Investment wimp

I am the biggest wimp about finances. I am good in saving money and living on very little, when I have the will and motivation. However, I am terrible in investing.

Ten years ago, I had a job with almost non-existent retirement benefits. In fact, for the first four or five years of working with a PhD-degree and my then-employer, I did not have the right to open a retirement account. 

Later on, to supplement the measly retirement plan, I started my own after-tax investment portfolio with a discount brokerage. I invested in biotech stocks, which after a few years plummeted (imagine a stock going from $165.00/share to a few of cents/share). 

Today, I still have the account, but after losing thousands of dollars on picked by me stocks, I bought a few Vanguard ETFs (e.g., VYM, VNQ, VTI) that should yield some dividends. The invested capital is small; however, if I am suddenly out of job, I would access this account without a penalty fee (unlike the pre-tax retirement account).

In my spare time (think "cooking time"), I perch my laptop on the kitchen counter and listen to financial podcasts with the hope of wising up about investments, while chopping veggies. For the past months, the most frequent lessons have been these from the BiggerPockets (BP) podcasts.

The BP guys are doing their best to educate people like me about real estate. Here is an example: the financial basics when considering a rental property. I even became a member of the BP community. I even tried to connect to my local real estate enthusiasts (...no response from them, though).

I have listened to the podcasts for hours, but I am still paralyzed with fear and indecisiveness since I have very little money saved. Anyway, compared to my failed biotech socks, learning about real estate is not the worst investment of my time.

Other financial/independence podcasts I tune to are these:
Financially Blonde
Radical Personal Finance
Mad Fientist

What do you listen to?