I am most definitely an advocate of long-term investing, also known as buy and hold, specifically with blue chip stocks that pay a solid dividend. This type of investing isn't as sexy as investing in Tesla or Google, but the long term returns are nothing to scoff at. An example of this came from the recent news of a 98-year old man who had amassed a two million dollar fortune from a single stock he invested in seventy years ago. 

http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/06/Russ-Gremel-1020x610.jpg

In 1947, Russ Gremel from Chicago put $1000 dollars into Walgreens stock with the assumption that consumers would always need things like medicine and makeup from the pharmacy, and boy was he right. 

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/galleryimage/CG/20110715/multimedia02/715009997/PH/0/7/PH-715009997.jpg?MaxW=860&maxh=590&cb=20170510012135&cci_ts=20110715162949
(pic from 1949, Chicago)

The compounded annual growth rate of his investment was 11.47%, which is roughly the same as the Dow Jones and S&P performed during that same period, but it is impressive nonetheless. It he had put that $1000 into 10-year government bonds and reinvested the interest instead, he would only have ended up with about $40,000 after the seventy years. Is the safety of principal from bonds worth that kind of difference in returns in the long run?

With two million dollars worth of shares at a current dividend yield of almost 2%, this means Gremel was receiving $40,000 a year in dividends, which is forty times more than his original investment! That is just the dividends! This is a prime of example of the wonders of compound interest, the longer you let it build up the more powerful the snowball becomes. 

https://i0.wp.com/dollarcents.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/shutterstock_383318881.jpg?resize=1080%2C675

Gremel is known to be an extremely frugal guy, he was an attorney who never married or had children, he lives in the same house that he's had his whole life, and he kept his previous car for over 20 years. He ended up donating the two million to the Illinois Audubon Society for them to build a wildlife sanctuary, and this was the first time that many people even knew that he had that kind of money. His frugal lifestyle allowed him to retire at age 45, which is pretty impressive considering that most of his generation worked until at least 65 to retire. 

This man's story shows that long-term investing works, and you don't have to have an MBA from Harvard in order to invest and grow your nest egg. It might not be as simple as buying a single stock, but the basic strategy still holds merit today as it did in the past. Do you think Disney will still exist and still be profitable in 20, 30, or 40 years from now? Do you think Johnson & Johnson will continue to sell dental floss over the next few decades? These are the kinds of companies that have a wide moat around their castles, they are unlikely to go out of business or make drastic changes to their basic business model over the years. These are the kinds of companies that work best for long-term, buy and hold investing. 

*Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be financial advice and is merely for informational purposes only. 

Sources:
http://inhabitat.com/98-year-old-man-donates-2-million-in-stock-for-395-acre-wildlife-refuge/
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/05/warren-buffetts-strategy-helped-one-man-turn-1000-into-2-million.html
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?date=20110715&category=multimedia02&artno=715009997&ref=ph&params=itemnr=8
http://dollarcents.org/infographics/compound-interest-snowball-effect/