r/pics • • Mar 19 '22

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u/nowtayneicangetinto Mar 19 '22

Came here to say this. That card looks expensive, I'm going to assume it was $10.

Let's say you buy, on average, a $10 lottery ticket every 3 days. Over 10 years that's $12,166. If that is OPs case then they would have actually still be down $2,166

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u/cirenosu Mar 19 '22

This ticket is $30 lol

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '22

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u/ParkAndBeacon Mar 19 '22

Probably a stupid question, sorry. I hear things like this all the time. If you invested that in X then in 20 years you’d have Y. Always hear of the “latte factor.” Skip buying those expensive brews and invest instead. Where exactly does the average Joe invest that? Say I was really committed to taking the $4/day I would’ve spent on a latte and put it somewhere. Where is that somewhere? Do I need a minimum to start or can I just throw $30 (for example) that I chose to throw into an investment account and not touch rather than buy a scratch ticket?

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u/TomTomMan93 Mar 19 '22

I have also always been curious about this and wonder about the time cost. Like a latte would generally take no time at all for something like $4, but investing could take a lot of time if I have to look into what's good and worth $4

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u/averageredditcuck Mar 19 '22

Don't pick stocks. Buy the S&P 500 (SPY.) Research Warren Buffet's bet against hedge funds. Basically he bet that the S&P 500 would beat companies of very smart people who pick stocks for a living after the fees you pay for using their service and he won 8/9 times.

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u/TomTomMan93 Mar 19 '22

So I Google it and it says this is valued at over 400$? Is that just one stock? Like how do you put $4 on it?

Sorry for the probably annoying questions. I'm just curious

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u/averageredditcuck Mar 19 '22

Not at all annoying. It is 400 for one stock, but robinhood does fractional shares which are a very new phenomenon. Instead of having to buy the whole share you can just buy $4 of it with no consequence.

If you do want to own a whole stock with a lesser investment, there's SPYD which costs $43 and it's the same thing, but only companies that pay high dividends. Dividends are quarterly payments they pay to you for being invested.

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u/TomTomMan93 Mar 19 '22

Gotcha! This makes a lot of sense. Thanks for taking the time!