Investing Outside The Stock Market

[marla]

What are some common places to invest money outside the stock market that you have placed your money that you felt was better than the stock market?

[PauletteGoddard]

Energy efficient heating for the house.
Foreign currencies.
Buying in bulk.
My house. Even with a projected 29% correction it's a great return, especially having a fixed rate mortgage in an inflationary environment.

[Broken Arrow]

I basically agree with Paulette. Often times, you can get better net returns by reducing your liabilities rather than investing money (but not always). Such is the power of frugality. Of course, we should all be doing both.

[willowstudios]

Prosper.com - I'm getting on average a 16-17% return on my money.

Invest in things you know about and have a passion for...that's the key.

[disneysteve]

Well, there is always gold and other metals, but I invest in them through a mutual fund which holds stocks of gold and mineral producers, so that is still technically a stock investment. It is having a banner year, though, up over 40% YTD.

I have also previously invested money in my own business, selling collectibles on ebay. I don't do it much anymore, but when I was actively selling, I was routinely selling items for 10 to 20 times what I paid for them and sometimes as much as 100 times my cost. I guess that was better than the stock market.

[Scanner]

In short, you can reduce investments to 2 sectors:

1. Equity sector
2. Debt sector

Equity Sector is stocks, real estate, commodities, collectibles.

Debt Sector is savings accounts, bonds, treasuries, muni bonds, and real estate liens.

You'll find interesting risks and rewards with each sector.

What do I feel has done better than the stock market? Nothing. My owning in silver has been on a great run the last 2 weeks but it hasn't outpaced my international fund.

Maybe our house but that's a hard call since we pay $8000 per year in property tax.

[shizane101]

As willowstudios stated, Prosper.com might be something you can look at. However, I'd really check it out before you jump. What I'm having a hard time with is understanding how we as individuals are better equipped to understand risk / reward than a lending institution. That's what's kept me from jumping in, but I have heard of people doing pretty well there.

[disneysteve]

What I'm having a hard time with is understanding how we as individuals are better equipped to understand risk / reward than a lending institution.

I think the point is that individuals will have a different risk tolerance than banks. A bank isn't going to take a chance on a bad credit risk. They aren't in the gambling business. Plus there are rules and regulations that they need to abide by in their lending practices.

You and I, however, aren't governed by those rules and regulations. We can lend money to anybody we want to.

[Ingtar17]

You could purchase a rental property and let someone else pay the mortgage on it. If you do it right, you can make a LOT of money this way.

[disneysteve]

Is it too late to ask Disney Steve about his Mutual Fund? If he doesn't mind....40% WOW I would love returns like that

It isn't too late to ask, but it might be too late to see those kinds of returns. Our gold fund, OPGSX, is up 31.16% YTD and 47.25% for the year ended 9/30/07. I keep hearing talk of gold hitting $1,000/ounce so there may still be some life left in the gold rally, but the big run up is probably done.

[bjl584]

I commonly buy and sell things of value to make some extra money. Cars, boats, pretty much anything that I can buy at a good price and then turn and sell at a profit in a minimal amount of time.

[Marketiva]

What are some common places to invest money outside the stock market that you have placed your money that you felt was better than the stock market?

According to my opinion the Forex market is better than the stock market.
Did you hear anything about this?

[Duchesse]

I basically agree with Paulette. Often times, you can get better net returns by reducing your liabilities rather than investing money (but not always). Such is the power of frugality. Of course, we should all be doing both.

I'm with Paulette and broken arrow on this one. Real Estate, debtlessness, and frugality historically has not been beaten, in good times and bad.

[Broken Arrow]

According to my opinion the Forex market is better than the stock market.
Did you hear anything about this?

Forex is also extremely risky. Dollars is Dollars, Pounds is Pounds, and Yen is Yen... so they don't have the same kind of diversification that you could get with typical stock or bond funds.

Plus, because the dollar is weak right now, your buying power (for us Americans) is already greatly reduced before you even get to worry about performance.

And speaking of performance, I don't think any other currency is underperforming as much as the dollar is right now (though I could be wrong). Which I think makes the dollar in general a strong buy.

Well, is you're American, guess what? You're already sitting on those Dollars. You have what everybody else is trying to buy.

I don't think Forex is a bad idea if it meets the following two conditions:

1. Your currency is strong (which is the Dollar for me)
2. It is a part of a diversified portfolio

But again, that's just my personal opinion. Please take it for what it's worth.

[Aleta]

Not paying 16% in interest (indebtedness) is a great return on your money.
Buying items that are on sale in bulk.

Comparison shopping on items. If you can save 20 to 30%, that's a pretty good return.

Saving your money from your store coupons and putting it to work for you in any investment you wish.

Spend less than you earn.


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