Smart long-term investments?
From reading these "how to retire a millionaire" articles, I think I have most of the work down. I live frugally, do the little things like cook my own meals, etc. Starting now (age 18) I can easily stash $20 weekly for the long term, which will increase to $50 soon. I have all this stuff down and am probably in a good position, since I have no debt I'm trying to pay off or anything. So....what now? Annuities? Bonds? Should I seek advice from my banker? Someone told me I should take all my money and buy silver, another person said I should invest in Europe (I have family in London so it could work) because of the sinking dollar. I'm not looking for a quick profit from the hottest stocks, I want a place where I can put aside money, know that it's working for me (albeit slowly), and not worry about it for maybe 50 years. I guess I would benefit more from answers on how to find my way through the world of personal finance like "Here, read this book" than "stocks!!"
Public Comments
- Please keep a long-term investment strategy, and you will become wealthy, only at a slow, SAFE pace. Your first option should be to fund fully a retirement account. If you do this, and you have extra cash, then one of the best things you can do is open a DRIP Plan. They are seldom talked about because brokers make very little money when they suggest them. Yet, they have proven to be one of the best, if not the best, long-term strategy on Wall Street. They are perfect for small investors, as well as big investors. They are safe and allow you to not care about whether the market is going up or down. There are other investment vehicles, such as mutual funds and precious metals, etc........but in my opinion, these two Plans I have listed for you are excellent long-term strategies that are inexpensive to start and maintain. Good Luck
- if you don't want the "HoTTest" thing to invest... stay away from Precious Metals like Gold, Silver, etc... those are all hedges against the falling dollar and inflation, traditionally. They are hotter than a hot potato right now. Annuities and Bond are great tax deferred vehicles... but their rate of return is slightly higher than a bank's saving account. At least you don't have to worry about taxes. Land and real estates requires more money(the actually parcels) but great because you need a place to stay anyway. Stocks are good to accumulate during bad times and sell it during good times... do you consider this is a bad time? In conclusion, even the best of the best - diversifies. buy a lot of different things... sometimes holding cash is not a bad thing... just not 100%. Goto the financial websites, read Warren Buffet's book and stay focus.
- Standard investment advice is that you should invest in a diversified mix of stocks, bonds, and money market funds. If you are like most people you will invest part of your money aggressively in stocks, and part conservatively in money market funds and bond funds. Vanguard has an on-line questionnaire which will give you an idea of how to do "Asset Allocation," determining how much to put in each type of fund. You want to buy a diversified portfolio of stocks as individual stocks are too risky. Highly knowleadgable people can buy a properly balanced portfolio, but most folks have a difficult time balancing things on their own. They will misbalance their portfolio by buying all small stocks or all growth stocks, or some other misbalanced assortment of stocks. Back in 2000, Some people bought all internet stocks; they got burnt when they all crashed together. You have to diversify across industries. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best to buy mutual funds. I like Vanguard.com, other people like Fidelity, TIAA-CREF, and DFA. Buy no-load, low cost funds. If your company offers a 401K plan at work, try to invest the most you can. The money grows tax free, and some companies will match your contribution. Investing in a mutual fund IRA is also a good idea. I like index funds. Because of their broad diversification, you are less likely to have a dramatic drop in value. They also have the lowest expenses. For stock funds, I would suggest putting ~70-80% of your money in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. and ~20-30% in a foreign stock index fund. Unfortunately, these funds have a minimum investment of 3,000 dollars, which make them out of your range currently. T Rowe Price has some funds with lower minimum investments. There are many different opinions out there on what the best mutual funds are. Read the links below and form your own opinion. You should have 3-6 months of salary saved up as an emergency fund in a bank or money market fund before trying more risky investments. I am not a great fan of annuities, but that is a whole other discussion. Silver is very speculative. You can make a lot or lose a lot. Believing advice you get on Yahoo answers can be risky, so read these websites for further information. If you find it too confusing, contact a professional financial advisor at a bank. They will charge you significant commissions, however. Sources: http://www.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/planningeducation http://www.fool.com/school.htm http://sec.gov/investor/pubs/assetallocation.htm http://www.diehards.org/readsites.htm http://finance.yahoo.com/education/begin_investing http://finance.yahoo.com/funds/basics Asset Allocation Calculators (Determining how much to put in stocks and how much into bonds and money markets is a personal decision depending on your financial status. These Asset Allocation questionaires give you a rough idea how to do this. I like Vanguard best, but try some of the other sites as well.) https://personal.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/FundsInvQuestionnaire?cbdInitTransUrl=https%3A//flagship.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/planningeducation/education https://ais2.tiaa-cref.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects.exe/DTAssetAlcEval http://www.ifa.com/SurveyNET/index.aspx Web forum: http://www.diehards.org/ (Many investment web forums are overrun by scam artists. This one seems the most legitimate site.)
