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The Best Investment You Can Make Now

Written on November 24, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Money

finance_maze Stocks are up significantly from their low in March of this year. Of course, they still haven’t clawed their way back to the level we saw in 2007. However, you have to ask yourself if stocks are the best place to put your money right now.

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Treasuries – bonds issued by our government – have also had quite a run as investors have fled to safety. If interest rates go down, the value of the underlying note goes up. Interest rates are incredibly low right now. How much lower can they go?

Even if you hold it in cash, savings accounts are paying a paltry amount of interest right now. It would take you about 144 years to double your money on a 1-year CD, given the best rates posted on Bankrate.com. We don’t know about you, but we’re not sure we’ll live that long!

We’re looking at generalities here. You should discuss your specific situation with your financial planner. But our point is that it’s hard to look into the future right now and see an obvious place to put your money.

As we were talking about this, we realized there are some good places to put your money, even now.

Your own debt

If you have any debt, you can earn a decent return by paying it down. Let’s say you have a car loan on which you’re paying 6% interest. You can earn a guaranteed 6% per year return by paying it off. That’s pretty hard to beat right now.

Of course, if you have credit card debt, your returns may be as high as 30%!

Durable goods

You can still get a good deal on durable goods. Think cars, appliances and those sorts of things.

Some dealers are still hungry, although not as much as they were six months to a year ago. So you may be able to strike a good deal by buying a little bit prematurely.

Non-perishables

Think canned goods, household supplies and such. If you see something that you regularly use priced at half its normal cost – and you know it doesn’t go on sale very often – you can get a good return by stocking up.

Energy-efficiency

This is one of the few outlays you can make that will pay you back month-after-month. For example, if you have inefficient windows, you can seal up your home better by replacing them.

Energy prices are relatively low right now compared to what we will probably see in the years ahead. So getting a good deal now may very well give you a decent return.

These are good places to invest. But we haven’t discussed the best place to invest right now.

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Yourself

Invest in yourself! It’s the best place to invest now. Does that surprise you?

You may invest in more education that you know will make you more marketable in the future. Your investment of time and money may pay handsome dividends.

You may make a lateral move to beef up your resume or invest a little extra time to learn a new skill related to your current work.

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marylynn That’s how I learned to do audio production. When I was in the early years of my career in radio, after I got done with my on-air shift, I would go into the production room – where the commercials were being made – and soak up all the information I could get. The only investment on my part was my time, but I have to tell you, it continues paying dividends to this day!

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george If it weren’t for that, The Bigg Success Show may have never happened!

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You may want to dip your toes in the entrepreneurial waters, even just part time.

First, you may invest time – and perhaps some money – to hone up the skills required to run a business.

Then, you may invest money in samples of the product you want to sell and test it with potential customers.

Next, you may make a small investment in the infrastructure of the business (e.g. a web site) to see if you can attract enough customers to make it worth your while.

By keeping your costs low while you test a concept, you’ll be able to keep testing them until you find one that makes you money.

Invest in yourself – it’s the best investment you can make right now. Let’s face it – it’s the best investment you can ever make at any time because it leads to bigg success!

What are you doing to invest in yourself?

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(Image in today's post by svilen001)

4 Comments

Mixing Work and Play

Written on April 10, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Work

Fortune does a great job every year of compiling the 100 best places to work. They put out the list for 2009 a little while back. We found their top pick this year interesting.

NetApp, a data storage and management company, knocked Google out of the top spot for the first time in three years.

You can find a great video about NetApp on the Fortune site. NetApp invests time and money to create a culture where people want to work. The video shows people playing volleyball and working out in the company gym. It sure doesn’t look like work!

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They do more than encourage play time at work

NetApp has a program that pays employees to take time off to volunteer for something they’re passionate about. They’ve found that employees sometimes come together to work on a cause. So this program has helped build teamwork among their people.

You may be thinking …

“Well, this is great but it sure wouldn’t work in my business.”

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george I understand why someone might think that because it wouldn’t have worked in the businesses I was in before we started Bigg Success. Most of our people were in the field. We didn’t need a gym – the work was very physical so most of our employees got a great workout with their job. We were lucky to see most of our people for fifteen minutes a day. But the details of what NetApp does aren’t really important.

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marylynn Yeah, it’s the idea behind what they’re doing at NetApp that we think is most interesting. Bigg success is life on your own terms. The leaders of the company are certainly doing that. They set out to build a great company by creating a great place to work. The founder says that they took a leap of faith and spent time and money to create this incredible environment for their employees.

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That’s three of the five elements of bigg success right there – growth, time and money! But they hit all five because they have found ways to let their employees play at work.

Now isn’t that an interesting idea? Work doesn’t have to be … work.

Something magical happens

In the interview, NetApp’s founder talks about energizing people. They think when people feel good – when they feel motivated – something magical happens.

That’s why we’re talking about them today. They are a great example of something that’s critical to living our lives on our own terms. It’s the bigg idea behind bigg success:

You create synergy between the five elements of bigg success by understanding the relationship between them and discovering ways to get them all working in sync.

Our lives are fuller when we’re able to do that.

We work to make money so we can afford to play. But what if you can work and play all at the same time. Isn’t that so much better?

What if you loved your work so much that it seemed like play? What if that work paid you enough to buy everything you really wanted?

NetApp took a leap of faith that’s paying off for them. Sure, they’re being affected by current economic conditions. But their market share has gone up in spite of it.

It can happen to you too. In your life. In your business.

Look for ways to blend the five elements for your benefit. That leads to bigg success!