I won 1800 dollars this weekend in Atlantic City!!
After the couple of needed expenditures, my wife and I are hoping to maybe invest 1000 - 1500 dollars. I have never invested any money before. What would be a good investment that would make us some money and isn’t too risky?
Also, it would be ideal if this investment could be used in a year or so towards a down payment on a house, so I guess it cant be too long term…or at least not penalize us for taking out money.
Thanks!
I was going to recommend vanguard.com, but since you need it in a year try a certificate of deposit at your bank.
Send the money to:
Shirley Ujest Investment Opportunities of a Lifetime!!11!!
12 Daffodil Lane
Shangri La Trailer Park
Thurston, Texas
No checks or money orders.
I think you should seek the advice of a professional financial adviser rather than an internet forum.
Buy 1,800 one-dollar scratch-and-win lottery tickets. Scratch off about 5 a day for the next year or so.
CD’s baby.
Or pot.
The first thing to do is pay down any debit you might have. You basically get the interest on whatever you pay off as a return. For example, if your Credit Card has 15% interest, paying off $1500 of the CC debit now saves you that 15%. Pay off the highest interest rate debt first but be sure to check to see if there are any early pay penalites on loans.
If you are debt free then the next thing to do would probably be to create an account with a broker, I use Schwab and love’em, and then do dollar cost averaging. A note about dollar cost averaging, one fo the big bonuses with the method that is not meantioned in the article I linked to is the fact that it gets people to regularly invest, which is important.
I can’t think of any short term investments that would make sense for that amount of money. If you really need it in a year a CD is probably the way to go.
This is a decent read on what to do for new investors. This has a fairly good explination on debt and when to pay off the debt verses investing.
Slee
If you need the money within a year, don’t go for anything riskier than a CD. You could open a high-interest savings account with somebody like ING though. It won’t pay quite as much interest as a CD, but you have free access to your money.
Yep, a CD.
I have had good luck with a bond fund. But even that carries small risk over the short term, and with the current interest rate changes, it doesn’t look like a good investment for the next short term.
Simple way to double your money in no time:
Go back to A.C. next weekend. Find a roulette table, and put the whole load on Red. Bam! 3600 big ones! It’s perfect! What could go wrong?
How about the MacTech Offshore Retirement Fund?
I hear there is a guy from Nigeria trying to find someone who wants millions of dollars and I think he would talk to you if you send him the money…
But having gone through the new house purchase story 7 years ago, I too suggest trying to clean up any credit glitches you might now have. I don’t mean the usual credit card, but get your credit report and find all of those silly things you didn’t even know where there! I had some credit dings for things I had nothing to do with - $35 AT&T mobile phone bill (never had one of their phones) and a few other oddball debts. One was real - for under $60 and I paid it off. But get rid of all of those little “dings” on your credit and it will make a world of difference when it comes time to getting a home loan. And if you do have any extra, paying down those credit cards is not a bad idea, or pre-paying your electric/heating bill could make your life easier in the coming months.
Good luck on the purchase of future house! It is a pain to go through the process, but worth it in the long run.
Play some poker.
$500 each on Jerry Kelly ($9), Rod Pampling ($17) and Johnathan Kaye ($26) to place in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.
Sleestak is right about paying down debts first. You will earn the interest rate on the debt, guaranteed, assuming you intend to pay them off. That rate is higher than you’ll ever get for any safe investment. Barring that, I agree with the CD idea. I invested part of our house downpayment in some short term bond funds and a year later all I had to show for it was $1 in interest for each time I checked the damn thing to see where the price was. Way too much headache for the return, and I still had some of my money at risk. A CD is pretty much guaranteed return, fixed time frame, no muss no fuss. Just be sure you don’t pick too long a time frame, getting the money out early is bad news. And don’t forget about it, I think the bank rolls them over into new short term CDs if you don’t touch them, that could lock up your money for a bit.
$1,500 isn’t really enough to do anything esoteric or fancy, you’ll use up your earnings on transaction fees.
Yeah, get a professional financial advisor for your $1500. The cost in lost time gasoline driving there will take about 1% right off the top, another 10% for his fee, and another 1% driving home. I hope he has an investment for the OP that will return about 20% on the remaining money, risk free, because that would end up being the equivalent of what he coudl get in a T-Note.
Anyway, if you can’t afford to lose money, a CD is as good as anything.
You could also open an account at “Treasurydirect.gov”. You can buy T-Bills direct from the government. They’ll transfer the money right out of your checkign account. You can buy a 26-week T-Bill, but after that, you can’t buy one for a shorter term than 2 years (that’s a T-note). They’re not going to give you much interest if you only lend it to them for 26 weeks, though. They’re essentially risk-free, but don’t come running to me if the government of the US defaults on it’s loans to you. I think you need to buy them in $1000 increments.
But, the best idea, if you have debt, is to pay off that debt. Because that’s guaranteed return on the money.
Wait…is that sarcasm I hear…?
Through the drips…most respectable financial advisors want to deal with a lot more money than $1500. You can certainly find someone who will gladly sell you a high load mutual fund and take his commissions, but that isn’t a financial advisor, that is a salesman - and at the end of that transaction, you will have less money than you started with and would have been better off with a mason jar and a shovel.
As said above, pay down your debt first.
But my second suggestion would be to invest in yourself: $1,500 can pay for some career-advancing classes at various schools and community colleges. It can also just pay for books and/or online courses. Make yourself better, then at your next review tell them about what you have done and you might see a nice raise. Or, you could look for another job, include said training on your resume, and get a better starting salary. I have no clue where you are in your career, but it could be a smart decision for you to make yourself a better person.
-Tcat
Yep, if you definitely want it back in a year and thus have little to no tolerance for risk, CDs are the way to go. Don’t expect much of a return, though, with interest rates as low as they are. Bank of America’s web site lists the rate on a 1-year CD at 1.8%, giving you a cool $27 at year end. You could use it to buy a pizza the night you move into your new house. 
Mrs. Giraffe and I are saving for a house as well, although with the housing prices out here being completely insane we don’t expect to buy for a few years at least, so we have a higher tolerance for risk. We currently invest in Vanguard index funds: an S&P 500 index fund (VFINX), a small cap index fund (NAESX) and an international fund (VGTSX). We would mix in a bond fund for added diversity/stability except, as Dangerosa noted, the current interest rates seem to indicate it is a poor short-term investment. I highly recommend this as a savings approach if for no other reason than it’s fun to have a “portfolio”, which you can check several times a day. (“Sweet! I just made a cool $2!”)
Wow, that’s surprising. I definitely recommend an ING Direct savings account then - currently it pays 3.8% risk-free, and your money isn’t locked in the way it would be with a CD.