by Kevin Bahler

Created on: August 14, 2008   Last Updated: August 20, 2008

In this day and age of do-it-yourself, everybody thinks they can do everything. And to a degree, you can do things by yourself. But the important question is: should you? I use an investment firm to invest for me, a mechanic to work on my car for me, and my parents used babysitters to look after me. How come I don't do everything by myself?

I trust my money to an investment firm for the same reasons that I trust my car to a mechanic and my parents trusted my brothers and me to a babysitter: it is their job and we can't always do it by ourselves.

Investing money is inherently risky business. Sometimes things my move at a snail's pace, but the market is generally changing second by second. If you are trying to make it big with your investments, you will need to follow the market continuously, which means you won't be spending that time making more money working. If you're willing to follow the market closely enough to take advantage of it, you might as well be working for an investment firm.

And that leads right back to my main point. The people who work for investment firms invest money for a living. They get paid by making money for you. They do it all day, every day and have all the best information to invest wisely. If I had all of the knowledge and ability that my investor had, I would invest by myself. However, I am not the best to invest, so I use somebody else.

Now, you should be careful about who you choose. Companies don't do work for you; people do. In every profession, you will find genuinely good people, and you will find thieves. When it comes to mechanics, find somebody who tells you the truth and does work they stand behind. For babysitters, find somebody who cares about your kids more than your money. With investors, find somebody who will treat your money as though it is their money. If you need to look around, then look around. It is still easier to look for somebody you can trust than it is to do all of the work they would do for you.

Save yourself time and energy by letting professional investors do work for you. Let them grow the money you already have while you earn more with your own time.

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