I’m almost 50 and don’t have 401 (k) or anything. I had a really bad time the last few years and lost everything. My only debt is a car payment of $ 300 per month at 4% interest.

What should I do with this money?

I feel the FOMO with the roar of the stock and crypto markets. My money is just in the bank – in the meantime, if only I had put $ 1000 here or there, wow, I would have made some big returns! At the same time, I don’t want to be one of those who jump to the top right before the markets start to “correct”, and it’s a downhill race for my investments.

I’m too old to sit back and hope that I can make up for lost time by safely investing my little money and earning a 5% return for the next 15 years.

Thanks for any help.

Broken bob

You can email The Moneyist with all financial and ethical questions related to the coronavirus at [email protected], and follow Quentin Fottrell on Twitter.

Dear Bob,

If only we knew.

If only we knew about BTCUSD bitcoin,
-0.04%
was going to be the crypto currency. If only we knew Elon Musk, founder of Tesla TSLA,
-1.10%,
would talk about dogecoin DOGEUSD,
+ 6.05%.
If only we knew about ethereum ETHUSD,
-0.67%
would be the surprise success of the season. If only. Sea all being rich beyond our wildest dreams, wondering why we care about education or work.

In fact, if we all knew, most of us would be sitting on losses, licking our chops, wondering where it all went wrong.

Remember the real estate bubble before the Great Recession? I remember taxi drivers in Dublin talking about their vacation home in Bulgaria. Well, it didn’t go very well until things got better. Finally. I’m not saying these two things are comparable, but I’m saying it’s a dangerous game to go back to lottery jackpots and wonder how life would be different if we only knew these five numbers in Powerball. It’s misleading, isn’t it? Five digits. It all seems so easy after the fact.

Invest all you have if you can afford to lose all you have. Only invest what you can live without. There is no guarantee with crypto or the stock market, although the latter has shown long-term returns over time except for those bumps along the way. Here’s what Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said about investing in crypto on Thursday: “I’ll say it quite bluntly – only buy them if you’re willing to lose all your money. “

These caveats aside, I have some general suggestions. They’re not very exciting, so grab a glass of caffeine. Yet they deserve to be repeated.

Diversify your investments. Most importantly, stick to your own risk tolerance and your own values. Look for high quality dividend growth stocks. Put some of your reserve money on the stock market. Try crypto if you wish, but again at your own risk. The same goes for the stock market. There is no guaranteed get-rich-quick scheme.

As for crypto: it’s all the rage today, as more traditional commodities like gold have had a tougher time. Crypto behaves like a commodity and in the loosest sense that you can use it to buy things, it is also a currency even though it doesn’t act as such. It also occupies the regulatory Wild West. It’s not a great place to store your money due to its extreme volatility – and, as we’ve seen with Musk’s bragging about dogecoin, it’s even influenced by the whims of fame.

The most valuable commodity we all have right now, as you suggest, is time. And you use yours, take stock of your life, and take care of your sick dad. You will never come back with him this time. You went back to college and decided to invest in yourself by continuing your education. It is something that no one can take away from you. No stock market rally or cryptocurrency rebound can change that.

Do a curtsy, my friend. You made the best investment of all.

The Moneyist: My employer paid me in crypto. It increased 700% in value. Now he wants employees to flip the crypto and accept the dollars

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