As a result of being a bit obsessed with fool.com around the turn of the millenium I invested some money into Index Funds. I still have these investments now and they have tripled in value.

My wife and I have made far more money via house sales however, due to the rise in UK house prices in recent years.

I'd agree most people I know don't directly invest in the stock market. You use to hear much more small talk about stock market investing 20 years ago than you do now.

Maybe:

Less money to invest (price of housing / cost of living etc)

Difficulty focusing on the longer time frame required for stock market investing

Big push in the UK on investing into pensions

This is a really interesting perspective. Yes, your reasoning seems sound. I'm in the States - I would have assumed that the UK would be a much trickier place to invest in real estate than here.

It definitely seems to be a world-wide trend for people to stop planning long term futures and start betting on whatever crypto or other bubble seems hottest.

Having tripled in value I assume you're happy with your mutual funds; but that's not where you're going as a long-term strategy? And if not, why?

Overall, the best strategy is to invest in everything. You get some winners and some losers. The winners increase your value and the losers vanish. Over time, you win.

Four principles: (1) Asset allocation, (2) Diversification, (3) Rebalancing, (4) Time.

Info: Bogleheads.org, Investing Advice Inspired by Jack Bogle: https://www.bogleheads.org/

I am 75% in individual tech stocks and VTI. The other 25% is in real estate.

I think the 25% is a pretty good ratio to hedge against the tech stocks. Also, the high rate is making profitable RE investing very difficult.

Almost all of my peers are near all-in tech stocks. We are all still fairly young to use a conservative strategy like all-in VTI/VTSAX/VOO.

History says 99 of 100 people will never beat the Vanguard total stock market index fund (or better yet the Target Retirement Fund)… so long as they purchase regularly and never sell before age 65.

And not having the funds is just an excuse. Start with $100 a month buying etf shares. And never stop.

I actively trade and my usual go-to for when I don't beat SPY for the year is that no one else can either, (on a consistent basis), but at least I had fun. And a hell of a lot of extra stress.

That's the danger of investing. It's boring. Trading is so much more fun. I've adopted the Bogle recommendation to set aside a percentage of the portfolio for trading never to exceed 10%. But that 10% can eat up an entire portfolio without a downside limit (which I haven't yet figured out how to implement).

Worse, it's a slippery slope. I end up convincing myself that reducing my stock exposure when the market is expensive (extreme Schiller levels) is not "timing the market" (ie I'm not studying technical charts). Then I try to convince myself that even if I am timing the market, it is a wise thing to do when the market is so expensive (ignoring the fact that for the past decade my stock allocation has been only half of my full target).

Oh the lies we love to tell ourselves about how smart we are.

I have 50% of my money in an S&P 500 index and the other 50% in high yield savings accounts.

I know I should have more in the stock market and I probably will once interest rates decline.

I'd say having half your savings exposed to the S&P 500 index is just as much as being exposed to the stock market in any set of individual stocks, so we're roughly in the same boat. That's a lot more exposure than most people I know IRL.

Real estate is so expensive these days I have a mountain of debt just to own a home. If I had spare cash lying around I’d put it in shares.

I get it. I try to always earn enough to pay down my debt beyond what I owe every month. Still, my accounts for savings are separate and I put the maximum into them annually. I've got a Roth and a SEP and I find myself gambling with them to keep ahead of inflation, individually trading stocks. And I wonder if this is normal or not in this community (since this is the closest I have to a community of people sort of similar to me).

Making money is not about the stuff as much as it is about the people who deal the stuff.

In the stock market you cannot hunt fools, whereas in entrepreneurship, real estate, resturants, garage sales etc. you can be predatory all you want if your morals allow you to.

You can hunt for misinformed people and rip them off while laughing all the way to bank.

You're right, of course, about how most fortunes are made these days. That's especially what you see in a country where education is poor and the production of fools outpaces the production of wealth.

I refuse to make money in any way related to gulling people. But I do own stock in a tobacco company, for instance, which I justify since I smoke. And an oil company. Actually, according to my friends, I have a remarkably evil and non-ethical stock portfolio.