@ Scott, thanks for the encouragement and reminder about the get-right-back-up-and-get-back-in-the-fight. Definitely so true. It’s like the driver in one of those comedy racing-cars-across-the-USA movies back in the 70s. The Italian driver tore off his rearview mirrors and state, “What’s behind me does not matter!” (and that includes that 0% (or less!) ROI. It just gives us another baseline to keep pushing off from.

@ Scott – Well said; of course, there is a third choice: allow yourself to fall short of your goal because of fear … because of fear, lots of ‘Jason Bournes’ choose Door # 3: getting shot even when the ‘jump’ is well within their abilities.

@ Ethel – just rework until you have a Number that is your minimum acceptable and a Date that is maximum acceptable. Then choose the lowest risk investment (that is within your ‘comfort zone’) that gets you there … without both Date AND Time, most will say that you have no goal, just a vague direction. If having no goal is acceptable, then any road will get you there, so choose the easiest one!

@ Josh – Bankruptcy is the financial equivalent of Jason Bourne not quite making the jump, hanging by his fingernails and eventually falling … of course, bankruptcy conveniently puts a stuntman’s net at the bottom And, yes, you can start a business and get super high returns without risking bankruptcy in the process … it’s the 170% you should be concerned about, though, not the 0% that you are worried about.

@ Shafer – Actually, starting a small business outshines RE … but, the risk of failure is higher; there are plenty of investments other than RE that have made people rich reasonably safely (just ask Warren Buffett), but your point about RE is taken

This is where real estate shines! Because it is not liquid (meaning it is harder to sell) and there are significant transaction costs it forces folks to stay for longer periods of time, therefore reducing risk! The key of course is to set up real estate with cash flow (and have reserves) so there is not a time you are forced to sell.
By doing this you minimize the risk of leverage.

So by owning investment real estate for relatively long period of times you reduce the risk/variability of capital appreciation, and can use leverage to triple or more the appreciation, while having an increasing stream of cash flow.

The alternative is to take on more risk/variability of the more liquid investments.

So maybe I need a different approach: Instead of defining number and date and determining risk, maybe I should be defining risk and number and determining date from that. In my situation, the date isn’t key; I’d rather be reasonably sure of getting there and risk getting there ten years late, than risk everything and not get there at all.

Maybe it’s not, “Pick number and date, then determine risk”, but “Define the two most important: Number, date, or risk. Then guess what the third variable will be, given the other two, to see if it is acceptable. If not, you need a smaller number, later date, and/or higher risk.”

Of course, I’m not the millionaire here . . . these are just my thoughts looking on from the goal setting stage. I like to think “out loud”

So if you have a BIG number at a SOON date, you are probably going to have to leverage and take the relative risk, but reap the reward in the end. If you are even smarter, you’ll continue to find ways to cut the ‘risk’ on the relative ‘risky’ investments even further and if you fall down, you still get back up and do it again until you get there! Good post.