 So over these past couple of weeks, honestly, it feels like it's been months at this point. I've been seeing a lot of minimalism content on YouTube. Minimalism house tour, minimalism this, minimalism that. How can we live with the least amount of things as possible in our home? I've been seeing a lot of that content, right? So I figured I want to make a video where I take the principles from minimalism and apply them to the stock market since this is a stock market channel. So I hope you guys enjoyed the video. Hit that like button, consider subscribing if you want to see further content from me, and let's talk about how you can take this concept of minimalism and apply it to the stock market. So first and foremost, guys, when I'm thinking of minimalism, I'm thinking of how can I maximize something with the least amount of input? That's kind of how I'm thinking about it, right? At the end of the day, when people are getting rid of everything in their home, right, they want to get rid of the clutter to maximize the existing items in their home that actually bring value to them, right? So we're going to take those principles and apply them to the stock market. What are we going to do in terms of investing in the stock market that's going to bring us the, maybe not the biggest return, but the simplest return, the easiest return in terms of how much effort we're actually putting in. So let's jump right into it and talk about index funds and exchange traded funds, which really are the most simple way, the simplest way to get your foot in the stock market with the least resistance, right? So index funds is pretty much investing in the broad market, like the S&P 500, for example, the Dow Jones, right, the NASDAQ. If you're investing in an index fund, you're pretty much investing in every single stock in that fund. So for the S&P 500, that is the 500 largest publicly traded US companies. That's what the index is comprised of. So let's say you buy a bit of that index, you're buying all 500 of those companies, and in theory, you can just diversify this way and just put in money every week and not think about it, right? So that's kind of a minimalist approach to the stock market, just passively putting in money into these index funds that track the broad markets, again, like the S&P 500, or you can do something with exchange traded funds, also known as ETFs, which you can actually personalize a bit more in terms of what you're investing in, but it's still a diversified strategy. And why can you really personalize this a bit more? Because there's a bunch of ETFs out there. There's ETFs that track low volatility indexes. There's ETFs that track the S&P 500, which is quite simple, right? There's ETFs that track biotechnology, technology, health care. So you can really pick and choose what ETFs you want to invest in. But for me, if I'm looking to grab the broad market, again, kind of like an index fund, I'm looking at these ETFs right here. I'm looking at the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index here, ticker symbol VTI, which currently is priced at $159.82 per share. And you can see, based on these top holdings, if you buy this ETF with a small management fee, it's probably around 0.2%, 0.3%. But if you buy this ETF, you're going to own companies like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan, Alphabet, right? Both of the two different classes of Google shares, right? Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble. So this right off the bat gives you extreme exposure to the Total Stock Market Index, which includes a lot of large caps, mid caps, and small caps across the United States stock market. Another one that I like is the S&P 500 ETF ticker symbol VOO. And this one's currently priced at $288 per share. And if you buy this, you're pretty much buying into the S&P 500, your owning companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Berkshire, JP Morgan, pretty much the same companies as the last ETF. But I do want to give you guys multiple examples in this video so you can then go and do your own research if you want to invest in these ETFs on your own. Another way you can approach the stock market as a minimalist is by creating and setting target date funds. And target date funds are awesome, guys. And let me explain to you why. These target date funds allow you to select a date out in the future, hence why it's a target date fund, and from this period in time in the present to that date in the future, this fund is going to do multiple different things. This fund, it's going to, if you set it up this way, it could be aggressive in stocks in the beginning of the period. So let's say my target date is 30 years from now. So in the first 5, 10, 15 years, the fund is going to be aggressive in the stock market. And as it gets closer to that 30 year limit, to that 30 year date, that target date, it's going to be more heavy in bonds or safer investments that I'm not going to lose my shirt on, for example. Right? Let's say, you know, by 30 years out, I want to be retired. I want to be living off of this money. So I want it to be in a safer asset class so I really don't lose the money that I've been saving and investing for my entire life. So kind of the point of a target date fund is to go aggressive in the beginning while you're working, while you're investing and saving money and you don't necessarily need to live off of the fund, right? And then as you get closer to the expiration of that target date fund, that's where you're going to be more, you know, safer with the investments, bonds, and