Welcome to Money for the Rest of Us. This is a personal financial on money. How it works,

how to invest it, and how to live without worrying about it. I'm your host David Stein,

today is episode 341. It's titled How to Overcome Investing Fears.

I recently got an email from a member of Money for the Rest of Us Plus. He's a lifetime

member. He's a 46 year old engineer. He's been happily married for 20 years. They have

two sons, ages 7 and 10. He writes, through many years of hard work, frugality and calculated

risk, we've accumulated a net worth of 1.9 million. Most of our net worth came from investing

in rental real estate duplexes in 2012, as well as some stock index investing. They earn

about $160,000 per year and live on less than half of that. Right now, their asset mix

is 40% private real estate, 13% and stocks, and 47% and cash. And it's the large amount

of cash that is bothering him. He writes, we have been grossly under-invested for several

years now. We recently sold our primary home and now have a great deal of cash. We live

and work overseas and have no need to purchase another primary home. All investments seem

to be overvalued, including stocks, bonds, real estate, gold and crypto. As you say,

we need to take risk. We need to earn a positive real return to save for retirement. I've been

waiting for a correction and stocks or real estate for several years since 2014, and don't

want to continue to wait indefinitely because I understand the inflationary cost of holding

cash. I also don't want to be the person that buys at the top of the market and regrets

purchasing overvalued assets. Unfortunately, I was not able to enter the market during

the March 2020 crash because I was convinced the market was headed much lower. He then

outlines their plan and dilemma. Rent to real estate has been good to us and I would love to

buy several more rental duplexes. I feel that a real estate and stock market correction

...