I suggest buying low-fee domestic index-tracking ETFs like "Vanguard S&P 500 ETF" (VOO), using a low-fee brokerage app like M1 Finance.

... or not. Your situation may call for something else. Any specific suggestions people give you will likely sound unnecessarily specific and perhaps arbitrary, unless you have spent a lot of time learning about the modern investing landscape -- you really need to do that for yourself.

> you really need to do that for yourself

And how to do that? Especially for those of us in Europe?

That's one thing I can't get my head around. The ecosystem seems filled with scammers and financial advise salesmen, and my "scam alert" is running on constant overdrive whenever trying to look for any current and actionable educational material.

I have an account with Vanguard directly and research their funds when investing. Currently my US employer retirement fund partner has very low cost access to Vanguard funds I follow already so I am linked into that.

It really depends on your goals and starting point. Avoiding management fees is one of my priorities as well as direct visibility of my accounts and numbers (all offered via Vanguard directly). There are a lot of great, free information sources. Some are directed at people who are paycheck t paycheck and need to start setting like $100/month aside while digging out of debt. Others focus on middle class style employer retirement plan+personal savings like for a down payment on a house. Others focus on those willing to toss thousands on what becomes a bet on the market and YOLO it (not recommended).

I started by just looking at Vanguard funds and using open/free tools to understand terminology and get a grasp of the history or background like lessons learned.

Here are a few starting points.

- https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started_for_non-US_i...

- (book) The Simple Path to Wealth by J. L. Collins

- (Podcast) ChooseFI

Read "the long and short of it" by John Kay which deals with a lot of the basics around investing for yourself. It's a truly useful book, and I've given quite a few copies of it to people. It is quite UK-centric, but I think the central lessons could be applied in other jurisdictions.

> And how to do that? Especially for those of us in Europe?

https://www.degiro.eu/

There are places in the US where this is the rate of appreciation on real estate. While there are periodic setbacks (see: 2008-2012), real estate is remarkably stable across the country, especially in major cities. The small, somewhat rural area I live in had an average appreciation of 13% last year, which is not sustainable for this area but still indicative of the overall trend.

and you know lots of real estate deals that are low risk, pay 10-15% and available for participation @ $100 / week?

>> an average appreciation of 13% last year, which is not sustainable for this area but still indicative of the overall trend.

not sustainable but indicative of the overall trend? What does that even mean?

It means we aren't going to see 13% every year in my localized market, but we will see a continued upward march - where the data from the past 30 years bears that out. Other markets like Seattle, given the geography and current restrictions it isn't much of a jump to think you could average a 10% appreciation for the next decade.

I don't recall anyone saying anything about participation @ $100 / week, so don't be flippant. The comment was made about low risk at 10-15%. If you had $100/week to spend, I'd put it in a drip and buy pharma stocks because there are many paying a sizable dividend, but I'm not your broker so get your own advice.

Ah real estate: the rent keeps going up and there’s no easy way for individuals to benefit from it.

Real estate is absolutely not stable across the country.

Per your website, you live in Washington state. Rocky Mountains and west are generally very desireable areas to live in, and WA has no income tax.

But you can look all the way from Maine to the Dakotas, down to Oklahoma, and then of course the poor gulf coast states and easily see that real estate is a terrible investment in those areas outside of a few urban areas. Especially in the heavily debt laden rust belt states with undesirable weather and shrinking economic prospects.

10-15% after property tax?

And interest, maintenance, insurance, and upkeep?

It doesn't seem difficult to avg +1% per month doing relatively basic trading in my experience.

The challenge I have is remembering to actually care about it and do the trades, life gets too busy and before I realize it a month has gone by.

But whenever I'm on top of it, 1% gains have been very easy over the past decade, I'm rarely in the market for more than a few hours. But I risk having a pile of cash to trade with I suppose, the dollar could crash.

If you do +1% per month you're already +12%/yr, I consider 12%/yr the minimum acceptable yield for any kind of investment given how easy it seems to be to DIY.

1. The S&P 500 has returned about 14% per year over the past decade, so a return of 12% isn't particularly notable.

2. Market returns vary greatly from decade to decade, so we shouldn't necessarily expect this 14% rate of return to continue. (Most obviously, there were no recessions in the past decade, which is unusual.)

Firstly, it was "low to medium" risk, not "low" risk.

Secondly, pretty much any reputable ETF (or combination of ETF's) can quite easily achieve this over 30 years.

Most ETFs have returned about 7-8 % average long term (before allowing for inflation). Not a bad return, but very different over 20 years from 10-15%

Average rate of return is 7% accounting for inflation, actually. That assumes you're doing dividend reinvestment and such.

Vanguard's predictions of 3-4% over the next decade mean that if you do a straight dollar calculation you'd be closer to ~7%, because that 3-4% number includes inflation, once again.

It has to be said that this 7-8% average is inflated due to being at the end (?) of a ten year bull market.

Vangaurd is predicting low growth of 3-4% over the next decade.

7-8% is still nothing to scoff at. Better than a measly 1% in a savings account :D

There is a slight difference in outcome between 7 and 15 percent return though :).

There is no reputable ETF that will give you 15% return. Even 10% real return is incredibly unlikely.

I don't think 'unreputable' is fair - they're just a different (not 'low - medium'!) risk profile.

No, they're just non-existent. Anyone with a brokerage account had a ~20%+ return last year... it's over 30 years that matters.

I'm sure there's SOME ETF that managed to do 15% returns over a 30 yr period, but that's just selection bias after the fact. It doesn't mean that ETF would do well this year, or next.

What tickers?

Perhaps they're referring to leveraged ETFs like UPRO (Direxion Daily 3X Bull & Bear S&P) and TQQQ (ProShares UltraPro QQQ).

Be advised that they are not designed to be held over more than a day, although with the current bull market, they have not actually been hit by the decay factor inherent to all leveraged ETFs.

Other higher-risk ETFs would be things like solar/wind sector ETFs (e.g. TAN, FAN, PBW, IQCLN, QCLN, etc.) or bleeding-edge biotech (e.g. SBIO).