so forth, right? And this doesn't even have to be used as a retirement vehicle. Let's say you have a son, you have a daughter, you want to set them a college fund. Let's say they're born one year old, you set a target date fund for when they turn 18. It's the same process, right? In the beginning years, more aggressive as they get closer to going to college and actually using that money, it's going to go more fixed income, bonds, stuff like that. Another way that people approach the stock market in a minimalist fashion is by using these two fund and three fund portfolios. And I'm sure a bunch of you guys that have done research on the stock market, you've seen these two fund and three fund portfolios that I'm about to share with you all. And the reason why people use this guys is because it's extremely simple. It's a set it and forget it type of investment strategy. And it's really putting in the minimal work being picking the fund, whatever, that's kind of easy because it's diversified. And then reaping the benefit of the stock market return, which we all know on average is around six, seven, eight, maybe on a good year, 10% over the past 50 to 100 years, right? So this two target fund is going to be simply investing in a total stock market index like we talked about earlier, whether that's through an index fund or an ETF, whatever it may be, and then also investing in a total bond index or a total bond ETF, getting those safer returns from the fixed income standpoint. So you can do this in multiple ways. You can do this 70%, you know, total stock market index, 30% bond, and that would work if you're a younger person. Let's say you're 20, 25 years old, you have a huge time horizon, you'd want to be heavier in stocks, right? My personal opinion, if you're younger, you should be heavier in stocks because you can take on that risk. So maybe 80% stocks, 20% bonds, whatever. Then as you get older, kind of like the target day fund, maybe you do 50% stocks, 50% bonds, maybe 70% bonds, 30% stocks, as you're in your 60s, 70s, 80s, for example. And the three fund portfolio, which I actually like a bit more, is the same thing as the two fund portfolio, but we're adding an international stock market fund, an international fund where we get exposure from other developed and developing countries across the world. Because you have to realize, guys, if you're strictly investing in the U.S. market, in terms of a global perspective here, you're not really diversified. You're kind of all eggs in one basket in the United States market. Well, actually, that's not true, because a lot of the U.S. companies do have business in other countries, obviously, right across the world. If you want that pure global exposure, I think it's a good idea buying a fund that's global, that's international, that gives you exposure to developed countries, one that I personally own is ticker symbol VEA. It's the Vanguard Developed Markets ETF. It includes companies that are all across the world, excluding the United States. So it gives you pure exposure to companies that are developed in the global market. So in terms of a minimalist approach to the stock market, that's pretty much all I got, right? The whole point, again, is to put as little time, in my personal opinion, through my viewpoint, as little time into something and reap the biggest reward. That's kind of how minimalist, in my opinion, approach the stock market. That's how they would approach it. And the only way to do that is target date funds, ETFs, and passive investments, right? And you can use a lot of different platforms for investments like this, right? Fidelity, you know, you can use Vanguard, and M1 Finance is another one that allows you to be a bit more passive. And if you guys actually want to check out my M1 Finance portfolio, you can check out my pie. It is linked down below. Another thing that I forgot to mention is a drip program dividend reinvestment plan. So let's say you have a traditional brokerage account with Fidelity, you have dividend paying stocks, you get those dividend payments. Well, with a drip program, a dividend reinvestment program, that is going to be invested right back into that particular stock. It'll buy more stock, and your money is going to compound. And that's really a way to be more hands-off with your investment by having a drip program. And back to M1 Finance, M1 Finance actually has a feature where you can auto-invest all the cash in your portfolio over a fixed amount, right? So let's say your fixed amount is $10. If the cash in your portfolio goes over that $10 limit, it's going to be reinvested into your pie. So for a passive investing kind of approach, I think for the traditional brokerages, Fidelity is great, TD is great, Vanguard is great, New Age brokerages, I really love M1 Finance if you want to use that auto-investing feature. And those other ones, Fidelity, Vanguard, TD, you can use drip programs with them as well. So overall, that's it for this video, guys. If you enjoyed it, feel free to go down below, hit that like button, consider subscribing if you want to see further content from me. And if you want to be further connected with the StriveSmart community, go down below, join our Discord group chat and our Facebook group, as well as follow me on Instagram and follow me on Twitter if you want to be personally connected with me. And don't be shy, shoot me a message on any of the platforms and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. So I'll catch you all in the next video. Thanks again for watching. As always, peace out.