What is the best way to invest your money?

[ians]

My father and many others gave me advise many years ago which i took, and watch now how they are suffering from the same advise they gave me. Their policies they purchased and paid for years, paid out a couple of years ago, my father couldnt even pay off his his little flat he purchased, after selling his house, battling to come out every month on his railway pension. The green and blue companies must have made millions out of all those railway, telkom, municipalities etc employees, because in those days, it was the "right thing to do" or so people thought.

I remember the days, when i was an apply on the railways, we had the green and blue companies there daily trying to sell endowment policies, life insurance, giving you the whole support your children and family for the future, it the "right thing to do speach", take out heart and dreaded disease cover, i was 16 years old, my parents drummed it into me that it was the "right thing to do", if i invest early i will get a much better payout, hundreds of thousands of rands, i have still got 20 years to go (to get to 65) before they would have paid out the hundreds of thousands of rands. Hundreds of thousands of rands at this point in my life wouldnt even be worth much, for example the education policy i had before i lost everything, would not even have covered my kids varsity fees for one year never mind the entire course. You cant even buy a decent house for under R1m at the moment, just image what that money would be worth in 20 years time. So in a way i should be gratefull i lost everything when i did 12 years ago, i have saved the R3000 per month (well by now with the inflation rate increases would be a lot more) and rather invested in myself, My company is already worth more than all those policies put together in less than 10 years.

I suppose if you are in a dead end job going to work everyday to make your boss rich, thats another story, you would need to be investing money somewhere, so that you can retire one day, so that you can sit in front of the TV and wait to die.

[Mike C]

That's quite a testimony you gave there ians - very thought provoking - because I remember the same speeches given to me when I was young.

There was another one that went "If you are faithful to the company you work for, they will be faithful to you." Well, that might have been true 50 years ago - but is an old wives tale now.

[Rusty Willard]

I think the best way to invest your money is on mutual funds it's on safest way. It will be professionally managed.

[Rafael]

Fixed Deposit or Money Market?

In my opinion, neither of the above.

If you looking for flexibility and liquidity, unit trusts are great.
Depending on the fund determines your return.

[Rafael]

I suppose if you are in a dead end job going to work everyday to make your boss rich, thats another story, you would need to be investing money somewhere, so that you can retire one day

You on the money right there.

[lisa13us]

You should invest your money to start up a new small business which helps you earn more money. You diversify your investments around a mixture of securities at distinctive hazardous levels.

[flaker]

Agree with ians. I remember all those old days, Pearl Assurance, Norwich Union etc. I accorded all those brokers/agents high respect as they appeared to know of money matters and quoted maturity amounts in big telephone figures. They also changed their cars every two years and each year they were attending conferences in New York and far away places at a time when you did'nt even know what the inside of a plane looked like.These were smart people.

Little did i realise that these cars & flights were being paid from premiums that were being paid by the likes of Ians's parents & my good self.

[ians]

Don't worry I was also one of those sucker who paid for these policies which at the time sounded like a lot of money (millions) from the day I started working at 16 and had an accident in my early thirties, the policies should have paid out a lot of money instead the broker had changed things over the years and every time he changed something it extended further into the future, little did I know it was all commission based improvements to my policy and the worse part about it, he put life cover onto ever policy, which is also a huge commission enhancement for him, so when it came to time to pay out, because I was hospitalised and couldn't work I couldn't pay the premium so the life cover somehow chewed into the policy to a point that they were worth nothing by the time I got out of hospital and tried to sort out the claims.

I hear a lot of old people complaining about policies not even paying out what they put in never mind the projected figures initially advised at the time the policy was taken out. That why it is one of the industries which has a millionaires club, where do you think all the money came from, smart investment, if you believe that, you must be one of the silly people investing all your money into their millionare club

If outsurance can pay back your entire premium back after 15 years and run ads which cost millions of rands all day long, huge call centres, just imagine how these companies are screwing you. These insurance/investment companies are running little one man operation in the back of peoples houses (brokers) and raking in millions. The brokers are a dime a dozen.

My policies which were worth hundreds of thousands of rands before the accident, by the time came to pay out a I got a cheque fro R14.75 which I kept and was going to mount in my pub, but never got around to it.

The worse part of the whole ordeal, they found small print in my disability policy which indicated that my arms and legs where not covered, so yeah you wanna say I seem to always get the wrong end of the stick, that was another ass f$%%$&g I got. Nobody would take on the case to fight it for me because I was not only disable but broke at the time. Money talk and shit walks.

[Savvy]

I've personally invested my money into a company called Cambist (www.cambist.co.za) where at the time they were offering 24% return per annum which has dropped to 19.5% now but which is still the highest rate of return out of all the opportunities that I know of. I worked for the advertising agency who handled their marketing and got to know the company pretty well and decided to invest with them. After doing so, I also left the agency I was working for and became self-employed. To date I've made R48 000 in passive income over the last 7 months.

The business model essentially is that you purchase debt contracts that are secured by attachment / garnishee orders and become the owner of debt repayments. The original owner gets their cash upfront for liquidity, makes their margin and the new owner (myself) receives a profitable monthly income stream. It's low risk because it's secured through legal processes and contracts and if a debtor fails to repay then the original amount of the contract is repaid by Cambist. Their website explains everything in more detail.

Check them out, do the research you need to do but if this information was useful to you and you do invest please use me, Shane Mc Kay, as a referral as there are commissions involved for referrals. Who's going to say no to earning commission for telling people about where I've invested my money?

[flaker]

Savvy, i guarantee that at some point in the very near future this company together with the trust etc will go bust. Think about it, if the trust is so solvent that it can guarantee re-payments to investors, why does the trust itself not buy such debts.

if investors earn 19.5%, & after some commission being paid for referrals,as well as running costs, then the original debtor has to be paying well in excess of 35% in interest & costs to keep the scheme going.

IMO that 19.5% is also funded from new "investments" & that is why i say it will fail.

Moreover, there are some of us who will not consider returns of this nature kosher.