What to Invest In? Need some Help!

[apw122 10+ year member]

Stock picking is difficult at best even with experience. You should stick to relatively basic investments. Open up either an IRA or a Roth IRA, with a good Mutual Fund company. Start a systemic savings plan, putting in for example $100 per month, rebalance at least once a year, and watch it grow. As for having a 401k with a match, thats not a given at the moment and even if the future it is still a good idea to have an IRA where you have more control and choice of investments that with the traditional 401k. If this all seems like too much talk to friends and family, see if they have or know of a good respectable financial advisor in your area who can help you out.

 

[crunktimes.com 5,000+ posts]

I am not sure what you mean by 'we' want to invest but seeing this is your GF I would keep your things separate which will only make it easy to break it off when/if you guys split up.

 

[texasound82 10+ year member]

find something that interests you... then read 10 books on that subject before you start. if it's the stock market... there are plenty of ways to setup fake portfolios to see how you do. If it's real estate... just start small, and slow. good luck.

 

[Flipx99 5,000+ posts]

Stock picking is difficult at best even with experience. You should stick to relatively basic investments. Open up either an IRA or a Roth IRA, with a good Mutual Fund company. Start a systemic savings plan, putting in for example $100 per month, rebalance at least once a year, and watch it grow. As for having a 401k with a match, thats not a given at the moment and even if the future it is still a good idea to have an IRA where you have more control and choice of investments that with the traditional 401k. If this all seems like too much talk to friends and family, see if they have or know of a good respectable financial advisor in your area who can help you out.

great advice.

Except I would have chose the word systematic.

I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. My job matches 100% up to 5% contribution so that's an automatic 100% return on investment and any gains I make are just icing on the cake. Although the investment choices are limited, the OP would probably be best in in a target retirement date fund (life cycle funds).

I wish my employer would adopt a Roth 401(k), as that would be best IMO.

 

[apw122 10+ year member]

typo, sorry

 

[WillyG4444 10+ year member]

Thanks for all the replies. Helping me out. As for my gf, we'd be married already but once we tie the knot, our parents expect us to be living on our own, paying our own insurance, blah blah blah. So, it's cheaper as of now to live the way we are. What I mean by "me and my gf investing together" is we have our separate accounts yeah, but we combine a lot of our savings from jobs into CDs and such.

I know a lot of people say that's a bad idea, but we know each other more than well enough to know that we aren't going to screw each other over.

 

[dbman150 5,000+ posts]

Thanks for all the replies. Helping me out. As for my gf, we'd be married already but once we tie the knot, our parents expect us to be living on our own, paying our own insurance, blah blah blah. So, it's cheaper as of now to live the way we are. What I mean by "me and my gf investing together" is we have our separate accounts yeah, but we combine a lot of our savings from jobs into CDs and such.
I know a lot of people say that's a bad idea, but we know each other more than well enough to know that we aren't going to screw each other over.

i said the same thing 10 years ago when i started my first company small landscaping and the girl i was with took me for 15,000 dollars in a weeks time

 

[Tiger Bass 5,000+ posts]

I scanned through the thread and a couple things that would be useful to know would be...

-How much principle do you currently have to invest? (Initial investment)

-How long do you want to invest it for?

-Are you looking for a stable investment to gain marginal increases or a risky one that will net a large gain?

-Do you want your investment to have the ability of being quickly liquidated?

-What do you want to do with this investment and what is it for?

 

[WillyG4444 10+ year member]

I scanned through the thread and a couple things that would be useful to know would be...
-How much principle do you currently have to invest? (Initial investment)

-How long do you want to invest it for?

-Are you looking for a stable investment to gain marginal increases or a risky one that will net a large gain?

-Do you want your investment to have the ability of being quickly liquidated?

-What do you want to do with this investment and what is it for?

Well, the initial investment would be about 25K.

I don't like having my money tied up for a LONG time, but I'd like to yield a decent amount of interest or what not, so as short as possible to get a good gain.

It's not really going towards anything in the near future, I just want to start investing in something now, and keep gaining interest. I'm into real estate and fixing up houses, so more than likely years from now it will go towards fixing up a house and selling it.

 

[hollowpoint 10+ year member]

if your going to invest in stocks, invest in a couple not just one incase one of them does horrible the chances of evening out are better. Right now the market isnt at its best but in a month or two that will change, CDs right now are the best, safe, insured(up to 100,000 of course) so maybe put it in a short term low interest rate and wait till the market picks up

also fixing up houses and anything with real estate is a very bad choice IMO at the moment

 

[WillyG4444 10+ year member]

I agree, that's why I said in a few years =P. I'm in the process of getting my real estate license though, and making some good contacts. Houses around me go for about 600K to a couple mil. My brother works in real estate here, so I should raking in some pretty good money soon. I guess I'll keep putting the money into CDs like I've been doing.

 

[hollowpoint 10+ year member]

Ohh must of missed that part but yeah, I know in NJ its semi ok here for real estate right now, but to fix up a house and sell it just really isnt worth it unless you have plenty to spare. I dont like having my money somewhere that I cant get to it for a long time like you also but I had to factor in that its for the best with a CD. Right now CDs is the best I think. To read up on some resource I subscribed to Smartmoney since I have stock but the website even for non subscribers is pretty good as in news and how to invest and all that jazz you might need. I recommend to take a look