Please give me some advice on how a stock dummy can grow their money.

Created at Jul 22, 2026 14:18:18 98.**.204.45 228 8 0

Lucid... more like Lucifer, lol. Without knowing anything about stocks, I luckily experienced the magic of my money doubling in a short time with Tesla in 2020. Then in 2021, I bought 300 shares of Lucid in the 14 range. Was it about 3 years ago? I saw it was at4 and didn't even tap to check it for 2 years, but today it's $7. I just thought of it as buying a bag, getting good use out of it, and forgot about it. Whether it becomes worthless paper or turns to crap, I don't plan on selling. It might be lingering regret, but why bother... I think it won't hurt me even if I get abandoned by Lucid. If I had lost tens of thousands of dollars, I have such a fragile mentality that something bad probably would have happened. A good experience.

In 2021, I bought 50 shares of Apple in the $120 range, and in 2022, 50 shares in the 136 range. Checking today for the first time in 2 years, the gain is 145%. It was12,000, but the gain is $20,000 over 5 years. But since it keeps going up and down, I live without looking at it. Still, I have to sell this someday, but when would that be? When I need cash? I was already ignorant about this, and I haven't bought or sold anything else since Apple.

In my stock account, as of today, I made $20,000 with Apple over 5 years, lost 4,200 with Lucid, and saved58,000 in my savings over 5 years. To see a return, I should put $40,000 of my saved cash into stocks, right? I can't do it. I'm ignorant and cowardly, not cool but pathetic so I regret things, and I have a bad temper and a lot of anger, but I want to stay healthy.

I feel like doing stocks with just a few thousand dollars like me is pointless. If I had experienced stocks back when I was a college student, saving money for clothes and drinks to grow it by a few hundred or thousand dollars, would my life be different now? It's been about 9 years since I started saving about $200 to 300 a week, and I have130,000 now. If I save like this for the next 10 years and gather about $200,000, I will be 50 years old. By then, I might get fired from my job and start having health issues... I can save money bit by bit, but I want to grow this money, yet I'm too stupid. Please give me some advice.

When you say that just reading my post makes you click your tongue in disapproval because I seem pathetic—is it really pathetic of me to ask for advice out of a desire to grow the small seed money I saved in my savings, even though I am clueless about stocks with barely any experience except for trying a couple of things, don't have a large investment capital compared to others to even call it investing, and have a cautious—or as I put it, pathetic—personality?

Comments 8

179.**.60.250 Jul 22, 2026 14:22:49

Since you have cash savings, just buy VOO and VGT 50/50 from now on. Don't save any more cash, just keep the cash you have, and putting two to three hundred dollars every month, half and half, into VOO and VGT is the answer.

246.**.210.181 Jul 22, 2026 14:22:22

Set up automatic purchases of VTI or QQQ with the $300-$400 you save every week for peace of mind, and just forget about it. In 10 years, it will have grown much more than bank interest. If you look at a minimum of 10 years, at 7% a year, it doubles in 7 years. Just buy it, whether it goes up or down.

82.**.233.195 Jul 22, 2026 14:23:26

And you don't need to calculate how much you made from this stock; just keep buying consistently every week, whether it goes down or up. Give up the idea of hitting the jackpot with individual stocks and grow your wealth with index funds—for most people, that is the right answer.

49.**.93.116 Jul 22, 2026 14:21:30

For a while, as semiconductors skyrocketed, people who didn't own any felt a sense of relative deprivation, and those who got in late at the peak are having a very hard time right now. This situation was exactly the same during COVID. I don't know how old you are, but since you still have a job and say you will work for about 10 more years, invest a fixed amount every month in SPY as a recurring investment for 10 years. Always keep a lump sum on the side, and if SPY drops 10% from its peak, put in a certain amount from that lump sum, and put in more at every 15% and 20% drop. And after 10 years, change that account to be more conservative. For example, dividend stocks. Ignore posts here about making it big, and just doing it consistently every month is what's important. Never invest by just throwing a lump sum into SPY, Nasdaq, or semiconductors and assuming it will grow on its own; instead, do it consistently for 10 years.

158.**.76.248 Jul 22, 2026 14:20:53

Put 50/50 into VOO and VGT. No one can beat ETFs in long-term investing.

101.**.50.139 Jul 22, 2026 14:19:46

You are around my age and started investing in stocks at a similar time. Unless you invest or have a huge salary, you can't really save a lot of money on a regular salary. I am a stock market optimist. It's just a matter of timing, but I believe it will always trend upward (though individual stocks are case-by-case). I started in 2020 and have saved an amount of money that I could absolutely never have saved on just my salary, and I believe it will continue to trend upward in the future. Over the past 7 years, I have accumulated a lot of individual stocks as well, but going forward, I am going to focus on accumulating ETFs.

97.**.18.11 Jul 22, 2026 14:19:08

People like you should really only buy ETFs.
Just last week was a week where half of my account vanished.
I got back to even today,
and who knows about tomorrow...
It's not even crypto, but this is how the stock market is these days.
And yet, you are asking for a way to make money...
You said you have a fragile mindset.
If you have the mental strength to endure a drop of half, or even 70%, then do it;
if not, just slowly accumulate ETFs.
It's not like other people are fools who don't want to make money.
Even as I was reading your post, I really... clicked my tongue a few times...

80.**.202.243 Jul 22, 2026 14:20:21

Was I rude? I didn't intend to be, and I'm sorry. I grew up without seeing my parents invest in stocks, and when I was working in my mid-20s, there were a few coworkers who traded stocks. Around that time, which was around 2012, seeing people around me lose money on silver and gold mining stocks made me ignorantly believe that stocks were just bad, and I was so clueless that I didn't even pay attention to them. Early in the pandemic, for the first time in my life, when my boss and coworkers were talking every day about buying stocks, I tried it out of curiosity with an amount that was reasonable for me (though it might be a small amount to others). Everyone was very lucky back then, and I also got interested in stocks, but since I lacked knowledge and insight, I wanted to seek advice. If my post, written in my ignorance and inadequacy, offended you, I hope there is no misunderstanding.