One thing to note is that even if you are one of the few who has a gift for investing, you need to be investing a lot of money to break even.

Assume

1. it takes an extra 500 hours a year to research and buy good investments.

2. you make $60 an hour

3. all your hard work delivers a respectable alpha of 3%(3% better returns than than the market)

You need to be investing approximately 1 million dollars to break even.