Advice for Going Long

[Mr. MedSchool Money]

I am starting my 4th year of med school on Monday. My wife and I have been diligently attacking our debt as best we can, finishing off her small student loans, so only my debt will be in play when I graduate, ~220K. We are minimizing our spending as best we can. For the past few months, when I have time, I have been donating plasma at a local center and using the money to buy stocks with the goal of going long- Blood Money, if you will.  :P  My overall goal is to learn, and I know I will learn much more by having a tiny bit of skin in the game, or blood- sorry, I had to. At this point it is a few hundred dollars. I have my own ideas of what kind of stocks are appropriate to go long in, but I want to know from you- if you could go back to your med school days and put a few hundred bucks in a stock and hold it until where you are now, what would you invest in?

I am fully aware that, by the numbers, putting the few hundred against my loans is the best advice. But, I think it is worth a few hundred bucks to gain experience watching the market everyday and reading. IMO. Thanks in advance!

[Peds]

Watching the market everyday is a waste of your time. Med school is far more important. Work to get to a ROAD residency , etc. Apply for scholarships.

Invest in TSM and move on.

[Dreamgiver]

Whatever little you save now is literally peanuts compared to what you can do later. Live frugally but don't deprive yourself of the little things now. Your marriage will thank you for it.

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

Most of us here have a Boglehead philosophy, i.e. buy passive index funds because individual stocks give you uncompensated and unnecessary risk. I could look back to find some of the best performing stocks over the last fifteen years and give you a solid answer, but I have no idea which ones will perform well over the next fifteen.

I would spend the "blood money" on a nice weekend getaway and come up with a financial plan of what to do with your money when you start making real money. In residency, if you can get any money into Roth IRAs, that's a good place to start.

Cheers!

-PoF

 

[Zaphod]

Just throw it in an index fund, and look at it after you've graduated residency and see the magic of not paying attention or worrying about it while getting an appreciation for what benign neglect can do.

[Mr. MedSchool Money]

Being new to mostly all of this, what would be some good index funds to look at?

[Zaphod]

Mr. MedSchool Money wrote:

Being new to mostly all of this, what would be some good index funds to look at?

Click to expand...

Broad market, like VTI.