I Put My Savings Into the Stock Market and Made Ten Thousand Dollars in Six Months

Fortune favors the brave.

My wife and I are financially conservative. We like to think of our monetary perspective as good old fashioned common sense. We only spend what we have, pay off credit cards to zero every two weeks, and steadily contribute to a savings account. We’ve followed traditional wisdom perhaps to a fault for the last ten years, taking no risks, wholly committed, and prepared for retiring at sixty-five.

Recently, I’ve grown increasingly more interested in the stock market. It’s the gambler in me drawn to the idea of making money for nothing. So I bought a “Trading for Dummies” book about a year ago and started devouring it only to set it aside halfway through after listening to some big-time financial friends warning me to stay away.

When the COVID crash hit in March, I approached a friend of mine, who enjoys dabbling in the market, and asked if he was up for a fun challenge.

After a few minutes of further discussion over various rules and stipulations, we opened up our Robinhood accounts and deposited our first hundred dollars.

I came out of the month with $80, and my friend lost $50. Nobody got to take the other guy’s dough because we agreed that the contest would be a losing tie if we both went into the red. It was an experiment that further validated my belief that the world of finances is a wilderness for a lost pup like me. During that month, I began diving into daily news regarding the market and essential reading of five and ten-year charts for various funds.

I read a compelling article from Suze Orman titled,

She explains that if one invested a sum of money into a general stock market fund such as VTI at…

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