The Game of Investing (hard vs easy)

^{Read time - 4 minutes / Disclosure}

 

Knowing the difference between hard vs easy investing can:

- Save you time.

- Save you money.

- Helps keep things simple.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of investing options.

 

The Choices

 

Many people wanting to invest are overwhelmed by the numerous options, like:

- Day trading.

- Stock funds.

- Cryptocurrency.

- Individual stocks.

- Getting home loans.

The different options can be mind-boggling.

 

Not knowing what to do.

Or fear of doing the wrong thing can lead to doing nothing at all.

And as the years pass — 5 years, 10 years, 15 years...

Not investing can lead to a lifetime of needing to work a 9-5 job.

 

 

The thought of needing to work a 9-5 job until I was 60 scared the heck out of me.

Watching my dad pass away from cancer at age 48.

And watching my mom pass in her early 60s unexpectedly..

Was a stark reminder —

There's no guarantees in life.

It's full of the unexpected.

Good things..

And not so good.

 

I knew investing was one thing I did have control over.

To build up enough assets to leave 9-5 life early.

To do my own thing.

To create a freer life.

But there were so many different ways to invest.

Ways that could mess up my plans if I took the wrong path.

 

The Investing Scale

 

Here's 5 ways I've invested over the past 10+ years while going from $0 to $1M+ in investments (ranked from hardest to easiest).

Hope it's useful.

Let's dive in.  

 

Day Trading: 1/5

 

Making money buying and selling stocks everyday may sound appealing.

But many studies show up to 97% of day traders lose money in the long run.

Deciding:

- What stock to buy.

- When to buy.

- How much to buy.

And:

- What stock to sell.

- When to sell.

- How much to sell.

...is a lot of work.

 

 

Famed investor Warren Buffett has compared day trading to casual hookups—exciting in the moment but destructive over time.

 

Individual Stocks: 2/5

 

Owning individual stocks is less work than day trading.

Especially when planning to own the stock long term.

But still requires you to decide:

- What stock to buy.

- When to buy.

- How much to buy.

And:

- What stock to sell.

- When to sell.

- How much to sell.

There's educators out there like Brian that help investors learn these things. But it takes time and a lot of patience.

 

Valuation Cheat Sheet pic.twitter.com/Ue8kbO9ejB

— Brian Feroldi (@BrianFeroldi) February 22, 2026

Buying and selling stocks without doing research on the company.

And hoping the stock price goes up, isn't much different than gambling.

"Know what you own, and know why you own it." — Peter Lynch

 

Cryptocurrency: 3/5

 

Owning cryptocurrency like Bitcoin has become easy.

Buying it on Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange.

Or inside an investment account through a Bitcoin fund like IBIT (iShares Bitcoin Trust) has become normalized.

But it's still a new asset with an unproven future.

The price can drop over 50%+ in a matter of weeks.

 

^{Bitcoin price history}

Bitcoin has grown tremendously, but sitting through 50% price drops for months or years is hard unless you're a true believer in the technology (I am).

 

Real Estate: 4/5

 

Getting a loan to buy a home or rental property takes a lot of effort.

But I've found after getting past that point.

It's not as much work to maintain the home as most people make it out to be (depending on the type of home you own).

For example:

I got a loan to buy a little condo in this building in 2008.

(back when I didn't know much about loans or real estate)

 

^{Tiny seattle condo}

Since then there's only been 4 renters.

And I've had to replace:

- The fridge.

- The carpet.

- The dish washer.

- The washing machine.

- The the hot water heater.

That sounds like a lot.

But not really over 15+ years.

Same story with this place:

 

^{Tiny seattle condo #2}

It's only had 4 renters as well over a long period of time.

​(my free playbook for getting money to buy a home)​

People that don't own a rental property are often the ones that talk about how much work it is.

But that's not always true.

Some types of real estate are easier to own and cost less than others.

 

Stock Fund: 5/5

 

Buying a stock fund has been my easiest investment.

For example:

VOO (The Vanguard S&P500 ETF) is one of the largest stock funds.

It includes 500 of the largest companies in America.

$100 invested in an S&P500 stock fund today means owning:

$7.83 of NVIDIA stock

$6.46 of Apple stock

$5.39 of Microsoft stock

$3.92 of Amazon stock

$3.31 of Google stock

+ 495 other companies

Over the past 30 years the stock market has been growing 10% per year on average:

 

^{Stock market history: s&p500}

Owning a stock fund means not having to spend hours and hours of time trying to pick individual stocks to invest in.

"The goal of non-professionals shouldn't be to pick winners, rather to own businesses bound to do well, a low-cost S&P500 (stock) fund will achieve this goal" —Investor Warren Buffett.

 

The bottom line

 

There's thousands of options when it comes to investing.

It can feel confusing and overwhelming.

The first 10 years of my investing journey.

I was so dang busy with work and life.

That investing in an S&P500 Fund (#5) and figuring out how to get loans to buy real estate (#4) were the only 2 things I focused on.

After those first 10 years I tinkered with other things like:

- Day trading.

- Buying crypto.

- Buying individual stocks.

And day trading was one of my biggest mistakes.

Spending hundreds of hours researching individual stocks, trying to pick winners isn't far behind.

Simply buying an S&P500 fund like Warren Buffett suggests remains my favorite, low stress way to invest.

I hope sharing my experiences and mistakes is helpful. Feel free to take what you find useful, and discard the rest.

That's all for today.

See you next Saturday.