I will start my series of blogs with the list of Investments that I would recommend to young professionals, fresh graduates or even to those in their thirties who are willing to take measures of achieving financial freedom so they can retire early.
1. First in the list is Knowledge - spending four, five, six years through college to get a degree is tough and exhausting. Normally, after graduation we immediatelt shift our focus on job searching to start earning some serious money because we want to return the favor to our parents as it is what we are trained for in college, to become an employee and be part of a system. Sad to say, not everybody gets their dream job, some might get hired for something not aligned to their chosen profession, while some find it difficult to get a job at all. But having said that, I never fully agreed with some so called experts, life coaches and influencers that getting a college education is a waste of time. No, for me its not, you need to learn something and earn a degree to have an advantage early in life. But I do agree that college education is not enough to achieve financial prosperity. After your college graduation you will be only on your early twenties so there are still a lot of years ahead of you to invest in knowledge and learning some skills by reading books, attending some trainings and seminars, watching and listening to podcasts about money, business and life. The young generation is very lucky nowadays to have every information they need within reach which is practically at the end of their fingertips, so there is no excuse not to gather as much knowledge as you can that'll get you more prepared in the future.
2. Experience - people in their late forties and above fifties who were trapped in the rat race surely wants to get out of their comfort zone and do something better to drastically improve their lives so that they can retire earlier. Imagine doing the same thing over and over again for 20 to 30 years of their adult lives living paycheck to paycheck where majority is used to pay bills and taxes. You young people wouldn't want to do that, but getting a regular job to gain experience from day 1 is a good start. I'm not talking about the "experience" to pad up your resume. I'm talking about real hands on experience. For example you are a professional nurse hired in a medium sized private clinic, instead of just going to work fulfilling your 8 to 5 duty, why don't you try to learn process on how to run the business. Find time to volunteer on assisting the accountant and the marketing guy in order to give you the feeling on how they do their thing. Maximize the time to learn the system while you are inside the organization so once you are out, you will get more other than just the separation pay.
3. Health - this is the most important among what's on the list. How can you enjoy the fruits of your investment if you are sick? Or you might enjoy some of it but for a short time only because you neglected the importance of being healthy during your youth. Also, what is the point of hustling when on the remaining years of your life you will spend your hard earned money on hospital bills and medicine to keep you alive. So, while you're still young invest on a healthy lifestyle by doing regular exercise, going to the gym regularly, pay a fitness instructor to give you a regimen. Avoid the excess of everything. Go to the beach and climb a mountain more often. Most importantly, avoid addictive vices such as alcohols, cigarettes and drugs. If you care about your future, the best time to act is now.
4. Stock Market - finally, a true investment vehicle on the list. For me, this is the most viable side hustle that young professionals can do even while working for a company. You can choose the cost averaging method or the long term investment option wherein you buy stocks (or ownership) of blue chip companies with regular amount of money for a regular amount of time. You just sit and watch your money grow. Its a low risk high reward option but it takes some time to get the reward. When you hear experts say its best to start investing while you're e young, they are most likely referring to this type of investment. You can also do hardcore trading it is "buying when low and selling s
(Stocks) while high. But this is a high risk high reward option. It requires some amount of skills that you can master if you give yourself some time to study the science of trading as well as the technical and fundamental aspects of any company listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) that you want to buy. Not so long ago, it was a common perception that the stock market is only for the rich, but now thanks to modern technology and some online brokers who made stock trading very practical and handy. If you want to learn the basics of stock trading and cost averaging, go to www.colfinancial.com, you can also sign up with www.investigrams.ph where you can engage with people who are into stock trading.
5. Business - Avoid those "get rich quick scheme" offers that you see everywhere these days. Those scammers are so sophisticated that they can make you believe that their business is legitimate, in the end, these schemes will siphon all your money into oblivion. At my age of 45, I have seen these get rich quick and ponzi schemes disguised as multi level marketing (MLM) come and go every generation because once people realize that they're fraud they will immediately disappear like a bubble and they'll come back to scam the next generation. So I recommend you to have your own legitimate business. The number one reason is that when you run your own business you will surely want to get your hands dirty with all the hard work not only because you put your own money in it but because its your baby. You would want to learn all the process and system first hand and you will be obliged to focus on the business to ensure its success. But having a business is a high risk low reward type of investment. I am putting it on the list because if you start running your own business early and fail, you still have a lot of time to pick yourself up, start all over again and recover. But once you have the experience, you're gonna have an edge compared to others who didn't get to experience in running their own show.
So there's my list, honestly I would like to add Pooled Funding and Mutual Fund investment on the above but I feel that investing with health, knowledge and experience are more important in the long run rather than investing your money to earn passive income at the mercy of fund managers.
Also, you might argue why I didn't put Real Estate and Health Insurance on the list. I cannot recommend real estate to young professionals because investing in properties requires a huge amount of money even with installments and there is a huge risk that they might not able to pay off the monthly installments and totally lose whatever they have invested. Also, not all properties are in a feasible location if you consider passive income thru rentals. Yes, property value increases from time to time and it guarantees full return of investment and profit if you buy and sell your property which is on another level. You can invest in real estate later when you are financially capable of doing so.
I would like to hear your comments and reactions thru the comment section below.
Be blessed.
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