Buffett's Investing Plan for Personal and Self Investing - why it works
You can beat the Suits
Buffett's Investing Plan for Personal and Self Investing - why it works
You can beat the Suits
Wall Street does not want you to see this - the buffett plan
The Buffett Long-Term Investing Solution
How Warren Buffett solved the “best way to invest” question
Looking back at my investing journey, I now realize that the question I was trying to answer throughout my adult life was simple:
What is the best way to invest for the long term — and achieve the best results with the least amount of effort?
I spent thousands of hours learning about investing and actively investing.
Stocks. Mutual funds. Options. Financial TV. Jim Cramer.
I was familiar with all of it — and I tried it all.
Then in 2018, while watching the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, something changed.
Warren Buffett — widely regarded as the greatest investor of our lifetime, worth over $100 billion, and the man who built Berkshire Hathaway into one of the most valuable companies in the world — did something unexpected.
Instead of talking about Berkshire Hathaway, he spent 15 minutes delivering what I believe is the greatest investing lesson in history.
What struck me most was how simple it was.
Below is a summary of what Buffett said.
Warren Buffett’s Investment Advice
(This section reflects Buffett’s investing lesson)
- When he purchased his first stock during World War II, the best thing he — or anyone — could have done was to buy an S&P 500 index fund.
- $10,000 invested in an S&P 500 index fund at that time would have been worth $52 million by 2018, and over $100 million today.
- Think of investing in the S&P 500 as buying and holding a piece of American business.
One investment decision for your lifetime:
- You would never have to look at another stock quote or listen to another person give you advice.
- All you had to do was believe that America would do well over time. If America did well, American business would do well.
- If you listened to the doomsayers and invested in gold, you would have ended up with about 1% of what you would have had investing in a productive asset like the S&P 500.
- “We have operated in this country with the greatest tailwind at our back that you can imagine. It’s an investor’s heaven.”
- You can’t really fail unless:
- You buy the wrong stock
- You get excited at the wrong time
- But if you own a cross-section of America and consistently invest over the years, there is no comparison between that and:
- Owning something that produces nothing
- Trying to jump in and out of stocks
- Paying investment advisors
- The only problem with this advice?
Your friendly stockbroker would have starved to death — and you could have gone to their funeral to atone for their fate. - The truth is, you would have been better off doing this than a very high percentage of investment professionals or active investors.
- It’s very hard to move around successfully and beat what can be done with a very relaxed philosophy.
- You don’t need to know:
- Accounting
- Stock market terminology
- What the Federal Reserve is going to do next
- None of that matters over a lifetime of investing
- What matters is having a philosophy that you understand — and that you stick with.
After hearing Buffett’s lesson, I began investing a significant portion of my portfolio in a low-cost S&P 500 index fund.
Almost immediately, a question followed:
Is this really the best way to invest?
If I was going to commit to this strategy for a lifetime, I needed to be certain.
So I did the research — and what I found confirmed Buffett’s solution.
For example, S&P’s long-running 20-year studies show that approximately 95% of professional money managers benchmarked to the S&P 500 underperformed it.
I also found strong support for Buffett’s strategy from other investing greats, including Charlie Munger, Charles Ellis, Ed Thorp, and Paul Samuelson.
Even after reaching that conclusion, I continued to actively manage a small portion of my portfolio using my old approach.
Over time, the results became clear.
The portion of my portfolio devoted to the Buffett Solution significantly outperformed the portion I continued to manage actively.
Looking back, I would have been better off putting everything into the Buffett Solution.
I also realized there are millions of people who could benefit from understanding and implementing Buffett’s investing solution.
That’s why I created this website.
And today, this philosophy is becoming national policy:
- The U.S. is investing $1,000 for every newborn using this exact strategy.
- Michael Dell donated $6 billion, adding $250 per child.
The goal: show every child in America the simplest, most reliable path to building lasting wealth.
Start Here
Start here with Buffett’s 2018 investing lesson.
▶ The Warren Buffett Investing Plan
Then check out the blog and other resources to learn how to put this strategy to work for your future.
© 2025 Dan Mahoney | Disclaimer: I’m not a financial pro — just a self-taught investor sharing lessons from giants like Buffett. This is education, not advice. Investing has risks — talk to an advisor first.
Simplifying how to invest
The Quest
The Quest for the best way to invest