One massive benefit of a regular paycheck is that you can automate your investments. If your income hits on the 25th, you automatically send what you can afford to your broker on the 30th, choose an ETF, and set that to auto-invest as well for a few days later. And while slow and steady tends to win the race, perhaps you want to do more than that.
On top of the usual, I try to make individual, targeted investments where I can. Crypto, stocks, Pokémon cards, whatever I think makes sense and seems to have a chance at a large return. To me, these are lottery tickets. Some of them are smaller, like a Pokémon Elite Trainer Box that might go from $100 to $500 down the line. Others are bigger, like a crypto coin I believe can go up tenfold or a company whose stock I really have faith in. The idea behind these lottery tickets is to buy them, forget them, and then let them either die or add another zero.
Of course, there are infinite lottery tickets out there. Sometimes, looking for them can become a distraction in and of itself. But instead of checking for Pokémon deals or analyzing stocks for the hundredth time, perhaps I should write a book, build a product, or run a sale of my existing ones—and get more cash to buy more lottery tickets.
It’s easy to spend all your time ogling at the ends and forgetting to use the means you already hold in your hands. That’s why both automated, reasonable investing and occasional, moonshot investing are good habits—but it’s also why we shouldn’t get lost in either. Even lottery tickets cost money, and whether they hit the jackpot or not, there are few things more rewarding than making an honest living.
