How Everyday Peeps, Save and Invest Big For The Future, Without Stress
This wasn’t something I set out to write.
If you’d asked me 10 years ago if I’d be here sharing my thoughts on investing with friends, family, and curious investors, I’d probably have laughed it off.
But that’s life; the fun things happen unexpectedly :)
Oh and you don’t need to like numbers and all of that stuff..
What you’ll read here is this:
how everyday people can start investing and saving money without needing any prior knowledge — or the stress that usually comes with it.
It’s not going to make you rich overnight, but it gets results over time.
Since you don’t talk with strangers, here’s a quick blip about me:
I’m Max Nieveld. I got into trading, investing, and all things finance early on. Don’t ask me why. I guess you could say I was one of those lucky people who knew what they were passionate about from the start — and just dove in, blindly, without fully understanding how or why.
(Happy I was open minded and passionate about this)
Looking back now on this odd journey (probably for the first time), I realize how much I’ve learned. From investing and trading to building algorithms to find patterns and analyzing markets, my passion for the markets became my full-time focus.
Somewhere along the way, people started to notice.
That passion opened doors, and soon enough, I found myself networking with successful investors and entrepreneurs.
And before I knew it, I was managing a few million for wealthy high performance people.
Which led to starting a small hedge fund, a software company, and an educational community to help find and train talented traders and developers. I am still young, let’s see where all this goes..
Enough about me. This Medium story isn’t about me or any of my start-ups. And I’m defintely not here to sell you anything.
What I have learned is that people know the value of diversification. Every day, when I talk with clients and investors, they only allocate around 5–10% of their capital to us. The rest? It goes elsewhere.
So, what do I tell them? What’s my advice on where else to invest?
That’s what I’m sharing below.
Simple, proven strategies that have been working for more than a hundred years.. to steady grow with the markets without stress.
If you have q’s about anything here, just dm me @mnieveld
Foundations of money
We all know the routine: work hard, pay the bills, and by the end of the month, not much is left. Meanwhile you see people around you buying houses, traveling, and living what looks like a “perfect” life.
Been there.
Whatever level you get into life, you’ll always compare with others, that’s just what the world is nowadays with social media.
Changing your future and being one of the people that actually knows what to do with money starts with a few basics.
Nothing complex — just simple steps that stop money from slipping away and give you room to grow it over time.
Here’s what I tell everyone who wants a starting point:
- The simple money flow
Picture it like this: money comes in, you cover your basics, and some goes to your investments. A simple system.
Nothing fancy, but it works.
Having a flow like this stops you from accidentally overspending and builds a path for your money to grow.
I’ll share how, why and where to put it, all in this story.
First, check out the two pictures below, if you are the left one, you need to move to the right one. That’s it.
2. Pay yourself first
Don’t wait until the end of the month to save. This does not work.
A lot of people never learned how to save, and that’s mostly due to your upbringing, which again is not much you could do about.
Tax yourself right when you get paid is something you can do though.
It is something I learned when I read 20+ books on finance the past few years. And it truly works.
Start with 10% of your income and send it straight to your savings. If possible, automate this — it’ll happen without you even thinking about it.
This one habit makes everything run smoothly for the rest of time.
3. Beat inflation
Money loses value over time. Leave it sitting in a bank account, and inflation will chip away at it.
The goal here ins’t to save — it’s to grow your savings faster then inflation can eat it up.
return — inflation= your real growth
4. Build cash
Imagine having enough saved up to cover a few months of expenses. That way, if something unexpected happens, you’re not stressed.
Aim for 2–3 months of your regular expenses.
If you’re feeling ambitious, go for 4–6 months.
This buffer keeps you from living paycheck to paycheck.
Below I have two scenario’s:
If you don’t have a business, use the left.
If you do have a business, use the right.
The business owners, have two expense buffers because they have both personal expenses and business expenses. That’s the only difference.
Setting up these basics is the first step.
No extreme budgeting needed — just these essentials.
To summarise:
1. Find your average monthly expenses, by reviewing your past three months. The amount you find is more or less what your current life-style costs right now.
2. Multiple this amount of expenses by your desired buffer of finances, as stated above the ideal situation is to have 3–6months of expenses saved up.
3. Go into your bank account and a saving account. (your savings bucket)
4. Now automate the process of saving within your banking app, and increase the amount you save by 10% every quarter. In other words, the coming 3-months you save 10% of your income, then 11% and so on.
5. Ask siri to remind you about these increases, and if you can’t automate the process, use calendar reminders.
Up next, we’ll get into how to grow that money with investing.
The power of passive investing
Now you have a solid foundation, the next step is to start growing what you have. The key here is to keep it simple and let time do the work for you.
I know people that have this “simple money flow” with making average amounts of money and I do know people making 100–200k a month and investing millions, exactly the same way.
Your starting point truly does not matter here.
Your buckets will grow.
Passive investing is all about putting your money in assets that grow over time — without constantly watching or adjusting them.
This means investing in things like the S&P500, and BRK.
