I’m in my 20s and I’ve been slowly building up my portfolio over the past few years, and I now have around $100K through DCA and unrealized profits over time. I only invest in companies that I’m confident in long-term, and I’ve never sold any shares. My plan is to just buy and hold. I have no doubt that if I keep investing regularly, I’ll become a millionaire in my forties or fifties. However, this would only be on paper. So even if my portfolio does hit $1M, doesn’t that mean in terms of actual spending power I’ll be no better off than I am today unless I sell all my shares? I won’t actually be able to buy anything with my $1M portfolio unless I sell any shares. Of course one might argue that I could just take some small profits by selling 5% of my positions in a stock that’s gone up by a lot for example. But I would counter that unless I invested a ridiculously large sum of money, selling 5% of a position will not make me ‘rich’. For example if my portfolio grows to $1M and I want to buy a house for $1M, I’ll have to sell off all my shares and I’ll have to start from scratch again. Given the amount of time and effort it would take to grow a portfolio from zero to $1M from scratch, this hardly seems like a feasible solution. Am I being dumb or is this a legitimate concern?
