It was a matter of time before this happened. A drop in the equity markets due to trade war fears (despite our automated and manual monthly investments) translated into a lower investment portfolio value. As a result, the growth in our total asset and net worth for Aug 2019 was less than half that of Jul 2019.
It’s tempting for us to find a way to increase our total monthly income to make up for it. Either by investing more to generate a higher dividend income or by doing a side gig to make some extra money. For the first time in the past 2 years since setting it up, I logged into my GrabHitch Driver account. Just to see whether I can monetize any of our car trips over the weekend. I even considered changing my investing strategy into higher yielding dividend stocks.
Look at how I got drawn into most likely a knee-jerk reaction to a normal and regular event that happens often. While I’m not saying this is a bad thing (because new ideas do come up in times like that), it’s more important to be patient and wait. Even just for a bit. Before deciding to do anything. To be honest, I distracted myself by focusing on my work, wife, family and friends. A useful way to take my mind off something I have no control over.
This is why I know we cannot do investing full-time or even part-time. I constantly think there are so many other things I could be doing that is a better use of my time. It’s probably a bad active investing strategy but I find it to be a good passive investing strategy. The less I change my approach, the more effective it becomes over the long term.