I Invested My Life Savings Into Stocks, And I Am Down 30% So Far. Should I Be Worried?

Am I going to go broke?

Not sure if I should be happy or sad to be saying this but…

Nope, the title is not clickbait.

I actually invested my life savings into stocks, and I am actually down 30% so far.

Before I share how much I’ve lost, why I invested my life savings into stocks, and so on, let me share more about myself.

About Me

I was born into a middle-income family, but my parents always took great care of me. My parents would always pay for my food, my clothes, and basically everything, so long I’m staying at home or going out with my family.

I also do not go out much (I’m an introvert!), so I do not really accumulate many expenses every month.

Finally, I was taught to be frugal with money. Firstly, I still get an allowance from my parents, but I save up most of those. Secondly, when I work outside during school holidays, I also save up most of the money I earned.

My Life Savings

So… the result of having a family that pampers me so much (financially) and me possessing a frugal attitude led to me saving up around 170k SGD by the age of 22. I do not deny, for my age, that is a big sum, and I appreciate my current financial standing.

If one day I get rich (and I hope I do!), my parents are 99% the reason for it, because I started with quite a bit of capital.

Investing My Life Savings

So, I started investing at the age of 20. It was late 2020 when I dabbled into the U.S. stock market, so I missed the huge run-up in the stock market.

I have previously shared my investment philosophy. If you are interested, you can still check them out here:

So, here comes the big question: Why did I invest my entire life savings into stocks? And why am I down 30%?

To address the first part of the question, I would say that I am still young, and that I have a long runway ahead of me. That is important.

I’m sure many investors have heard this phrase at least once in their investment lifetime:

Time in the market beats timing the market.

That is what I have right now. Time in the market.

I do not foresee myself needing a huge sum of capital in the foreseeable future. By foreseeable future, I mean at least within the next 5 to 10 years. That’s a long time, and to not invest in them, I would be doing a great disservice to myself.

Also, as I am not a huge spender, I do not really leave much money for myself in my bank account for day-to-day usage. Out of the 170k that I have, I leave for myself a whopping 1k in the bank.

Really, I only have 1k in the bank, and the rest are in stocks.

Some of you might ask, what about emergency funds? Well, I am still studying, and I do not foresee myself having any major payments that I will be required to make. So based on my own assessment, I do not need an emergency fund.

Then now comes the second question: why the hell am I down 30%? I’m investing my life savings, should I not be safer in my investments?!

I actually have friends and family members telling me that. They thought I was crazy to invest my life savings, and they thought I was crazier to lose 30% over this period.

To such people, well, all I have to say is, what’s safe to me may not be safe to you. I have invested in, in my opinion, high-quality growth stocks. It’s just somehow that from late 2021 onwards, all the stars aligned: We have rising inflation, rising interest rates, and war between Russia and Ukraine.

I mean, can things get any worse?

Besides, I always believed in a concentrated portfolio, because I will be able to better keep track of those that I am invested in. A concentrated portfolio, coupled with all the problems that the world is facing right now, contributed to the 30% drop in my portfolio.

Up till here, if I’m the reader and not the writer, I’ll be thinking to myself: It’s all bullshit without proof.

I’ll show a snapshot of my current portfolio. I’m currently using Sharesight to keep track of my stock performance, so here it is:

If you are doubtful and think that this is fake, I really can’t do anything about it. To be fair, it is easy to edit photos to make what isn’t yours, seem like yours.

But really, the numbers in this portfolio are actually mine, and I can only hope that you believe me.

Parting Words

Anyways, I’m down 30% with my life savings, should I be worried?

If you have been reading the articles that I’ve been sharing with you in this community, you should know that the answer is NO.

I will not be worried.

Why?

Firstly, as I’ve said above, I do not need this money now. I’m giving myself 10 years to grow my pot of gold. I believe that the stocks that I have invested in are high quality, and they will reward me in the future as I patiently hold them. If you are interested in the stocks I own, do let me know in the comments section, maybe I’ll share them in the future.

Secondly, I believe that the stock market will go up over time, no matter how dark the situation seems to be at this time. Historical data has proved this. If the stock market can go up after WWII and the great depression, I don’t believe it can’t survive the crisis that we are facing right now. I am confident that my 30% loss is temporary.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again:

Volatility is a feature of the stock market, not a bug.

If you can’t handle volatility, don’t invest in individual stocks. Fortunately, I can stomach the volatility that my portfolio is undergoing right now.

So yes, this article is not clickbait. I did invest my life savings into the stock market. I did lose 30% in value. But no, I am not worried.

To the rest of the members in this community, if you are currently facing a correction in your portfolio as well, I hope you will be able to tide this through. Diamond hands win!

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