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A Vegemite sandwich

This article, by Justin Baiocchi, was originally published in The Northern Daily Leader on 11 February 2017.

When it comes to lunch at work, I’m a little bit old school, preferring to bring lunch to the office from home, rather than popping out to grab a sandwich from a shop or takeaway. It’s often a healthier choice and generally much cheaper too. One day last week I was particularly looking forward to lunch – the previous night’s dinner had been an Asian-style BBQ pork salad; a refreshing mix of chargrilled pork, fresh salads, garlic, chilli and coriander. A perfect dinner during the hot summer months. There were enough leftovers to cater for lunch the next day and Liz offered to make a sandwich with the leftovers for me to take to work. So you can imagine my sense of anticipation the next day when I sat down to eat my lunch while reading the Financial Review, as is my usual habit. You can also imagine my disappointment when I opened my lunch box to find only a sad looking Vegemite sandwich. To be fair, the lunchbox itself should have been a giveaway – it has been a long time since I demanded that my lunch was packaged in a Star Wars lunchbox.

As great as my disappointment was, I can only imagine how great was Jack’s surprise (at about the same time as I discovered my Vegemite sandwich) at finding his lunch was a delicious Asian-style BBQ pork salad sambo. No doubt his fellow classmates in Year 1 were impressed with Jack’s sophisticated palate. While most them were most likely also having a Vegemite or jam sandwich, Jack was on the cutting edge of Asian fusion style cuisine. Alas, I know for a fact that all he did was take two small bites out of the crust and politely returned the sandwich to his mum, along with the request that he never ever again be sent to school with such a disgusting lunch.

For my part, as I unenthusiastically ate my Vegemite sandwich, I reflected on the fact that this experience was not unlike that of investing. When you make an investment decision, what you get is not always what you expect. You may be expecting annual returns of 10% plus, but may find that the real outcome is something entirely different. As far as investing goes, the potential for disappointment in the outcome is part of the territory. Just as there are risks in getting someone else to make your lunch for you, there are risks in investing too. Unfortunately, what you end up with may not be so much gourmet, as garbage.