Upon reaching a certain stage in life, we will begin to think about money more than ever before. It can be planning for a marriage, purchasing a car and even your first property, just to name a few.
Whether or not you have already reached this stage of your life, it is always a wise choice to invest early in your life so that you don’t need to worry about your financial capabilities later on. We know that investing is a daunting task that requires considerable amounts of research and experience, that’s why we have decided to bring you through a comprehensive guide that will teach you all you need to know about investing.
With so many investment options available in the market, it is normal to feel overwhelmed and do not know which one to choose, especially if you are an amateur investor. Before investing, you should identify your goals. These include growing your retirement fund, fund your children’s education, save for a luxury getaway, settle your outstanding debts or just simply prepare for the future.
Nevertheless, in order to identify your ideal investment options, you need to understand why you should invest. Here are some examples:
Don’t be fooled by banks which have been constantly trying to lure you to park your money in the savings account. Unfortunately, your cash savings in a bank won’t multiply. In fact, having cash in a bank over a long period of time is detrimental to your wealth because cash won’t keep up with inflation causing its value to shrink over time.
As the general price level of goods and services continue to increase in the economy over a period of time as part of the inflation cycle, things are generally more expensive than they were years ago. For example, in 1970 you could buy 10 loaves of bread for RM3.50, today you can only buy 1 loaf of bread for the same price.
Staying on a job for the entire life is no longer the norm today. By diversifying your source of income, you don’t have to rely solely on one employer. This allows you to safeguard yourself against potential redundancies or unforeseen emergencies.
Debts will restrain you from investing your money as any extra cash you have will need to go towards repaying your debts. In other words, the quicker you clear off your debts, the sooner you will be able to start investing your money.
With that said, being in debt doesn’t mean that you can’t invest at all, but we recommend that you consult financial planners for advice before investing. You may start tackling your high-interest debts first, then pay off your low-interest loans using your investment returns.
Short-Term and Medium-Term Investments
Any investments that are expected to be converted into cash or sold within the first 5 years can be considered as short term and medium term investments.
Compared to long term investments, investors are exposed to more risks in short-term investment due to higher rates of fluctuation, but they can also be more profitable. Apart from earning returns, short-term investment also enables you to secure your money temporarily.
When it comes to short term investments, peer-to-peer lending (P2P) is your best option. If you have extra cash for investments, you can consider investing in P2P platforms like Hap2py Penny where you can expect to earn competitive returns through extending personal loans.
Don’t worry if you are not familiar with the P2P lending process, all you need to do is just entrust your money to us and we will handle the entire process for you. We will connect you to carefully evaluated borrowers through our extensive network in order to allow you to earn the interest rates on personal loans.
Last but not least, if you haven’t tried out our P2P platform, make sure you do today and you wouldn’t believe the high returns that you can earn from personal loans.
