Nervous Wife

Hi Scott,
 
My husband and I are both in our mid-forties and have a combined income of $210,000. We have paid off our mortgage, and we lease our cars through my husband’s work as part of a salary sacrifice program. We have no other debt and around $75,000 in savings. We have been paying extra into superannuation, and when he retires from his job as a firefighter he will retire with a lump sum payment that will be more than adequate.
 
But now my husband wants to invest in day trading, and has been doing a trading course to ‘educate’ himself. I’m not very investment savvy and would definitely be the more money cautious out of the two of us. This seems a bit risky to me, but when I say this he tells me that we need to make our money “work for us”. Do you think day trading is a smart way of making our money work, or can you suggest something else that we should consider?
 
Nervous Wife.

Dear Nervous Wife,
 
Ding! Ding! Ding!
 
I’m hearing a fire alarm, and your firefighting, risk-taking hubby is running towards the danger. The only problem is that if he begins day trading it’s your money that he’s going to set on fire.
 
Look, some of the savviest day traders I know have gone broke more than a few times. And these days it’s even harder because you’re trading against AI bots. It’s just not a game you can reliably win.
 
Allow me just one last analogy: you two have reached the top of the mountain. Yet, instead of sitting back and enjoying the view, your husband has pulled on a snowboard and is doing some tricks for some extra kicks. That’s crazy.
 
I’d gently remind him that your money is working for you, via your superannuation. I’d focus on how much you need to contribute to it to live comfortably. Once that is set up, I’d get him busy thinking about all the exciting things he could be doing with his time, rather than risking his money.
 
Enjoy the view, don’t let him screw it up!

Scott.