Hey guys it's sasha today i want to talk about something quite unpopular. I want to talk about selling your stocks, because sometimes you should sell your stocks, and i want to talk about five very good reasons to sell and it's not going to be a popular topic, because there is this weird new culture in the world of investing that Investors should never sell if you sell, you are a dirty paper hander. You are not a true believer. If you have sold you have folded your hand and you should be banished to hell or something like that.

But this is a relatively new phenomenon selling your stocks has always been as much a part of the game as buying them, and i'm going to talk about reasons that don't even have anything to do with the stock itself, because i have a lot of videos where I cover the specific methods i use to determine when you should maybe sell a stock based on the fundamentals based on the numbers based on your investing strategy, but life is much bigger than your stock fundamentals and much bigger than your investing portfolio and in life. Sometimes there are very good reasons to sell out of your investments, so let me cover the five best ones. The first reason will be the most obvious, and that is in the case of an emergency. This one might also be the most controversial, because the agreed financial mantra is that you should go and squirrel away 6 to 12 months of your living costs in cash as an emergency fund.

A guy who went bankrupt himself came up with this amazing strategy and then tried to tell everyone else. They should do it too, and everyone else out there just seems to have gone and copied what he said and has become sort of the agreed standard advice, and i think the strategy is that you should just hold cash in a separate bank account or maybe in A neat set of stacks under your mattress or something like that, and then when the emergency hits you get to go and use that cash and not have to worry about the cost. Now sometimes your car gives up the ghost or you have unexpected medical bills, or maybe you have to replace the heating system in your house whatever it may be. But the problem with this emergency fund approach is that you are stashing a giant amount of money, a huge amount of cash that sits there in the dark murky forest of savings accounts getting eaten alive by the coyote of inflation, all the while you could have those Thousands of pounds of dollars, or whatever working for you in the stock market, while you're you know not having an emergency which normally is most of the time and yeah in an emergency.

It is perfectly okay to go and sell a chunk of your investments to go and pay for it. That is why your money is sat there in investments, so you can count on it when you most need it. Just don't make the very common mistake of getting attached to your portfolio balance and feeling this weird sense of guilt about cashing in, because you will probably feel it at least a bit when that happens. But your investments are your weapon arsenal that you spent years building up and when that small attack on your castle happens, go and pick up a few of those arrows to shoot the problem down all right.

The next, a great reason to sell your stocks is actually a big one. You might want to sell a lot of your stocks for this one or sometimes all of your stocks, and that reason is buying a house now taking a step back. My normal argument here would be the exact opposite. A mortgage is some of the cheapest debt you can possibly have, and the interest on the mortgage will often be a fraction of what you can get in returns from the stock market.

So if you can get a mortgage and at the same time, keep your investments as in not sell them and keep those two for a long period of time. That, in theory, is a much better strategy, but here's a thing: life ain't, perfect! Even with a mortgage. You will need a big chunk as a down payment. You need even more cash on top for your legal fees.

Maybe you need to pay the state agents. You'll then need even more cash to pay whatever taxes your country likes to charge for people buying houses, and you might even need more cash. On top of all of that to repair the place, maybe move your stuff and even buy new furniture, and that's one giant chunk of cash to pay for all those things. And if you decided that you're gon na wait and save that might take you a little.

While even more so, if you're buying for the first time - and here is something really important life is there for living. I know it sounds crazy right, but sometimes you need to move for work for family to be closer to the sea or the mountains. Whatever. Sometimes you just need a bigger house and you need it soon, because maybe you just found out that your firstborn is turning up in seven months.

I don't know life is bigger and far more important than the total amount of stocks you have in your portfolio and if you need to go and sell them to buy that house, there are few better reasons to go and sell out of your positions. The next great reason to sell is going to be pretty controversial, with die-hard investing fans, probably not being too happy, and that reason is to spoil yourself now careful now spoil yourself. Rarely i get that it's important to manage your money and i am not advocating at the opposite. I'm not saying go splurge on yourself and just buy everything and buy things you don't need.

I i get that. I also get that you want to save money for the important things and you don't want to waste your money, but even though i spend all day right here on youtube talking about you know, money and investing and stuff like that. Life is much much bigger than all of those things. Your share certificates might look pretty in your coffin, but you've only got one shot before you go six feet under, so you know what enjoying the less financially smart things in life is.

Ultimately, what makes us human, sometimes you just need to live. Maybe you've always wanted to go on that perfect vacation and you know the stars have lined up. The timing is right and you might just choose to go and do it. Maybe you have lusted after a fancy watch that you have never felt comfortable buying for the last.

I don't know 20 years, maybe you're a car guy, and you just want to have that massive smile on your face each morning when you head off to work. Investing is there to help you with important money manners matters sure it is there for emergencies yeah. It is there for your kids college fund. It's there to pass on to your children and inheritance yeah.

I get it, but i don't subscribe to this pure scrooge. School of life, where frugality trumps, everything, because that is one really boring way to think about things. You've, given up on your life before it's even happened, so yeah be careful sure make sure that you treat this as a rare, one-off and be sensible, but straying off the frugal path to enjoy your life every now and then is okay, it's healthy! Now the next good reason to cash in your chips is probably a bit less common and that is to fund your business. Not everyone will ever have a business and for many people it's not the right path to follow, but some of you will end up going down that road, at least at some point in life and some others might maybe start a side hustle.

Sometimes you might need money just to get you going to get you started, you might need some equipment. Maybe you need to go and invest money in the business up front. Sometimes the business that you started a year ago is going through some tough cash flow problems and you need an urgent cash injection. Whatever the reason you'll need to get that money from somewhere and if you're a small business raising funds can be stupidly, expensive, very difficult.

Very time consuming and a massive load of headache, i know because i've done it more than once and if you really do want to give it a proper go, sometimes you'll need to invest before you get a return. Now your pile of stocks in the investing portfolio is probably the perfect place to dip into for that now. Let's talk about the least popular of all of these options on this list managing a cash flow gap. As you move through life, you realize that it is a whole lot richer and much more complicated than you first thought when you were 21 and as you move through that life journey sometimes you'll decide to do things that you told yourself.

You would absolutely never do when you were younger or you'll change. Your perspective or you'll reach a new life stage. Things happen, you might want to change career and you might want to leave your cushy job in the city to one that pays you three times less, because you find it more fulfilling or maybe it gives you more time to spend with your kids. You might want to take a year off to go on a sabbatical.

Maybe you want to go traveling before you get to world. Some people might decide to hang up the gloves and retire. Maybe they want to retire early, and all of these types of situations are ones that you generally will be able to plan for, but they also probably will present a major cash flow problem. Money will suddenly stop coming into your bank account every month and you need to fill that gap with something and you can use your investment pot in two different ways here.

You can either draw down small chunks every month or whatever works by. You know selling bits of your portfolio, make your investments, pay you a sort of salary if you like, or you can choose to go a different route or maybe a mix of the two, and you can go and draw down a larger chunk up front and use It to get rid of some of the cash flows coming out of your bank account. You know things like debt, maybe you have large debt payments like mortgages or whatever, because in this situation you are solving for a different problem. Your problem is not at this point.

The rate of return, it is not to solve, for the maximum possible amount of money that you will make with your investments. Your problem here is cash flow management. So if you choose to do that, you might go and choose to make decisions that aren't perfect from an investing perspective, but maybe make you sleep that much better at night. Instead, if you found this video useful, please don't forget to smash the like button for the youtube algorithm.

Thank you so much for watching all the way through and as always i'll see you guys later, you.