My investment goals and a bit more about me

I think one of the first things a new investor should really do before they start investing is figure out why they are investing, other than the obvious reason that they want more money tomorrow than they have today.

That way once you identified your goal you can figure out not only how to get to it (your way of investing), but also use that goal to reinforce your way of investing. In a very humble way I set forth my goals as an example:

I have not really talked baout myself much because I guess it is not really relevant and the whole idea of being specific and somethign so open as the internent sorta freaks me out. But in order to give you a little idea form where I speak...

I am male...coming up on 35..married (June 05)....no kids yet...I like my job a lot..and actually do not ever seeing myself retired (although that is not to say that I will not work less the older I get, just that I will never not work)...

aside from the obvious benefit saving money has over spending it all now my goal is very simple...I wish to kick the bucket with enough money to leave behind so that my children/grandkids dont have to worry about the simple things I worried about at their age...(e.g. when I was 22-28 I woried about buying books for college/law school and making the tuition payment each semster...)

So my "time" horizon for investing is real simple...till the day I die... so if my string has been measured and cut at 75 than I got about 40 years to go...but who really knows (i figure I need at least until 55-60 to get to where I want to be..every thing else is gravy...lol)

I am thinking about investing as a multigenerational thing (i would love to have a grandkid born one week before I kick the bucket...so I can lock up some money in an irrevocable annuity trust payable when that kid is 65...think about the compounding)...a lot of people talk about Buffett...but forget that Buffett was taught how to invest since the day he was born by his father..not saying buffett was unique..just that he was the right mind born into the right family...

thata what I want to do if my kids are interested...start teaching them young about investing and how to think of money...so that they can take what I hopefully do...stand on my shoulders..and grow it for their kids...and so on...

how is that for long term investing...lol...

so thats my goal..every $1 I invest is not my money to me...it is my wife's money and my future brood's money... I am just the caretaker....and so when I think about whether I am making a decison to invest that $1...I check my self..and say...is this the right thing for them...will this get me to my goal of providing for them...divorcing myself mentally from an ownership interest helps me detach the emotion of investing...and reinforces my need to focus...

I might take a bigger risk with my own money...but if its my kids money I feel I have a bigger duty to manage their money better...it just gets me more focused to think that way...

does this sound cheezy? sure...but it works for me...do you have to have the same goal as me? nope...

my point is just that in order to follow any map you have to have some idea where you are going...an idea of what you wish to accomplish...if you do not know where you want to end up, how will you know which fork of the road to take no matter how detailed your map is?

being able to visualize where you want to be at the end of the journey is just as important as figuring out how your are going to get there...

to me...figuring out what your investment goal is and how long it will take you to get there...will help you navigate the short term problems that come up along the way..or ignore them completely as irrelevant to your current situation and goals (for instance and example...if you think through research and thought that MSFT is the place to be for the next 20 years...and your goal is 25 years off...the fact that it droped 11% yesterday 4/28/06 is irrelevant to you...cuz what happens in the short term of a day or week becasuse of what will happen next Q or next year is meaninless as long as the orginal 10- 20 year thesis is unchanged)

so thats my investing goal.

What's yours?

Take care

Steven