make ends meet and even just pay my monthly bills and make my student loan payments, so I slowly turned my back on the idea… with some sadness.

In time, some mutual funds started to make investing — at least in a limited sort of way — more accessible by lowering some of their investment minimums to $500… IF you also agreed to have a certain amount (often $100 per check) automatically deducted from your paychecks.

I did try that for a while, but it didn’t really work so well, because most of the time I found that I desperately needed that $200 a month for things like car repairs or other unexpected things that came down the pike.

Besides, this development happened right around the time I turned to full-time self-employment, so there wasn't actually "a paycheck" any more... so I was disqualified.

People who were supposedly ”in the know” told me that it was wiser not to try to invest when you really couldn’t afford to do so.

The sad thing is that by such a metric, most people in this world would never be able to ”afford” to start investing. Just consider even such a simple statistic as the fact that more than 50% of US households would not be able to afford a sudden and unexpected $1,000 emergency.

The thing that made me feel nervous about it all was that I realized I'd eventually become too old and tired to work... and I would have no back-up plan.

Many Years Went By…

The sad truth is that I never reached a point where I could actually afford to start investing… that is, by those traditional metrics, I never made significantly more than I earned — after bills, expenses and taxes were paid — to genuinely ”have money left over.”

In fact, it really wasn’t until the advent of cryptocurrency — and specifically venues like Hive and its predecessors/derivatives — that I was able to very slowly start investing at least a little bit, every now and then.

This ”system” by which we are able to create and curate content and build stake in the venues we are using seems like one of the best possible solutions — or at least opportunities — for those many people in the world who really can’t afford to invest.

I still can’t ”afford” to invest, but at least I can ”afford” to build stake, at least for the time being! And that does offer a measure of relief and comfort. In a few months, I will have been doing this for six years!

Today is Thanksgiving here in the USA, and so I take this moment to be thankful for finally having found a way to invest a little… however little that may be!

I know the Cryptosphere seems to be hitting a rough patch these days… and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that recent developments in the industry have been worrisome… so I can but hope that we will be able to continue doing this, going forward!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

How about YOU? When did you first start investing? Did you have "conventional" investments, before crypto? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20221124 22:56 PDT
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