It’s the dawning of a new year and you finally have some money to invest. Perhaps you just got a raise. Or, maybe an end-of-year bonus is burning a hole in your pocket. Either way, you need to be smart about investing if you want those extra dollars to count.
The problem is, you have no clue where to invest your cash. While you’re aware of the myriad investing options available, the sheer number of possibilities is overwhelming.
In the investing world, this is called “paralysis by analysis.” You spend so much time analyzing your options that you wind up putting it off and never investing at all. And eventually, the extra cash you set aside gets consumed by bills or unexpected expenses. In other words, life happens
#1: The Stock Market
While “invest in the stock market” is some of the most basic advice you’ll ever read, please hear me out on this one. While everyone knows that investing in the stock market has historically paid off, there are far too many people who don’t trust the financial markets and choose to sit on the sidelines altogether.
Then there are people who think the stock market is so overvalued right now that they would be crazy to jump in. But, here’s the thing: Nobody is telling you to pour every extra cent you have into stocks. Instead, I’m suggesting you invest small sums of money over time using a method called “dollar cost averaging.”
Dollar cost averaging requires us to trickle our money into investments over any length of time. It could be 12 months. It would be 18 months. Heck, it could be five years.
Colorado financial advisor David Henderson of Jenkins Wealth goes further to explain how dollar cost averaging works: “When the market is high, you buy fewer shares and when the market is low you buy more shares,” he says. This means that, over time, you will have a lower average share price using this method. Obviously, it’s easy to see why this would be beneficial.
Now that we’ve talked about the importance of investing in the stock market, let’s talk about exactly where to invest your money. What are the best tools and vehicles we can use?
This is yet another situation where the options are overwhelming. Still, I typically suggest people get their feet wet with mutual funds or ETFs.
continue reading at https://www.forbes.com/sites/jrose/2018/01/05/best-investments-to-make/#3e3d53d4b72b