No One Ever Told Us That: Money and Life Lessons for Young Adults

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CAN YOU DO IT YOURSELF?

Almost all of you are digital-age savvy. Many of you, I hope, have 401(k) plans and even investment accounts in addition to your company's retirement plan offerings.

There are today, a bewildering array of opportunities for advice on investing. But more and more there seems to be a trend toward simple, low-cost index funds that reflect various stock averages. These are plain vanilla investments designed to mirror market movements; they are liquid, and eliminate the need for human advice and counsel in the buying of individual stocks and mutual funds.

Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, dispenses wisdom and common sense wherever he goes. He has a cult following, in my view not just because he has an outstanding investment record but also because of his wisdom, experience, and counsel. In a country with an increasingly anonymous population lacking in these qualities, people are desperate for good old-fashioned advice, given by someone so fatherly and wise like old-time headmasters and educators, people who more and more seem to be missing from our lives. Buffett has revealed that his will calls for his assets to be allocated 10 percent into U.S. Treasury securities, 90 percent into index funds, low cost and merely investing in the averages, funds with no active management by others. In his lifetime, he manages his own money, trusting only himself with the task. Clearly, he really does not ever rely on anyone ever being as astute as he, ...