Eric Rosenberg – Start Investing by Making Regular Monthly Contributions

BIO: Eric Rosenberg is a financial writer, speaker, and consultant based in Ventura, California. STORY: Eric always played it safe by investing in conservative low-list investments. This made him miss out on huge investments. LEARNING: Understand and manage your investment risk. Stop making excuses and start saving and investing by making regular monthly contributions.   “Let your money be something that helps you live the life you want. Not the reason you can’t do the things you want.” Eric Rosenberg  Guest profile Eric Rosenberg is a financial writer, speaker, and consultant based in Ventura, California. He holds an undergraduate finance degree from the University of Colorado and an MBA in finance from the University of Denver. After working as a bank manager and then nearly a decade in corporate finance and accounting, Eric left the corporate world for full-time online self-employment. He recently passed the five-year mark of self-employment. His work has been featured in online publications, including Business Insider, Nerdwallet, Investopedia, The Balance, HuffPo, Investor Junkie, and other fine financial blogs and publications. When away from the computer, he enjoys spending time with his wife and three children, traveling the world, and tinkering with technology. Connect with him and learn more at EricRosenberg.com.Worst investment ever Eric graduated from college in 2007 with a finance degree. He came out of grad school into the beginning of one of the worst economies.The conservative investor Eric started investing with a lot of very conservative investment ideas because he was nervous about losing. He had taken Warren Buffett’s advice of not losing money to heart. He concentrated on making long-term value investments that are low-risk. This way of investing saw Eric not make many investments that would have made him a lot of money.The WWE stock One of the most notable investments that Eric missed out on was the WWE stock. While in school, Eric did a presentation on the WWE stock. He argued that this was not just about muscle men fighting, but it was actually a very profitable business. However, the class voted not to buy it. But Eric was convinced enough, so he bought WWE stock worth about $300. Initially, it went way up, and it was doing great. Then all of a sudden, it was not doing so great. He ended up selling it for a modest loss. It wasn’t a big one. But later on, Eric learned that his research was pretty much spot on because the stock eventually returned multiple times over. If he hadn’t sold it and had just held on and rode it out for another couple of years, it would have turned profitable.The Teva pharmaceuticals stock Another stock that Eric sold for a loss was Teva pharmaceuticals. He didn’t do an in-depth financial analysis on this stock as he usually did. This is because he is very passionate about Israel, so he went with his emotions. He invested about $800, but the stock never did well.Lessons learnedUnderstand and manage your investment risk Everyone has a different risk tolerance. Understand what your tolerance is. If you always get sick to your stomach every time you think of losing money, you probably don’t want a very risky portfolio. If you get excited at the idea of taking on risky ventures, then maybe you can invest a little bit riskier. But understand and be in...