Hi, my name is Evan, and I’d like to welcome you to follow my newsletter, Evan Invests.
When I was in high school, one my my math teachers had a poster in his classroom with a graph showing the power of compound interest in investing.
More than 10 years after graduating high school, the details of the poster are a bit fuzzy. But the long and short of it was this: If you begin investing at 18-years-old with a little bit of money, you’ll be a millionaire by the time you retire. I was convinced, and have invested a portion of my income toward a retirement fund ever since getting my first job out of college.
And since graduating college, I’ve basically done the same thing. I’ve purchased index funds — an inexpensive way to buy a very small slice of a bundle of stocks or other investments — and held onto them. Buy and hold. Or in my case, buy and forget. And that strategy can work because the American stock market (read S&P 500) has gone up 10% per year, on average, for almost the last 100 years. But after five years of the “buy and forget” strategy, I wanted to try something new.
So I decided I was going to educate myself about investing, and what it means to make smart decisions to grow my wealth beyond simply directing a portion of my paycheck toward my employer’s retirement program. And because I love to write, I want to share the journey with you through this newsletter.
I don’t have a degree in finance, nor do I have a vast amount of expendable income to put toward growing a portfolio. Thankfully, neither is a roadblock to being a successful investor. Remember compound interest? A small amount of money invested wisely today adds up to much more in retirement then a large amount of money invested 10 years from now.
Why subscribe?
In this newsletter I’m going to explore investing as a learner through reading books and online articles, talking with others who know more than me, and using what I’ve learned to grow my personal investment portfolio. And as I do this, I’m going to share my experience with you in weekly posts.
As a reader of this newsletter you can expect the following from my posts each week:
Posts will be approachable and conversational. Anyone, regardless of their level of financial literacy, will be able to follow along, and hopefully learn something new.
Posts will always be actionable. I’m not a financial analyst, nor am I an academic. And I plan to share about things that I’m actually doing, or that I believe will impact my own investments.
Posts will be geared toward retail investors. Posts will explore investment opportunities that are attainable for people who aren’t stock brokers, and even those without a ton of extra money lying around.
I’m not a financial advisor, nor do I claim to be. But my hope is that while following this newsletter, you’ll learn a thing or two about money and finance as I do. I won’t guarantee 6% returns on all of my stock picks — thought I’m confident we’ll come out ahead — but I can guarantee it will be educational and entertaining.
Meet Evan
I was born and raised in Metro Detroit, and still live in the area. I attended Hillsdale College where I learned how to think critically and write well. After graduating in 2017, I worked as a journalist for both a think tank news service and a daily newspaper (read my work), where I became a better writer and developed an interest in the systems that undergird American society. Now I work in the financial services industry, where my interest in our financial system, and personal finances, was awakened. In my free time I enjoy running, photography (here’s a taste), and scratching my itch to write by putting together this newsletter.
