Shaz, Welcome! Thanks for commenting. Glad you found this useful! Hope to see you again.

As I stated in another comment, I earned a relatively modest income all my working life and retired with well over a million at age 51. I “got there” very much like you describe above.

One caveat for any rookies who might trip on my comment (from someone who has been doing this for a long time)… mutual funds and brokerages do make mistakes. My experience with Schwab was terrible. A colleague had the same experience. That was several years ago, however, and I dumped them, so I don’t know how they are now. At the time they’d screw up a two-car funeral.

Now I use Vanguard primarily, but they have their share of problems, and the customer service is mediocre… depends on who you deal with. The front-line CSRs are often clueless, and escalation to management is required. They will do things like: 1) assess small fees that are supposed to be waived, 2) screw up exchanges, 3) lose beneficiary designations, etc. Managers tend to be arrogant, but they have always (eventually) admitted their errors and fixed them. They seem to have have improved lately, but they aren’t the same company they were when Bogle was in charge, IMO. They pretty much have a lock on low expenses though, so I remain.

Your comment about steering clear of investment news is right on the mark. I just happened to trip on this site via StumbleUpon, but I almost never read about investing anymore. I was totally immersed in it at one time: registered adviser, book, public appearances, radio, TV, magazine articles… the whole bit. So I was completely burned out on the subject. That was a good thing, because as the years wore on, I realized that I always make more money if I do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (except re-balance periodically). It really isn’t complicated.

The tough part is separating the wheat from the chaff… and there’s a lot of bad information out there. And there are many sharks in this business, so it’s best to learn the ropes and do-it-yourself. I have used an accountant for estate planning, but that’s about it.

AgentSully’s information is solid. He knows his stuff and speaks the truth.

Only caveat against ETFs is that they aren’t as good for regular savings due to the brokerage costs for every purchase/sale.