Reading all of this almost makes me glad that I don't have enough time left in front of me (or make enough money) to have to figure out what to do about such things. I have always figured that you only invest money that you can truly afford to lose so in my case I couldn't do that. If I put what little I could invest into far more secure investment vehicles, the returns are so low as to not be worth pursuing and better to either use the money to enjoy things while I am still alive, or to ensure that I pay down any high interest debt that I have.
I have a friend who carries so much credit card debt (not by choice, just by poor decision making) and yet when she had a small nest egg from an inheritance come along she barely paid any of her high interest credit card debt and invested much of the money, enough that she could have paid her credit cards off. I tried to get her to think carefully, what investments could she possibly make that would outpace her high interest, compounded credit card debt? Even with the math staring her in the face she still went ahead and just invested. She lost quite a bit at first, like more than 20% of her investment, not sure if it recovered. I doubt it though.
I also wonder about the value in starting investing late in life, such as your 60s if you don't have a good amount to invest. Given that the better pay back periods are when things are diversified and left to work for a few decades, doesn't that really make investing after 60 (without lots of money) not really viable unless you get extremely lucky?
I have a friend who carries so much credit card debt (not by choice, just by poor decision making) and yet when she had a small nest egg from an inheritance come along she barely paid any of her high interest credit card debt and invested much of the money, enough that she could have paid her credit cards off. I tried to get her to think carefully, what investments could she possibly make that would outpace her high interest, compounded credit card debt? Even with the math staring her in the face she still went ahead and just invested. She lost quite a bit at first, like more than 20% of her investment, not sure if it recovered. I doubt it though.
I also wonder about the value in starting investing late in life, such as your 60s if you don't have a good amount to invest. Given that the better pay back periods are when things are diversified and left to work for a few decades, doesn't that really make investing after 60 (without lots of money) not really viable unless you get extremely lucky?