I’ll explain what this is and means later..
You’re not chasing the next big thing or guessing which stock will explode; you’re just in it for the long haul, and you’re letting steady growth compound over time.
The reason you’re not trying to find the next best stock, is because 95% of the people lose money doing that for the long run. (Don’t try to be smart)
To understand why diversification works, imagine this scenario:
you’ve allocated your money across five different companies:
- Company A ($500 of stock) — Experiences a decline in value
- Company B ($500 of stock) — Experiences a decline in value
- Company C ($500 of stock) — Experiences a decline in value
- Company D ($500 of stock) — Experiences a decline in value
- Company E ($500 of stock) — Experiences substantial growth
Even if the value of four companies decreases, the growth in Company E can help balance out those losses.
This is the power of diversification: by spreading your investments, you reduce the risk that one loss will set you back entirely.
One of the easiest ways to diversify is through index funds.
An index fund is a single investment that includes a variety of companies, all wrapped into one.
For example, the S&P 500 index fund includes 500 of the largest companies in the U.S., across multiple industries.
When you buy an S&P 500 index fund, you’re effectively buying a tiny piece of each of those companies.
This gives you two big advantages:
You’re instantly diversified across hundreds of companies, so your risk is spread out. You don’t have to worry about picking individual stocks — by investing in the S&P 500, you’re investing in the overall U.S. economy.
The S&P500 chart since 1871: https://www.tradingview.com/x/YNRfc2T9/
The BRK chart since 1996: https://www.tradingview.com/x/WqcwuOtH/
Don’t time the market
Timing the market is a common mistake.
Waiting for the “right” time to buy in, does more harm than good.
Markets go up and down, and no one — not even the pros — can predict exactly when those shifts will happen.
What actually works?
…Staying in the market and sticking to your plan.
When you’re invested passively, your money grows with the market.
No need to stress over the latest news or wonder if now is the right moment.
Just keep investing, stay consistent, and let time handle the rest.
We call this approach dollar cost averaging.
The idea behind this is simple:
you invest a set amount at regular intervals, no matter what’s going on.
Sometimes you’ll buy when prices are high, sometimes when they’re low, but over time, it balances out.
Dollar cost averaging means you don’t have to worry about the “perfect” time to invest.
Let’s share a story of a friend of mine starting to invest slightly before covid hit back in 2020…
Buying the S&P500 at price 3244 in january 2020.
What did he feel stupid back then.
Because price crashed -30% in the next months..
But the right thing to do was sit, and dca more..
Luckily he did it.
Now in 2024, this “badly timed investment” is up +76%.
This is excluding all the cheaper buys he got while the market was crashing.
S&P500 before covid and after: https://www.tradingview.com/x/v8SYqLmg/
Markets do crash, and they always will!
Bringing emotions into investing is a bad idea.
This is because markets move from periods of greed, to periods of fear, creating all time highs and all time lows.
Here is a list of times, a crash might scared you and you missed out of hundreds of percentages of returns:
2020 — Covid Crash -35%
2018 — Panic Crash of -20%
2011 — EU Crisis -21%
2007 — Financial Crisis -57%
2000 — Dotcom Crisis -50%
1998 — Russian Crisis -22%
…and so there are around 20 more crashes in the past hundred years, and more will come.
The sad thing is, many people listen to people with zero investing knowledge. Believing that investing is about screaming on a floor and losing all your money.
People even judged me in the past about my “risky work”.
But if you look at the S&P500 chart shared before, the chart from the year 1871 till 2024, how did they lose? I can’t figure it out.
They probably picked stocks or did something risky.
Hope this clears up all the common misconceptions about investing.
And why consistency and simplicity is important.
Invest simple and consistent
At the end of the day, successful investing doesn’t require constant checking, timing, or stress.
The real secret? Set up a routine and stick to it.
Decide on a fixed amount you can invest regularly.
Once a month put your investment amount into an index fund the S&P 500.
Automate the process if possible, so it becomes a “set it and forget it” approach. This way, you’re not constantly debating when to invest or stressing over the ups and downs.
Patience is one of the hardest but most valuable parts of investing.
Growth doesn’t happen overnight, but steady, consistent investing can lead to solid returns over time.
Think of it like planting a tree and the quote of warren: Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
Stick to your plan, avoid the temptation to jump in and out, and let your money grow. Investing is a long-term game, and by keeping it simple and consistent, you’re setting yourself up for success.
How to boost your success?
On average the strategy shared above returns 5–10% a year, which is a very nice long-term growth rate for literally a few minutes of work a year.
However, you might have a bit more time or motivation to boost your returns or increase your wealth faster.
This is possible.
But don’t think it is stock picking.
Remember, that looks fun and a fast way of making money, but that’s why people get it wrong and lose instead of win.
At the start of this story, I shared with you the money flow. I’ll show it to you again below, and tell you how to boost your sucess.
“Max how can I get this done faster”
Mastering this simple way is all about building steady income streams.
Think of money as flowing water: the more streams you create, the more you can save, spend, and invest.
