It boggles my mind that so many people are complacent with wanting a return close to the average. If the average is negative then is that a good thing? No. People think the market will always go up -- but for the limited data that the stock market has been open there's less than 100 data points (years) to say with a 98% confidence level that the market will always go up.

If you've been averaging starting at the top of 2000 and putting the same amount of money in each month you'd be losing money right now 10 years later. You can say well I'm not retiring in 10 yrs and would be saving for 40 yrs. But that's 20% of the time which is a lost time opportunity of a decade.