Why Don't People Invest?

How does one invest? This is a question that many people don't have the answer to. Growing up, I hardly ever heard of investing. I had a class in high school that had a unit about the stock market. Besides that week or two where we talked about the stock market, I wasn't told much as far as investing goes. While I was in college, I struggled to know what I wanted to do. I was majoring in behavioral science and was quickly realizing that I wasn't going to make it long in that field. So I took a "What should you do?" test on the internet and it came up with several jobs surrounding the stock market.

When I saw this I remembered those couple of weeks in high school that we had talked about these things and I realized that I didn't know much. For the next year, I paper traded and studied the stock market. I researched investing strategies and where to put my money. I not only looked up stocks but bonds and real estate as well. After my year of studying, I still feel like I have so much to learn. I feel like this knowledge is so important, so why didn't anyone share this with me earlier?

In an ideal scenario, most of what we learn, we learn at home. Obviously, you learn a lot at school, but you learn many things about life from your parents or parental figures. The course that you set out on in life is heavily affected by those influences you had. In my own life, I look at my parents who both graduated from college and as just a natural feeling, I feel like I should go to college. I have a few friends who aren't going or didn't go to college and many of their parents didn't either. I think that this would prove to be true with investing. I think kids of investors are much more likely to invest.

This isn't an exact pattern. My grandparents didn't go to college, but both my parents did. So they started a new pattern. Everything is still up to the individual, but I feel like college was put in my mind ever since I was little. My parents always said to go to college, my teachers always said to go to college and all my friends and family said to go to college. I believe that college is great. I also believe investing is great and may be just as important to do as going to college is.

In the society where I live today, the pattern seems to be that you go to college, get a good job with good benefits, and then retire at 65 on social security. There is nothing inherently wrong about this. Going to college and getting a good job is great. Social security was made to help people retire. My fear is that many people will find that social security isn't enough. I also fear that social security won't always be there. That people will reach 65 and be ready to retire and spend the rest of their life traveling but find that they still need to work to get by. With good investments, you won't need to have these worries.

The need to invest isn't explained to people in the way that it should be. If you made a small payment to your investment account each month you might not need social security. At the very least, your investments with social security will be enough to do what you want during retirement.

If investing is so important, why don't more people invest? The answer is simple. Most people don't know enough about it and don't see the importance of it. I've talked to many people about investing and the first question that most of them ask is, "Isn't it possible that I lose all my money?" This is a great question. No one should invest if they feel like there is a chance that they will lose all the money that they invest.

Other people feel like they should invest. They just don't know what to invest in. There are so many different brokerages and avenues for investing. You can invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, even collectibles. The important thing is to do your research. None of these avenues of investing are bad. There are just different kinds of investments with different risks and different rewards. It takes work to find what works for you, but it is something that you should do. It is important. It is worth it.

One last reason why people don't invest is that they feel they are too late. The wonder of compound interest takes time. If you don't have a lot of time it can seem like investing won't make a difference. That is true with some investments. Some take lots of time before you see a return and some don't take as much time. It's never too late to make money moves to help your future. Investing is important and in a few years, you will be glad you invested.