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Don't pick stocks if you are not a trader.

Some rules I love-

1. Buy a house that you want to live in and after that stop speculating on houses.

2. If you need to pick stocks, pick ones with trustable management and with low p/e ratios.

3. Also buy some gold as a hedge occasionally. (not more than 10 pct of your net worth)

4. Don't get obsessed about your savings. Invest in yourself, invest on your skill sets so that you can earn more later.

Good luck

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1. Buy a house that you want to live in and after that stop speculating on houses.

That's a truly terrible idea right now, at least in most parts of the US. Houses, apart from "distressed properties" (read: people who need liquidity and must accept market price) are still wildly overvalued due to an irrational market. Additionally, many states will be raising property taxes in the near future, which would make the house into a potentially large and uncontrollable liability.

I'm leaving in Amsterdam and here the housing situation seems a little different. There is a really high request for rooms and a big scarcity of them, so I was thinking of buying a house with many rooms and rent them (while leaving in the house).

But for now I can't afford to buy one, so that's why I'm looking at the stock market.

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