Dollar Cost Averaging
A method for long term investing often touted by the mutual funds is Dollar Cost Averaging.

With this approach you invest a fixed sum on a regular schedule. You must hang on for a long time, at least 10 years, and some suggest that more volatile mutual funds are suited for this type of investment method since the stock or mutual fund will fluctuate more and at some points you will get a bargain.

Benefits with Dollar Cost Averaging
The good thing is that you buy more shares when prices are low and fewer when they are high. It takes emotions out of investing.

This method is good when you are saving money since you don’t have everything you will be investing at the start. But if you have all the money at the start there are some argue that the Dollar Cost Averaging will not beat the market, since the long term trend is up the best time to invest is now and all the money should be invested now. By using Dollar Cost Averaging you will lose the upward drift on the money not invested and this is more likely than the positive return from stocks bought during periods of low prices.