Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How would you invest $20k?

news.ycombinator.com

1–10 of 41 posts

Re: Ask HN: How would you invest $20k?

#6
Save it. It is not enough money to offer enough return on your time managing it. The only way it will return a meaningful amount of absolute dollars is dumb luck. Or years of hard work.

By which I mean as working capital it might be enough to buy a lawn mower, some shovels, and a trailer and put you in the landscape business. But only dumb luck is going to turn $20k into $50k in five years without a lot of your time.

In real-estate or the stock market and finance in general, $20k is the short stack gone all in. It’s dumb money at the table.

So save it. Stay liquid. And maybe you will see some luck there to grab at some point.

Re: Ask HN: How would you invest $20k?

#7
I am a fan of the Coffee Can Portfolio.

The idea of a Coffee Can is simple: You try to find the best stocks you can and let them sit for years. You incur no costs with such a portfolio, and it is simple to manage.

I share mine here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tBrZEMFK9XNWxiqOxE8o...

Re: Ask HN: How would you invest $20k?

#8
The coolest thing about 20k is that if you can find a way to save 2k, you've increased what you've got by 10%.

There's nothing wrong with investing an amount like 20k for a learning experience but from a returns perspective, just working is almost certainly going to be a better avenue to increase your net wealth in that range.

Investing becomes a lot more useful the further the amount you have saved becomes more removed from your earning / saving potential.

Re: Ask HN: How would you invest $20k?

#9
post #6

Save it. It is not enough money to offer enough return on your time managing it. The only way it will return a meaningful amount of absolute dollars is dumb luck. Or years of hard work. By which I mean as working capital it might be enough to buy a lawn mower, some shovels, and a trailer and put you in the landscape business. But only dumb luck is going to turn $20k into $50k in five years without a lot of your time.…

> In real-estate or the stock market and finance in general, $20k is the short stack gone all in. It’s dumb money at the table.

I don't get how this can be true. $20 000 invested in some company/fund/asset gives you the same % return as $2 000 000 invested in the same way.

Re: Ask HN: How would you invest $20k?

#10
If 20 k is a substantial amount to you, that probably means you don't have a very high salary. The good thing about that is that this probably means that your spending is also very low, so you could probably stop working for 4 months or so and learn programming. Work hard and you'll be earning 100 k a year in less than 5 years.
Post reply on HN