#4 - Finance Fridays - Investing in Yourself, Fundamental Stocks Analysis 101 and Finding Your Next Course

Contents:

• 💡 Idea of the Week - S&P 500 vs. Investing in yourself

• 🧐 Question of the Week - How much money do you spend on investing in yourself?

• 🎒Useful Resource - Fundamental Analysis of Picking Stocks

• ✅ Actionable Advice - Using LinkedIn to Find Your Next Online Course

💡 S&P 500 vs. Investing in yourself

Taken from the Ship 30 for 30 Newsletter. It’s very simple actually. There’s a higher return from investing in yourself than in the S&P 500.

The S&P 500 Index is a market-capitalization-weighted index of 500 leading publicly traded companies in the U.S. The S&P 500 is widely considered one of the best gauges of large U.S. stocks, and even the entire equities market. You can invest in one of the many funds that use it as a benchmark, tracking its composition and performance.

Counterpoint to the S&P 500:

 “Great over a time horizon of 50+ years. Not-so-great if you never increase your earning potential.”

They have a point. £100 every month on online courses that increase your skillset that leads to higher paid jobs has a greater return in the short and long run than £100 every month in the S&P 500. 

Here’s a projection right here:

Is £51,936.88 added to your wealth over 20 years a life changing amount? That’s £2596.84 per year. It’s definitely more than you’ll have otherwise but do you have the potential to earn more in real time? 

Now what if you spent that on an ACCA certification (£116 per annum)? Prince2 Project Management Course (£2000 for 12 months)? Or a DataCamp Data Science Course (£300 per annum)? On top of earning 10-20k more per annual you’ll have even more to invest.

We would argue you can do both. Invest yourself so your earning potential reaches 30% and keep your lifestyle inflation the same then put your new disposal income into the S&P 500. Sounds like a plan.

🧐 How much money do you spend on investing in yourself?

Compound interest works the more money you have. If you’re investing and saving money but your earning potential is stagnant, you’re holding yourself back.

Think about the courses, knowledge and skills you can invest in that allows you to increase your current forms of income and even create new forms of income.

🎒Useful Resources 

1. How I Research Stocks - Step-by-Step Fundamental Analysis - The Plain Bagel. This video is Picking Stocks and Investing 101. Grab a pen and learn how to pick stocks like a professional.

2. How AI Is Already Reshaping White-Collar Work | WSJ - Wall Street Journal

3. The Unfair Advantage That Introverts Have - HealthyGamerGG

✅ Using LinkedIn to Find Your Next Online Course

• Search on LinkedIn or Indeed for a job role that pays 30% more than your current role.

• Find an online course or certification that makes you a viable candidate for that role

• Calculate how much it would cost.

• Compare the cost of the course + the extra money from getting that new job versus putting that money into the S&P500 for the next calendar year.

• Based on risk and numbers, which is more appealing to you?

✍🏿Quote of the Week 

“Luck and risk are siblings. They are both the reality that every outcome in life is guided by forces other than individual effort.”

― Morgan Housel, Psychology of Money