Border42 - Me, give an "actionable plan" to follow? LOL! 1) Maybe when I become financially independent (e.g., income is above and beyond daily expenses), and 2) even then, I would not go around telling people "do this and you'll become rich..."
However, to put the "good, bad, and ugly..." on the table, I will say the following: 1) Yup, I've lost lots of money in real estate, mostly to making bad decisions about people and not about property, 2) Yup, I've lost lots of money in stocks, mostly to making bad (e.g., emotional) decisions about what/when/how to buy..., and 3) after all those mistakes, do I still own/looking to buy more real estate? - Yup....do i still own/buying stocks? - Yup. If you are looking for some "tip," well, I really don't do that. If you want to measure investment "return" by asking about something I bought 5 years ago, and giving you the value for today, well, I won't do that either. However, I will give one example: I own shares/am accumulating shares in a rather boring company - Hormel Foods. why? They have little debt, they are very conservatively managed, and even in this so-called health food craze, they are still selling products that people need to replenish every week (and during a hurricane, their products are off-the-shelf...learned from personal experience in Florida). As far as numbers, the "internal rate of return" of my purchases over the last 3 years has been approx. 4.5% (avg). This is NOT the dividend yield, it is simply Earnings Per share/purchase price. And, as long as the company keeps doing what they've been doing, I expect that return to increase over time, as in - for the shares I paid $30 for last year, the IRR in 10 years will have increased to 9 or 10% (not too shabby). And, with that internal cash generation, and so many other variables, it would be expected that the dividends will increase proportionately. Of course, I am not telling you or anyone else to buy stock in this company - it's just what I have done.