Long term, simple, passive investment plan for all markets

If you are looking for a way to save long term, without worrying about guessing what the market is going to do, take a look at the Permanent Portfolio plan of Harry Browne. You spread your long term investment money over only 4 asset classes. This is self directed using brokerage/bank account

I helped members of my family put this together years ago and even through 2008 financial crisis, it didn't make a dent. Steady growth.

Here is a good overview of what it is and how to do it:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-portfolio-for-all-seasons-2013-07-19?...

--You can do it based on what is posted in that link. It is simple.

Consider however, Harry Browne is dead and if you should buy the PDF it helps support his widow. It is cheap, and goes into some of the deeper nuances and considerations of why and how it works, so you can have more confidence in it.  Also, depending on your level of net worth, you may consider more extreme ways to diversify overseas, which this discusses.  It also addresses the common pitfalls of the tendency to try and predict or listen to gurus telling you the "next thing to buy".  This removes any need to guess about anything. 

pdf here

http://trendsaction.com/books/HarryBrowne/FailSafeInvesting/

contents of pdf

http://trendsaction.com/books/HarryBrowne/FailSafeInvesting/content.php?...

On a separate note, I strongly advise everyone to keep some cash on hand in case there is a liquidity crisis. The Western Financial System is insolvent and a banking crisis could cause you to lose ability to access cash and credit in the banking system for some time.. Having cash on hand for that scenario is prudent. Some in fringe European countries (Greece, Cyprus) serve as examples of how the average person can really suffer from this.