Geldanlage: Zehn Dinge, die ich als Anfänger über ETFs gelernt habe

When I first started investing my pocket money, my financial strategy was all about spending as little as possible. While my brother put most of his money into mixed packs, I kept mine to myself. Later, most of the money I earned ended up in my savings account, with only a few fixed-interest exceptions. It probably won't come as a surprise that I grew up as a classic left-green humanities student who preferred to discuss political affairs in the US over my financial matters.

That changed when I had to reorganize my private retirement savings last year. After all, that's what I had been working towards since 2008, when I secured my degree in hand. At that time, I had concluded a pension insurance policy based on share funds, from a friend, which, of course, is never a good idea. Everything was supposedly very safe.

I didn't think twice and signed on the dotted line. I glanced at the annual overview mail dutifully, without scrutinizing it closely. Even a savings book would have done more harm than good. The fact that I looked more closely at my finances last year was also due to my move to Handelsblatt. It's hard not to think about your own finances eventually.

I was 42, and it turned out that after more than 15 years and over 20,000 euros in contributions, I had made only 1,000 euros profit. Despite the share markets doing rather well during this period.