My Current Investment Strategy. Plus I'm Now Invested In The US Stock Market.

image: investwithalex.com

Here's my current investment strategy/position.

• An emergency fund in Diamond High Interest Deposit Account (HIDA) holding my 5 months living expense. I use it for emergencies and quickly refill the account as soon as possible.
• A mutual fund account with ARM. It's the Discovery Fund account; it currently holds about 70% of my total investment. I make a monthly automated transfer to it (direct debit). The mutual fund invests in stocks, fixed income, real estate and money market. I have had the account since 2011 and actively investing in it. I am very impressed with the fund performance, as it didn't drop as much as I expected despite the stock market crash.
• A stock brokerage account with ARM that I use to buy and sell Nigerian stocks. While planning to start my company in 2013 and 2014, I sold off my shares and since then I haven't actively traded on the NSE. Plus I found out that the ARM Discovery fund did better than I did with my own investment. Oando give me a black eye. GTB was a big winner for me then. The others were just there.
• A Forex account I have had since 2014, Now closing it. It's like gambling. Time consuming and not worth it. Whenever I think I have gotten how to play it right, I lose all the gains I have made and my capital. It's a system where the average guy loses. 
• Some binary options accounts I sunk $650 to try out and lost almost everything. I only managed to get $165 out of my original investment and it was after a lot of deceit from the broker.
• And finally, a US stocks investment/brokerage account. Planning to put all my foreign income (income from Google Adsense, Amazon book sales, Udemy Video courses and Upwork earnings) into the account. I am currently invested in the Vanguard S & P 500 Growth ETF and it's the only stock/etf I plan to invest in. Saves me a lot of stress and time trying to catch up on news of my investment performance. As long as the US economy is growing, I am happy.

And that's the lowdown of my current investment positions.

It is very easy to spend on gadgets and certification exams and fun experiences at bargain prices. Unfortunately, they are all expenses. One has to deliberately save or invest money for the future. And it's not something that comes naturally. With the daily emails from Dealdey, Konga, Wakanow and many eCommerce sites, there's always something you'll want to buy that's suddenly now on deep discount. And when you see the stuffs your friends have, you are subconsciously prepped to want to add to your lists of properties or fun experiences. Maybe you also now want to participate in the next edition of that vacation John went for or the Boston Marathon or the Kenya Safari tour or some great fun thing that will only take money out of your pocket. You are constantly updating your bucket list. The temptation and pressure to spend is constantly there and growing. Saving is now an almost impossible task. And investing? It's now something you leave to your pension fund administrator.

But the moment you try to learn about investing and start investing with your hard earned money, no matter how much you lose, you will hopefully build a lifelong and life-improving habit of saving and investing for the future. And having a well thought out strategy involving different investment vehicles also make it fun as against just storing money idly in a savings account.

I have lost a lot to stocks, almost all I put into binary options and all I put into Forex. Yet, all the money and savings I have are the ones that made it through my investing rollercoaster experience. I never made money or savings from deep discount purchases or bargain deals.