Myths About Investing:

• You have to be a guru to invest.
• You have to be licensed in order to invest.
• You will not be successful without an investment broker.
• You can't trust anyone with your money these days.
• Investing will take up all of your time.
• Investing is gambling. Most lose, and some win big.
• You have to be good at numbers in order to invest.
• If my investment portfolio is not complicated, I won't see a very good return.
• ... [insert your own myth here]...

Whatever myth you may believe about investing, take it from a guy who is researching the subject thoroughly - Don't believe the myths!

Investing does not have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler you keep things, the more success you will probably see. Don't quote me on that, but history has shown that a simple and steady investing strategy always comes out on top. (Unless of course you are a Warren Buffet who has a full time job studying the marketing and companies in order to determine a long term investment and reap unprecedented returns).

The truth is, none of us can be a Warren Buffet, nor should we even try to be. Our time is better spent doing what we were designed to do best - not researching stocks and bonds all day. When it comes to making sure our money is working for us we need to adopt a simple and automatic way to invest.

I'm not a financial planner or a stock broker, but I have found a few ways to keep investing simple. Here they are:

1. The easiest way to simplify investing is to let someone else do it for you.

By finding a licensed and experienced financial planner you will take all the weight off of your own shoulders. Sure, you will have to sit down with them and answer a lot of questions in order to get started, but once that's done, you can sit back and read the monthly reports on how well your money is being put to work.

What is the best quality to look for in a financial planner?

Some say that it's their history of return. FALSE! Some say it's that they are always "in the know" about the next best product that just came out. FALSE! The single best quality to look for in a financial planner is that THEY CARE. And not just that they care about the returns you get on your money, but that they care about your entire financial well being. Once you find a financial advisor that cares, is willing to do what it takes to see you succeed, and communicates with you on a regular basis, you know you've found the right guy for the job.

To find a local and trusted financial advisor/planner check out this link here: Financial Planners. You just fill out a few questions about what you are looking for and three different financial planners will respond to you for free. You can then ask them questions and get price quotes in order to determine who you would like to hire. If you don't find anyone, there's no obligation - Nothing to lose.

2. If you would like to invest on your own and stay in total control of your money then start online.

The easiest way to get started investing today is to start online with a brokerage like Scottrade or TradeKing. It's free to open an account and they offer extremely low trading fees (some are even free- research the fund before you buy).

3. You may want to consider getting started with a life-cycle fund.

Life-Cycle funds have different names, but the gist is that they are already allocated and diversified for you. This means that your money will be spread out into different types of investments in order to minimize your losses and maximize your gains. I will uncover diversification and allocation later on.

Life-Cycle funds generally follow index funds which generally follow the market as a whole. This means that when you hear the news talking about "the market" going up and down, it is talking about an average of a lot of different funds. If you are invested in a life cycle fund, your money will probably follow "the market."

The market's history shows a steady 8% to 10% return. This might be what you can expect from a life-cycle fund.

The other advantage of investing in a life-cycle fund is that it requires no maintenance whatsoever. The only reason you would want to move your money is if the fund were consistently doing bad year after year. You are going to lose money some years, so don't freak out when this happens, but if several years go by, you may want to think about switching to a different option.

The last thing you will want to be sure that you do with your life-cycle fund is to add money to it on a regular basis. This can be monthly or bi-weekly, which ever you choose, but be sure and set it up to be automatically deposited so that your account really is maintenance-free.

In the next few posts I will go into more detail on other investment options, and the difference between Roth IRAs, IRAs, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, diversification, and allocation. This will be for those of you who would like to take things a little bit further when it comes to investing. But for those of you who prefer to keep it simple, stick to this article.

What other ways have you found to keep investing less complicated?