Investment clubs making a comeback?

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An old idea in investing that I used to talk about in the ’80s and ’90s could be the right idea again for you.

There’s something called investment clubs that used to be so popular. That’s where you sit down with others, typically in a hotel meeting room or somebody’s house, and you meet to talk about investing strategies.

You learn the basics, you learn the lingo, and it’s collective wisdom. You learn how to do investing.

This was a pre-Internet kind of idea. The Arizona Republic  reports one referral group for investment clubs called BetterInvesting says there were just under 40,000 of these clubs in the ’90s. That number is now down to 6,000. So some 85% of these groups have shuttered over the years.

But I think this is an old idea that should be reborn. Why not learn along with others how to better handle your investments?

Go to their BetterInvesting website and see which groups are near you. See if it’s a way to learn. You may go and decide it’s a waste of your time. Or you may go and it could be eye-opening. (Annual membership is $79.)

The thing is, we spend so much time working. Some of us do it just to live, as a subsistence kind of thing because we have to. But for others, we work to have freedom and security down the road. If that’s what you’re after, knowledge is power.

There’s another clearinghouse group called the American Association of Individual Investors that requires just $29 a year to be a member.

I’ve spoken to chapters of this particular group. I can tell you the focus is true. Nobody’s there saying, “Hey I got one for you, this stock’s going to go to the sky!” It’s all nuts and bolts kind of stuff, how to come up with a strategy and how to implement it.

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