Safe Places to Invest Your Hard Earned Money

You have worked long and hard for your money and want to stay ahead of inflation and the bills. In today's economy it is often hard to find "safe" investment places to keep your money. Here are my suggestions for a healthy "nest egg". Real Estate, even in light of the real estate slump it is still the best investment around, provided you know what you are doing. You must realize that everyone has to live somewhere. With real estate you have to be either a landlord or just buy your own home and plan on paying it off to really make a head way in today's economy. The people that are making money in real estate are not the ones that have loans on the property but own it outright. If you own the property outright with no loans you are making money by having money freed up by not paying rent or a mortgage. That leaves more money to stash away in other investments.

Some of the safest places to put money is of course the local bank, savings and loans and credit unions. The CD's that those institutions offer are sometimes great deals to look into. Keep in mind that there is a $100K limit on accounts for them to be protected under Federal insurance from insolvency.

Life insurance policies are an untapped source of investment. Some life insurance policies have the option of being able to be borrowed against. Those same types of policies also earn interest at high rates. My husband has one that we have not only borrowed from but have earned 8% interest on per year. The more we put into it the more it will grow. Those types of policies are not always guaranteed so you need to look into the fine print of each individual policy.

Investing in stocks and bonds can be risky but certain types of stocks can provide a "safe" investment. The safest stocks are utilities and government backed bonds. They have proven over time to not only to stay ahead of the pace of inflation but have a good track record of being safe for the cautious investor.

Now for some of the lesser known and sometimes off the wall investments:

Autographs are not only a good investment but are interesting to collect. Some famous people have very collectible autographs because they rarely give them out. Other autographs such historical ones are rare because there are very few examples of them still in existence. You can either collect historical autographs or modern day ones. This is the type of investment that you should not get attached to because the only way you can cash in on it is to sell the autograph to make good on your investment. There will be 2 requirements for this type of investment, a safe deposit box and to have your collection insured.

Old magazines, yes old magazines can be a gold mine. For example I use to be a horse crazy teen and since owning a horse when I was a child was out of the question I bought horse magazines - lots of them through the years. Move ahead 25 years and now some of those magazines are very collectible. About 6 months ago there was a new interest in the racehorse Ruffian. I happen to have several magazines that had feature stories on the filly. I put them on eBay and each one brought over $50+.

Be cautious about collecting items as an investment. We all know what happened to the TY Beanie toys, the bottom fell out of the market. They may in time come back to a valuable status but probably not for at least another 10 years. For toys and dolls to be considered a valuable item they should be at least over 30 years old so the TY Beanies have some time to go yet.

If you decide on collecting a type of toy, fine china figurines, or other modern day manufactured item then you must get your collection insured and fully documented. Contact your tax consultant because it is possible that maintaining your collection such as insurance premiums, safes and appraisals are tax deductible.

Keep in mind that in order for any investment to be successful you should not be paying more to maintain that investment than the investment is worth. That would put many high priced collectible cars out of being a good investment.

What ever you decide to invest in, to keep up and surpass inflation, just make sure you fully investigate that investment first.