When is enough enough?

A recurring theme that DIY Investor emphasizes is that by using low-cost, well-diversified indexed funds, individuals can learn to manage their own assets without having to make a major time commitment. DIY Investor pushes back against those who believe that successful investing requires picking individual stocks and poring over financial statements and even trying to pick the hot fund managers.We all know those who spend 40 hours a week working on their investments, track prices on a daily basis, subscribe to 5 different newsletters, and stay glued to CNBC. Hey - more power to them if this is what they want to do. Most people have lives away from investments.

There is a balance to be sought here. Admittedly, investing can be fun; and most fans of low-cost indexing allow for a certain percentage invested in individual stocks or chasing commodities, etc. The point is that many investors would do well to look up from time to time and ask if they are over-committing the precious resource of time to investment activity.

So DIY Investor emphasizes that it is possible to get excellent performance with a minimal time commitment. In fact, historically the index approach outperforms over the long term, after fees, 80% of professional money managers. And, if an individual doesn't want to make the minimal time commitment, he or she should be able to get money management services using the low-cost indexed approach at a reasonable cost, well below what the typical advisor charges.

This  philosophy of seeking excellent performance without having to give up the things people enjoy in life is expressed well by Bill Schultheis in The New Coffee House Investor. Bill asks, "When is enough, enough?" On page 115, Bill offers the first verse of a poem, "The Spell of the Yukon" by Robert Service:

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy, I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it-
Came out with a fortune last fall,-
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
and somehow the gold isn't all.

Bill is a former Smith Barney broker turned advisor who has many passions in life other than the world of investing.

The process by which many people can learn to successfully manage their own investments starts with reading a book that the layman can understand that covers the basics. Bill Schultheis' book fits the bill. In fact, the book's subtitle says it all: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life.

Disclosure: If you click though the book's image and order from Amazon, I receive a small compensation.