It is in my best interests to avoid most of the noise that Wall Street produces. Why do I say that?
Why
Let’s look at why Wall Street produces the amount of “noise” that it does. It might seem simplistic to say, but Wall Street is in the business of getting you to spend money, to buy its financial products. It would be easy to say that most of those products are not appropriate for me. So to avoid being separated from my money, I need to be heedful. I must not let the noise and the stories and the whole glut of its information from diverting me from my goals.
It is so easy to be taken in my what goes on around us. I certainly have been as guilty of that as anyone. I followed fads, and got as excited as the next person at the latest new thing to come along, especially when I was younger. Fads in clothing, in food, in ideas, in politics, in behavior, in recreational substances… I involved myself in them all.
But
But as I got older, I realized that all of those ideas, all of those things, were just products of others. They existed because other people were doing them or selling them. Advertising and propaganda exist because they usually worked. They were effective because they often caused results. And although I willingly participated in many many activities, just about all of those activities left me with less than I started. Less money, less true social connections, less effectiveness, and so on. Upon questioning these behaviors of mine, I began to see that I was also questioning the why of my participation in those activities. And I saw that I when I needed to act, I would need to act from a place within me that was my truth. My reasons for my behavior from that point on were to be from the reasons within me, not from reasons from outside of myself.
Money?
So, what does this all have to do with financial security? I found I would need to examine what I wanted, how I wanted what I wanted, and find ways that aligned with who I am. I would not be buying securities because someone was selling them, I would not be buying things from people who had the biggest advertising budgets. I would need to spend time reading and thinking and researching what was best for me.
And so I hit upon the methods that work for me.
Time and Money
I focus on dividend investing. I buy stocks in companies that pay dividends. I let those dividends buy more shares or parts of shares every time they are issued. I also buy some stocks using dollar cost averaging.
Both of these methods are slow and quiet. Slow and quiet means that they are generally ignored by Wall Street noise. That suits me just fine. I go about my business knowing that every day the companies whose stock I hold are doing business all over the country and the world. And every quarter they are sending me money in the form of dividends. Many of these companies grow their dividends every year, so my income increases without me needing to do much at all.
There are some wonderful benefits that I have found in my approach. As mentioned, it is slow and quiet. Slow and quiet beats noisy every time. I don’t need to care what the price of stock are. (When stocks decline, I pay more attention, as I look to find bargains.)
What works for you? Let me know here.
Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16th president, was over six feet tall, and wore the top hat illustrated. Courtesy National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
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