Investing In Your Interests

June 21st, 2007

When you first start investing, it’s a wise decision to first make a plan on exactly what type of investment you want to start.

Since there are a lot of investments you could make, there’s no point in putting your money into an investment that you really don’t care about in the least bit. Of course you probably won’t be in love with the investments, but you should at least be a tiny bit interested.

You should first figure out exactly what type of investment you’d like to make. Do you want to invest in a business? If so, online or offline? Or would you rather invest in something that you have to do pretty much no work for, such as a money manager?

Some of the options for investing in offline business include candy vending, franchises, brick-and-mortar business (such as a clothing shop), and buying existing businesses.

Online business investments can include things such as becoming an affiliate, building an information blog or website, wholesaling, starting an eBay business (which could also be considered offline), or even a mix of a few of them. For example my website is an information website, but I make money when other people click through my affiliate links as well.

For some reason some people have a problem with website owners making money by promoting products, but I’m not exactly sure why. I’m always glad to help someone make an extra buck.

There are other ways to invest that could be considered the “traditional” ways, such as investing in Real Estate, Stocks, Forex, Mutual Funds, or Tax Liens.

No matter what you’d like to invest in, you need to make sure that you have some type of interest in it. You’re going to be spending considerable amounts of time, especially in the beginning, in order to do well from these investments. Therefore you need to have the interest so you stay on top of your game and keep studying on how to make even more money.

Some are more passive than others, but I would suggest investing in something you care about more than something that’s purely passive.

Why Should You Be Interested In Your Investments?

If you aren’t interested at all in your investments, chances are that you’re going to either make almost no money or very little. You won’t put the needed research into it, stay on top of your financial statement, or really care what happens.

For example lets take 2 people:

Person A is a person who doesn’t want anything to do with their investments. They would rather have someone else such as a mutual fund company handle all their money for them. They start off with $10,000 to invest and invest it into a mutual fund. Since an average mutual fund returns about 8% per year, they receive $800 for the full year in returns. They did no work, but only made $800.

Person B also has $10,000 but they decide to go a different route. They first decide to purchase Site Build It for only $300 since they love talking about a subject they are interested in (maybe a hobby?) and want to share their knowledge. They work a few hours per week putting the website together, and by the end of the first year they have 100 pages on the website, making them about $400/month in income. Let’s pretend that throughout the whole year they’ve averaged $200/month, since they make nothing in the beginning and more towards the end.

Since they still have $9700 left to invest, they decide to put it into a stock account. They spend $200 and spend 2 months learning about stocks and how to make the right picks, so by the time they actually start using that money they’re down to $9500. Now since they’re knowledgeable and are managing their own money, they get a return of 20% for the year.

Breakdown At The End Of Year 1

Person A – $10,800 (8% return)

Person B – $11,400 from stocks. Another $2,400 from the website, and a continuing $400/month from the website which rises almost every month. Total – $13,800 (21% return)

Now that may not seem like much, but lets add that up for the next 10 years.

Person A – $22.196.40

Person B – If he invests that $400 per month and continues to average 20% per year returns on his stocks, his total will be an astonishing $ 221,993.84! It’s amazing how compound interest works isn’t it?

Of course an average person might not be able to see those types of returns, but if you’re focused on achieving financial independence and are willing to stick with something your interested in learning about, it’s definitely possible.

If you’re just starting out investing, please invest in something you’re interested in already or wouldn’t mind learning about. It’s always better to manage your own money rather than letting another person do it.

As of right now, I’m investing in my website ( I write about tea, which I love), and I just started to invest in candy vending, which I will officially start when I get back from vacation on the 31st. I’m also studying stocks which will be my next investment probably towards the end of the summer, and real estate will most likely follow that.

These are all areas of investing that I’m interested in and love to study because I know that for every new detail I study, it’s a chance to make me a better return.

Invest in something you’re interested in, and be willing to do a small amount of work in order to create yourself much higher returns on your money. It might only take a few small hours a week, but it’s well worth it!

As a little side note, I’m leaving for Myrtle Beach with my girlfriend and her family tomorrow so I won’t be able to post until I get back. I’ll probably post again around the first of July. Enjoy the next week!

Like The Post? Bookmark It!