One powerful way to increase income is by starting a business that aligns with your passions — ideally in a growing market and scalable so it can eventually run without you. Then, channel the profits into stable investments.
Visualise how this looks, the tap at the top just pours more into everything, requiring bigger buckets.
The second option is to increase your investing account returns.
This can be done by multiple ways, the simple way is to not only dollar cost averaging the S&P500, but also adding another bucket of stocks like BRK.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) is a massive conglomerate led by Warren Buffett, with stakes in dozens of companies across industries like finance, consumer goods, and energy.
Think of it as an investment within an investment, it’s almost like owning a mini-portfolio.
It’s a way to benefit from the expertise of one of the world’s most respected investors, while keeping your investments simple and steady.
Instead of investing everything in the S&P500, you can decide to sometimes also purchase the BRK.B stock.
Yes you can buy A and B, they split the stock. It’s very rare if you own BRK A, because that is the most expensive stock on earth. Around 600–700k per share, but B growth is the same, which is a few hundred bucks.
The advance way, which is definitely not for everyone is to learn to trade properly, which I have been doing for the past decade… both manually and automatically.
If this is something you want to learn, you can always dm me and I’ll just share some tips how I would start; @mnieveld
Action points investing
These steps create a clear, actionable plan to start investing in the S&P 500 and BRK with minimal effort and maximum consistency.
- Set up a cash buffer
Ensure you have a cash buffer of 2–3 months of expenses (or more, if possible). This is your safety net before you start investing. - Choose a reliable broker
Select a reputable broker that offers access to the S&P 500 index funds (like an S&P 500 ETF) and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) stocks. Look for low fees, easy access, and a secure platform. - Automate your savings
Set up an automatic transfer so that a set amount goes from your income directly into your investment account every month. This will make investing consistent and easy. - Decide on your investment split
Determine how much you want to invest in the S&P 500 versus BRK. For example, you might allocate 80% to an S&P 500 fund and 20% to BRK. - Set up dollar-cost averaging (DCA)
Decide on a fixed amount to invest each month. This means you’ll buy a set dollar amount of both S&P 500 and BRK, regardless of market fluctuations, making it easy to invest without timing the market. - Schedule a monthly buy-in
Choose a specific date each month to buy your shares. Some brokers allow you to automate this process so that you’re consistently investing without extra effort. - Reinvest dividends
Opt to reinvest any dividends you receive from your investments. This will help grow your investments faster over time without any extra work. - Review and adjust annually
Once a year, review your portfolio. Check your allocation between the S&P 500 and BRK to make sure it’s in line with your goals. If BRK has grown faster, for instance, you might rebalance to get back to your target percentages. - Stay consistent and patient
Keep contributing each month and avoid the urge to react to market ups and downs. Stick to your plan, and let time do the work for you.
Questions & Answers
Q: What about investing in real estate?
A: Real estate can be a good investment, but it has a shorter track record of steady growth compared to stock-based strategies like the S&P 500. Success depends on knowing the pros, cons, and numbers, as market factors like population growth and currency inflation have pushed prices up in recent decades. It’s also not liquid so owning the house you live in and invest the rest is probably the easiest and most profitable option for almost everyone.
Q: Should I invest in REITs?
A: REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) allow you to invest in income-generating real estate properties without owning or managing them. They typically pay dividends, making them a good option for those who want real estate exposure alongside their S&P 500 investments. It’s not something I am active in anymore though.
Q: Can I invest in cryptocurrency?
A: Yes, and dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is a useful strategy here too. If you believe in certain cryptocurrencies, you might set aside a small percentage of your portfolio and invest regularly in a few promising projects, but it’s a speculative area, so proceed carefully. I own quite some crypto alongside the approach shared in this story.
Q: Do I ever stop and sell my SPY shares?
A: The aim is to keep growing your portfolio through consistent DCA. Over time, your investments could cover your living expenses. Once you reach that point, you could withdraw up to 4% annually to live on, achieving true financial freedom.
Q: How do I choose the right broker for investing?
A: Look for brokers with low fees, a reliable platform, and access to index funds like the S&P 500 or individual stocks like BRK. Security and customer service are also key. Normally people use DeGiro, Saxobank or Vanguard.
Q: What’s a good amount to start investing with?
A: After setting up a cash buffer, you can start with any amount you’re comfortable investing regularly. Even small, consistent amounts grow over time with DCA.
Q: Should I use leverage when investing?
A: Leveraging, or borrowing to invest, is generally not recommended for this strategy. It adds risk, especially in volatile markets, and can lead to significant losses during downturns. Don’t use it, you’ll blow up in crashes, which always come like I shared in the story.
Q: How often should I review my portfolio?
A: Once or twice a year is often enough. Check to see if your investments are still aligned with your goals and rebalance if needed.
Q: What should I do when the market drops?
A: Stick to your DCA plan and avoid reacting emotionally. Market dips are normal, and staying invested during these times can lead to growth as the market recovers. Be happy about the cheap options, just like you’re happy with black friday sales.
