Smart Ways to Invest $10k

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So $10K has somehow found its way into your hot little hands and it’s burning a hole in your pocket… wait that’s mixing metaphors, sorry. Anyways you have ten grand and you’re wondering what to do with it, how should you invest it?

First things first and it’s what I tell everyone that asks me where they should invest this X thousands of money they suddenly find themselves in possession of. Here’s the thing GO LOOK AT THE INTEREST on those credit cards you’ve signed up to pay on for the rest of your life because you are NEVER going to find a sure thing investment that is going to pay the same rate of return as paying down or better yet, off one of your credit cards! So, at least consider doing that BUT if you do, cut that card in half and then burn it and never pick it up again! Because if you do paying it down or off was just a lie you were telling yourself. And those are the worst kind of lies that do the most damage!

You should also seek out the person or department at your company and make damn sure that you’re maxing out your 401(K) match! It’s like free money and if you’re not taking advantage of this FREE MONEY then nothing, I tell you here is gonna help. You’ll die poor and alone and one day when you least expect it, I’ll find you just so I can say “I TOLD YOU SO!”

Now if you’re still wanting to pick my brain as to where you should invest your newly gotten gains I have a few ideas so stick with me and maybe you’ll be a bit smarter when we get through this, deal?

If you are truly looking for a place to invest this new found money and you are fairly certain you can let it alone for at least five years then I’m going to point you to mutual funds as you have a wide variety of investments being made for you by the managers of the mutual fund you decide to cast your lot with. Basically, mutual funds are where a lot of people send money to a company where a group of really smart advisors or just one really smart guy decides what to invest in and then uses everyone’s money to buy the various stocks or bonds or trusts or whatever the guy or guys running the mutual fund decide they should invest in. You can move money in and out of mutual funds just like stocks but as you’re reading this it likely means NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK you are not as good at picking stocks as the guys managing billions of dollars! Also, keep in mind the thing you should do is continue to drop $50 or $100 a month in your mutual fund(s) set up so monthly amounts are automatically taken from your checking account to add to your funds. It’s called dollar cost averaging, trust me, just Google it. If you’re looking for a name check out Vanguard last I knew you could set up your investing by a target retirement date.

There is another way that I’d take a long hard look at. It’s the Robo Investment Advisor If you’d rather leave it all to 1’s and 0’s you need to take a look at Betterment. It almost takes care of everything for you! You can set it and if you’re really smart, forget it! Then Betterment goes to work for you on autopilot or “autoinvestthingy” reinvesting dividends and handling changes to your your positions it believes are the way to go. If you can do this and not screw with it EVERY day or week or month or year YOU WILL BE SURPRISED AT WHAT YOU END UP WITH AFTER 5 or 10 or 20 years! Want to retire early keep adding to the funds the 1’s and 0’s get to manage for you, the more you invest now the more years you’ll be able to retire early!

Bottom line when it comes to your investing the best day to start was the first day you went to work as an adult in your chosen field, the next best day is tomorrow! So, get it set up and then forget all about it it and with the magic of compounding you might just be surprised how quickly you become a really wealthy person and you can look back and thank Steve and send some cash my way. Yea, I know… God, I hate people that refer to themselves in the third person too I would’ve fixed it but I had already hit send and I couldn’t…

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