One of those old sayings that has a grain or two of truth to it. Stocks, real estate, education even, all require some money in to have a chance at making money later unless you the Trumpster maybe. I was thinking about this on election day when Starbucks was offering free coffee. Originally it was if you voted, but it turned out that rewarding votes is illegal, so they just opened it up to everyone. Lot's of interesting stuff in the offer. Starbucks = America. Starbucks = Voting The Best Coffee Place? Subtle and you might not agree on that part, but I sat outside one for an hour working and watched a lot of people come over for the free coffee. How many were new customers and how many weren't? No idea, and I guess Starbucks can only guess as well as I didn't see any type of polling (election day pun) going on.
Even at their cost I imagine it worked out to be an expensive offer, what did they get in return? Lots of free press, lots of people thinking about where to find the nearest Starbucks, maybe co-workers taking someone along that wouldn't normally go. Probably a few like me that passed on the free coffee to have an iced cafe mocha or other drink that didn't require sprinkles on top.
Marketing is hard because you want to measure results. What did I get for my money? Investing much the same, I bought the stock, when do I get rich? The really hard thing is you only get to know if you were right after you made the decision, often much later. Deciding when and where to spend money to make money is not an easy task, but very hard to make money if you don't spend some.
No, I don't own Starbucks stock either!
