Pay yourself first
Little by little you’ll end up with a lot
Paying yourself, as if you were as important as the cable company or your car loan, is an easy-to-implement strategy that anyone can put into practice.
After working through your monthly budget, determine how much money you can realistically save every month. If you are disciplined, you can transfer the funds from your “working” account into a separate savings or investment account. If you think you may be tempted to “cheat,” arrange with your bank to automatically transfer funds from one account into the other. Then, with the help of a financial advisor, use this money for long-term investing.
The long and short of dollar-cost averaging
Investing can be managed on either a long-term or short-term basis – or both. If you have concerns about short-term prospects and have long-term goals, you may want to discuss a dollar-cost averaging strategy with your advisor. Investing smaller amounts at regular intervals, sometimes buying a little when the market is up…sometimes buying a little when the market is down – can alleviate the anxiety of putting everything at risk all at once.