Well, you might be right that I'm not beating the market by some brilliant margin but it was still all my doing and that makes me feel like a badass. I rounded my numbers here for simplicity -- it was about $12,700 to start and is just under $21k now, depending on the day. According to my Scorecard on Motley Fool, I'm beating the market by about 4 points.
Would I put my entire investment future in my own hands? No. I don't -- thus, the state pension and the 401K in ETF's.
Perhaps I'm not stating it clearly enough but what I'm effecting here is a change in thinking and perspective.
My Roth has replaced the shopping mall. In the past, I'd drool over the Nordstrom catalog and pick out those shoes with that dress and the cute belt from page 12. Now, I "shop" for companies to buy stock in (or otherwise adjust my portfolio). I can trade stocks for a flat $8.95 fee, which I consider equivalent to the cost of lunch at the mall. I'll look over my allocation (metaphorically "my outfit") and see what needs adjusting, for instance -- do I need more small caps (instead of that cure pair of flats)?
The whole point of embracing MMM's philosophy is to de-program ourselves away from consumerism and toward constant optimization. This new rule pushes me along that road.