Here is my situation.

* Country you live in - USA
* Income - 90K
* Risk Tolerance - Low/Medium
* Timeframe for investment - 5 years
* Debt - None

I have 40K saved, but I want to use 25K to invest in something for the short-term.

I plan on getting married within 5 years, and I will definitely need a portion for the wedding (lets just say I need 50k for wedding).

What are all my options to invest 25K for the short-term ("short" = less than 5 years)? Would I be better off just not investing and continuing to save?

If you list out an investment, please label how risky of an opportunity it is (just say high,medium, or low). I'll evaluate from there. Thanks!

You don't invest money you will need within the next 5 years.

Unless you are spending 40k on the honeymoon, you are spending way too much on a wedding.

How do you get married for 10K? I'm not trying to get married in a courthouse... or a cardboard box.

Renting a decent hotel + food/photography/etc is easily 40K.

First off, getting married in a courthouse is like $82 in the county I live in.

You can't throw a party with $9,918?

$40k is lol for a wedding on a $90k income. You can throw a helluva wedding for half that.

As for your question, anything less than 5 years is too short of a time frame. Put the money in a CD ladder would be my suggestion.

My daughter watches all those stupid say yes to the dress shows, so I know there is a whole industry out there trying to convince people that spending 50k on a wedding is "normal". I'm not sure what the true average is but, but why blow that much money for one day? Who you trying to impress? Besides, you won't regret it as much when you get divorced in 7 years.

Good lord. Punch this person in the face and run away as fast as possible. They are looking out for their interests only.

As an aside, this is why I couldn't be a financial "advisor". There's no way I could look someone straight in the face and tell them "yes you should buy this crap, this is good for you."

I love how spending over half your yearly income on a car would be considered ludicrous, but a wedding? Absolutely!

PokerFink,

Presumably you will purchase more cars in your life than weddings.

Also, this is entirely a personal issue and this thread highlights that different people have different expectations. I can't imagine any resolution to the issue of how much someone should spend on a wedding. Even if there is, I am delighted to consider the guy who says to his wife, "But 2p2 said that we only need to spend $23,500 on the wedding."

If you count diamond engagement ring, wedding rings, wedding and honeymoon, then 50K isn't that far off.

Make sure you set aside some money for the divorce too.

Divorce money has been set aside.

So there's not a good option for a 5 year investment with 25k? Didn't know that was too low of a time period to invest for.. =/

Country you live in: United States
Income: $60,000
Risk Tolerance: High
Timeframe for investment: 10-20 years
Debt: $0.00

I have $150k in brokerage account, $100k in savings, and $35k in Checking.

Recently, I closed all my long positions in the market. Not sure the best way to gamble this up (in +EV situations) and try to turn $200k or so into seven figures. 10-20 year horizon

Thanks!

I'm not sure your question fits the spirit of this thread. From the OP:
I've decided to create a new megathread dedicated to passive investing of a large lump sum. If you have a complicated situation, feel free to post a dedicated thread. Otherwise, all request for investing advice go in here.

However, use lots of margin so you can really gamble it up.

How??

What do you guys think of investing in collective investment schemes? With banks here you can invest in such a scheme. They take care of where to invest in etc in exchange for a fee. Could be low risk, neutral, high risk for example. You pay around 1% a year as a fee (over total amount invested).

The %%% look pretty decent for the high risk one for example (15%+ each year except 2011 (-7%)). Since 2009 90% ROI. Neutral 60% and defensive 30%.

Is this just for lazy fish like me or is it not that bad of a decision?

That's not particularly stunning for someone that goes to a good school, gets a good internship, and takes a job in NYC or Chicago right out of school.

I'm a software developer at Microsoft. I got my computer science degree from Washington which has one of the top programs in the country, and graduated with decent internship experience. Plus the war for talent between these top tech companies is unreal right now.

You can do this at Vanguard without paying 1%.

Also, it's not really hard to have a 90% ROI since 2009. SPY is up 104% since 1/1/09.

*Country you live in-Thailand
*Income-150K
*Risk Tolerance-high
*Timeframe for investment-8 up to 10 years
*Debt-zero
*Any other information you might have that would help us

I think you guys should have a look at this: http://investmentpool-smallivestors.******.com

Thats kind of investing in "Bars & Nightclubs" in Thailand.
Sounds quite interesting

Greetings from Bangkok

Murray Head itt.

Haha oh sick. Thought 90% was really impressive, but then again I am total newby as far as investing and what not. Thanks for the info.

Saying "this fund is up 90% since 2009" is being somewhat misleading, since using 2009-present is cherry picking one of the best market runs ever. The market tanked in 2008, bottomed out early in 2009, and has since recovered. How did the fund do in 2008?

Whenever you're looking at a fund, compare it to the market over the same time period. SPY is a reasonable proxy for the market as a whole. You can also use VTSMX, which is the Vanguard total stock market fund. That fund is up 115% since 2009 and has an expense ratio of .1%. They charge 1/10th of the fund you were looking at, and it has performed better in the given time period. (The fund you were looking at may include bonds, which would explain the difference in performance).

Remember that past results are not a guarantee of future results. Far from it. Repeat this to yourself 10 times daily =).

Thank you for your help.

I've been reading that fees for stock funds in Canada are fairly high and was looking at the MER for ETFs and they are almost negligible in comparison. Are there any reasons why I should go with stock funds over ETFs? (Extra fees elsewhere) I would plan to deposit the max once each year and leave it for like 35+ years as long as I'm not hit by any disaster outside of this. (I'm not 100% clear on the differences between ETFs and stock funds. They seem pretty similar in purposes to me. Would I have to do any extra work for either. Do the gains automatically get reinvested for both?, etc?)

Also, should I invest through a bank for stock funds? or would somewhere else be better? (Further, I'm not clear on if it's possible to invest in Vanguard ETFs through a bank)

Sorry for being such a noob