If you’re like the majority of Americans, you understand the importance of investing your money, but you don’t know where to put your money.
Most people who do investment end up putting all their money into a single investment. This is one of the worst things you can do for your finances.
Every professional investment manager is going to tell you the same thing: diversify, diversify, diversify.
If you’re looking for some quick and simple ways to spread out your investments, you’ve come to the right place. There are thousands of options, but not all of them are wise. Here are some of the easiest ways you can safely diversify your portfolio.
Peer-to-Peer
There are millions of people who need loans. There are also millions of people who have money they can lend.
Peer-to-peer lending has never been easier. There are plenty of websites which bring those two groups of people together. Sites like Lending Club have made it as simple as a few mouse clicks.
After you’ve created your Lending Club account (which shouldn’t take long), you can browse through all of the available investment options, and then put as little as $25 into those investments.
The site lets you sift through the opportunities based on the amounts or the risk. They give you plenty of info to make wise choices. This allows you to get a mixture of higher risk investments and less risky opportunities.
REITs
Real estate can give you some of the best returns, but it also has some of the highest risks. It can also require a lot of work.
If you want to be involved, you’re going to have to manage tenants, set up repairs, receive rent, and much more.
Thankfully, there are some less-involved options for real estate investors, REITs. Real estate investment trusts are giant pools of investors or bring all their cash together to buy buildings. You don’t have to worry about any of the day-to-day grind. You can just watch your investments make you cash while you relax.
Fundrise is the first-choice for many beginner investors who want to put money in real estate. It’s easy to use and makes it simple, even for someone who has never invested before.
Robo-Advisors
Why do all of your retirement investing when you don’t have to? The internet has completely changed our lives. It’s also changed how we invest our money.
You don’t have to hire an expensive professional portfolio manager anymore. Now you can use a robo-advisor.
There are sites which use advanced algorithms based on your money and risk preferences to invest your money in a variety of locations.
There is no shortage of robo-advisor choices, but one of the most popular is Betterment investing. They boast some impressive ROIs and allow you to get almost instant diversification.
Sure, you can spend hours pouring over spreadsheets and financial statements to decide on your investments. Or you can go with the easier option – let robots do it for you.
When you get started with Betterment or one of the sites, you’ll have to answer a handful of questions. These questions are going to revolve around your finances, personal info, and your investment goals.
As your investments make money, Betterment will continue to reinvest your money and change up the investments as you get closer to your financial goals.
Precious Metals
If you’re looking for another simple way to diversify your investments, put some money into precious metals.
You probably think of gold when you think of investments, but gold isn’t your only option. There are several kinds of precious metals and various ways you can invest in them.
If you want to invest in metals, you can buy bars, coins, options, ETFs, or just jewelry. A lot of investors prefer to invest in physical forms of metals because it seems more secure.
High-Yield Savings
Are you looking for a way to trim down the risk of your portfolio? Putting your money in a savings account has almost zero risk.
Most people don’t consider savings accounts as investments. The vast majority of banks have extremely low-interest rates.
There are a lot of banks which are changing the way we look at savings accounts. Most of these are online savings accounts, meaning there is no brick and mortar location you can go to.
Without the building and overhead costs, they are able to offer much better interest rates to their customers.
You won’t make a ton of money by letting your money sit in a savings account, but why not earn as much as possible. Don’t let you much just collect dust, make it do some work for you.
Diversifying Your Portfolio
It might seem like a big deal, but you never want to have all of your eggs in one basket. If something awful were to happen to that investment, whatever it is, you would lose all of your cash.
If you’re saving for retirement, like most people, you want to have a comfortable retirement, and the investments you choose are going to get you there. Motley Fool recommendations can give you an extra boost.
These are some of the easiest and best ways to spread out your investments to protect your finances. You don’t need to have a finance degree to make wise investments.
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