There's a time to make sudden moves, act or react swiftly, and I'm one of those people who know how to do it and, more importantly, when to do it...mostly. Of course, there's a time not to make swift decisions and actions and when it comes to financial investment and financial security counting to ten prior to acting is wise; I mean investigating and researching before making commitments that could adversely affect one's future position.

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No sudden movement

I have several investment strategies for the purpose of diversity; some are medium-term strategies and others longer-term although, considering I'm not as young as I once was, most are probably medium term as my time on this planet is less "long term" now than it used to be.

I've always carefully researched my investments and reviewed periodically to ensure they're still appropriate and to seek potential gains; I've avoided knee-jerk reactions mostly but have taken a few (calculated) risks along the way - with mixed results, but mostly positive ones - however I've always held to the strategy of making no sudden movements.

One of my investment options is superannuation - similar (but not quite the same) as the American scheme called 401K - and I've been contributing my entire working life.

Those funds are invested (by my superannuation fund) in various places here and abroad and I've had solid growth. It's a set and forget thing generally although I've liked to play a more active role so select options based around my own research. This doesn't mean I tell them where exactly to invest my funds, more that I've chosen to select investment options to maximise growth.

There's options like balanced, medium or high growth, stable, index diversified, conservative balanced, and other such things and one can choose Australian or global investments only or a mixture; there's a complex range of options and I don't want to get too complicated in this post. What choice a person makes depends on age usually as each strategy delivers different results over time - a young person has the time to recover if their high-yield options goes belly up for instance. I spent some years in a high yield space which is more risky but increases one's balance strongly and as I got older I leaned towards a more balanced (cautious) investment strategy however a while back started researching more and began to split my investments between various strategies. I avoid putting 100% of my funds into one or the other but switch between high and medium growth with a percentage of my funds with the greater percentage ticking along in a more balanced area.

There's some risk to doing this due to my age because I'm a lot closer to the age at which I'll stop working and will need to rely on my own funds and the high growth investment strategies are can be volatile but it's that volatility that drives bigger yields. I'm not going to go into my splits and where they are, but by making some moves here and there, calculated ones, I've managed to get my superannuation funds into a position that make me feel quite comfortable; I can't access them for years to come but they're on the right trajectory for when I'll need to rely on them to live life.

I always review at this time of year and make the changes as above so they begin at the start of the calendar year; I've just clicked some buttons and while it's always a slightly nervous moment - have I made the right decisions - I am content that my research-process and strategy is sound; the worst is that I take a slight hit (which has happened before) but the gains have also come and they're larger because of the changes I make along the way.

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I don't measure my success with money but money is a necessity in the modern society we live; I feel the responsibility sits on my shoulders to ensure I have what I need (and a little of what I want) now and into the future.

No one is going to look after me in the future and I'd not want to be a burden on anyone even if there was someone around to look after me. I also believe that there's a world of pain coming financially (and in other ways) and it's in my nature to work towards self-reliance as nothing comes without a little effort.