Oh, and one other thing, besides that dollar-cost-averaging and DRIPs are good: Amplification on the "no load indexed mutual fund." (Actually, on dollar-cost-averaging too): If you're my age, you're raised on the cliche of Scrooge McDuck with the stock ticker in his office and the bank of phones, yelling "BUY! BUY! SELL! SELL!" And when you think about investing in stocks, you *want* to go "Well, Zenith is the last TV company that makes their product in America..." Or "even in bad times, people will eat fast food so McDonald's..." But there are people that are a lot smarter than you or I. With a lot more time to research stocks. And apart from the occasional Warren Buffet, there aren't that many that are insanely rich. If they can't pick winners and "time" the market, you and I aren't going to either. That's the beauty of the index fund: It does however well the index you've chosen is doing. No more, no less. And since it is an index fund, you're not paying some monkey 7 figures to try to pick winners and losers--and then the management costs of buying and selling said "winners" and "losers." It just quietly chugs along on autopilot, doing as well as the market does. And if anyone tries to tell you the market doesn't do that well... Back in 1988 or so, when there was a big crash, I was upset. The Dow was...I forget...something like 1,500 then. These days--not that much later, on a scale of things--it's over 34,000. So creation of the NYSE-1987=0-1,500. 1987-2022=1,500-34,000+. So you'll do pretty well if you just quietly put a set amount into a no load index fund on a regular interval--unless the stock market collapses. And if the stock market collapses, you'll have a lot more to worry about than losing your investment. Because it'll be Mad Max.
And just one last thing on dollar-cost-averaging versus trying to time the market...nah, I'm too lazy to do even the simplest example. But it's a fun exercise. Plug in some stock prices--or better still, have a friend put them on flash cards or something--and then try to decide when to buy and when to sell, while also just buying the same amount every month (you could add in a DRIP to really drive the point home, but just a simple buy and hold will give plenty of proof) and see how often you wind up buying high and selling low. It's just human nature. A stock starts diving--and with Darden, it lost like, 2/3 of its value during the 'rona--and you go "I gotta get out of this and cut my losses." And you sell when the stock is in the toilet. And a stock starts taking off and you spend a lot of money when the money isn't getting you a lot. If you just always buy and always buy the same amount at regular intervals, you will do...shit, I can't guarantee these things, but I've been drinking, and I'm not a financial planner, so I'll say you'll do better than 7% without even thinking. But you've got to be able to ride out the scary times. Kind of like the poker concept that, as long as you can always keep doubling, eventually you'll come out ahead (is that a thing? I forget.) You can get a Nixon-Ford-Carter run that decimates the economy. Or a, you know, Joe Biden, run. But...shit, I'm rambling. OK. First thing: If you can ride it out, things will turn and pick up.
OK. Had to reread because I almost lost the tangent I was going down. I've been a bit surprised by how well the Dow has been doing with Biden in office. But then I remembered "The Smartest Guys in the Room," the book about Enron. In California you had a bunch of legislators who were figuring out crony capitalist ways to "stick it to" Enron and come out ahead. But the thing is, Enron has a bunch of really smart, high paid lawyers and accountants that know a lot more about California laws than California lawmakers. Hell, they probably wrote the laws the California lawmakers were so smug about. So they knew all the loopholes and workarounds to come out ahead--in spite of "tough on Big Business" legislation. OK. Gotta go. Zoom-zoom.