What follows is my stream of consciousness on how I plan to manage my money for the next 20-30 years. This is not financial advice.
I am sharing this to formalize what I have been thinking for months around this topic, gather feedback, and —most importantly — to humblebrag.
Financially, 2020 has been my best year yet. In past years I matched what I made as an employee. This year I doubled it. It's time to put some of this money to work while I sleep and rescue them from inflation.
Up until this point, I dumbly hold all my savings in cash. For some reason, I was unreasonably risk-averse and lazy in this area of my life, missing out on one hell of a run of the S&P 500. It almost doubled its value in the past 5 years.
Compounding my savings is crucial for financial security later in life since I will probably not receive any state-issued pension. I know this is too pessimistic, but it's safer to reason in worst cases when your livelihood is at stake.
Italy has an aging and shrinking population, and today's workers are paying today's pensions. Who will pay for tomorrow's pensions when the retired outnumber the workers? It doesn't add up, and I have no trust in our politicians fixing this, since the next Italian Prime Minister will likely be a guy that made it easier to retire, tilting the balance even more.
I may also decide to move to another country in 5-10 years and can't predict if that country will allow me to move my current pension contributions there.
I am also keeping in mind that inflation will probably increase at a faster rate in the coming months/years. A recent crypto interview highlighted that while inflation seems stable (it's measured on consumer goods), the price of scarce assets (that nice apartment in Milan) will probably be going up thanks to all the money printing. This may be currently "hidden" by other COVID-related effects.
In other words, it's not BTC that's going up, but it is the USD/EUR that's going down. And with the Fed/ECB increasing the monetary supply by as much as ~30% to face Corona, this seems reasonable. Again I am a complete noob, but maybe that helps.
This ends part 1 (no more time to write today). In part 2, I will talk about the strategy resulting from all these fun ideas.