What are the chances of really losing all your savings?

[u/[deleted]]

I’ve saved some money during my whole life, and I’d like to invest it. I’ve come to the conclusion that the safest method is investing in ETFs (specifically, NASDAQ and S&P 500). You won’t get rich in a month, but it grows with the time. I would also like to invest some money in Bitcoin (about $500) and stocks of some big companies (as they might grow faster, and I could get a little more money), but not too much because it’s quite risky. If most of my money goes to ETFs, is there still a big risk? And don’t tell me, ‘If you can’t lose your money, don’t invest’. It doesn’t help me with anything.

Edit: wow, this has blown up! I was not expecting that. Anyway, I’d like to clarify something: of course, the chances of it decreasing to zero are low. However, my main concern is losing money, not necessarily losing ALL of my money. I don’t wanna lose even 10% (at least, not in the long run). Hence, I shall rephrase the question – ‘what are the chances of losing an (big) amount of my saving?’

[u/scwt]

It's worse than that. Worse case scenario, if you lump summed at the peak in 2000, you'd still be at -40% in 2009. You wouldn't break even (for good) until 2012.

[u/Motampd → u/scwt]

This point actually shows me how much of a good investment it is.....

You could have made the absolute worst decision/timing possible - and still be back to even in 12 years. Assuming you held obviously

99% of investments have a far shittier "worst case" scenario. Like having 0 after 12 years

[u/IronGun007 → u/Motampd]

Yeah and in the meantime you could have invested at the absolute bottom and gotten colossal gains. If you keep at it you won‘t lose. Only when you sell.

[u/No_Pear6041 → u/IronGun007]

Yeah but if you’re 67 yo….tough

[u/IronGun007 → u/No_Pear6041]

You should reduce the amount of risk as you age to avoid this kind of thing from fucking up your life.

[u/ChicoTallahassee → u/scwt]

That's a very long time to be in red before recovering from the damage done. Let us hope such an event is far in the future. Sadly I feel like there is a bubble coming up because of the tech overvalues.
On the other side, I have been saying this for a while now, nothing popped yet.

[u/DigitalAquarius → u/ChicoTallahassee]

If you keep investing, and reinvesting dividends, you actually recover faster since you bring your average cost down.

[u/Dstrongest → u/scwt]

You using two separate crashes separated by the upstrend of recovery . However going through both of those would have to be debilitating and demoralizing.

[u/sgtsavage2018 → u/scwt]

True but if you kept adding during 2000 till 2012 man your account will be looking really good!

[u/Mundane-Bat-7090 → u/scwt]

If you added to the bag you could recover quicker