How would you invest 1000$

[swampratt]

First car purchase and college fund money.
Awesome.
I have been a wrench turner for many years and see many people buy new cars and those are loosers on the money purchase game.
I do not know how handy you are on working on old cars or if you even have a place to do such a thing.
Or even if your son likes old cars.
But a great investment is an old car that you both can work on and learn the boy a thing or 3 on maintenance and wrench turning.

My oldest sons first car was a 1983 accord hatchback for $55 bucks. That car is still going today.
He later upgraded to a 1974 260Z nissan for $600.
Yes about 200 was invested into each ride to make them worthy.
Never lost money on those and saved a bunch of money by purchasing those.
He later traded the 260Z even up for a 300ZX turbo car.
Then traded that for a mazda miata. and got into drifting and suspension mods.
Money and time well spent.
But you may not be into all that.

 

[TerryMiller]

Yeppers...

...my first car was bought in 1962 when I was 16. Paid $150 for a 1954 Ford two-door sedan and then $75 to fix second gear.

 

[Parks 788]

First car purchase and college fund money.
Awesome.
I have been a wrench turner for many years and see many people buy new cars and those are loosers on the money purchase game.
I do not know how handy you are on working on old cars or if you even have a place to do such a thing.
Or even if your son likes old cars.
But a great investment is an old car that you both can work on and learn the boy a thing or 3 on maintenance and wrench turning.

My oldest sons first car was a 1983 accord hatchback for $55 bucks. That car is still going today.
He later upgraded to a 1974 260Z nissan for $600.
Yes about 200 was invested into each ride to make them worthy.
Never lost money on those and saved a bunch of money by purchasing those.
He later traded the 260Z even up for a 300ZX turbo car.
Then traded that for a mazda miata. and got into drifting and suspension mods.
Money and time well spent.
But you may not be into all that. View attachment 113055

My son will not be getting a new car for his first. His first new car will be bought by him. The money we are setting aside for him for college and car is mostly for college as he is about 99% sure he will be going to school out of state and if he gets in, which he should, he will probably be going to OSU (Stillwater). We are talking out of state tuition to the tune of $25K+ per year no matter where he goes.

On the car front. My parents and my wife's parents each bought us cars in High school. We want some thing safe with airbags and modern seat belts. Our original plan was to get him an early '70s pickup truck but with out some of the safety features and A/C we put that on the back burner. Our goal now is to find a good condition, low miles 2009-2014 Ram 2500. We want a larger safer truck that he can drive in high school and college and when he graduates and starts his career he can then do what he wants with it.

I had several full size Chevy Blazers and worked on them a lot when i had them but now sour two vehicles are too new for me to do much on them. HE will know how to do all the PM service and general maintenance on them. Having a project truck is not out of the question in the future, though.

 

[dennishoddy]

My son will not be getting a new car for his first. His first new car will be bought by him. The money we are setting aside for him for college and car is mostly for college as he is about 99% sure he will be going to school out of state and if he gets in, which he should, he will probably be going to OSU (Stillwater). We are talking out of state tuition to the tune of $25K+ per year no matter where he goes.

On the car front. My parents and my wife's parents each bought us cars in High school. We want some thing safe with airbags and modern seat belts. Our original plan was to get him an early '70s pickup truck but with out some of the safety features and A/C we put that on the back burner. Our goal now is to find a good condition, low miles 2009-2014 Ram 2500. We want a larger safer truck that he can drive in high school and college and when he graduates and starts his career he can then do what he wants with it.

I had several full size Chevy Blazers and worked on them a lot when i had them but now sour two vehicles are too new for me to do much on them. HE will know how to do all the PM service and general maintenance on them. Having a project truck is not out of the question in the future, though.

Good deal. Working on their vehicles to keep em running is great training that will help them way down the road, and as a by product, keep them off the streets. Idle hands are the devils work and all that.

 

[Parks 788]

Our advisors recommendation was that with where the market is now and looking back a history he feels that it is a fairly good time to be conservative with investments. He said that everything is priced so high that in may investment options you are paying $90-$100 to earn $100. And then what happens if you see a correction in the markets in the next three years and you are looking at a loss or at best even money at that time. He will be getting back to us with some liquid options for this money to look at and he was good with looking at 6-12 months CDs at our credit union. HE was also good with us just keeping it in our savings as we are now.

HE is also bringing me down on my high risk tolerance in my 401K to a more realistic/moderate level. Because of the long run up with the stock/real estate market he feels it is a good time to be more conservative and will be pushing my 401k options in that direction.

My point is it may not be a great time to invest in achingly aggressive manner as you could stand to loose some of your money if the tide changes. Despite what is happening with the trump economy, it is a lot of peoples opinion that we are well overdue for a correction.

Pay off any debt you have and/or sit on the cash with a 3-6 month CD. Or put in seperate savings account where you have easy access to it in an emergency.

Interesting what I wrote three weeks ago and now seeing what has played out this last week. What did the OP do with his $1000.00?

 

[SlugSlinger]

Interesting what I wrote three weeks ago and now seeing what has played out this last week. What did the OP do with his $1000.00?

A couple points about investing in the stock market.

1. The stock market should be considered for long term investments, not short term. Long term would be 5-10 years. If your looking for short term gains, the stock market is a gamble just like a casino. This is due to the volatility with short term fluctuations like we have seen over the last week. These large and volatile market swings just kind of blend into the trend line over time as seen in the long term graph below. Even the largest swings that cause panic seem immaterial over time. People panic because of the media sensationalism.


2. The most advantageous way to invest in the market is to use dollar cost averaging. This is the concept of buying over a period of time with scheduled and constant purchases while taking advantage of the price volatility. Just like people do in their 401k, except you don’t panic when the market drops, you continue to purchase at a lower historical price. You cannot time the market, even though some people get luckier than others. If I only had $1,000 to my name, I would not dump it into the market, all at once anyway.

That being said, I’ve made some purchases over the last week because of the huge swings. I hold a little cash in my retirement account for these kinds of swings. And I don’t expect to make a big short term gain, this is to get my investments back into the market for the long term.

 

[Parks 788]

A couple points about investing in the stock market.

1. The stock market should be considered for long term investments, not short term. Long term would be 5-10 years. If your looking for short term gains, the stock market is a gamble just like a casino. This is due to the volatility with short term fluctuations like we have seen over the last week. These large and volatile market swings just kind of blend into the trend line over time as seen in the long term graph below. Even the largest swings that cause panic seem immaterial over time. People panic because of the media sensationalism.
View attachment 113935

2. The most advantageous way to invest in the market is to use dollar cost averaging. This is the concept of buying over a period of time with scheduled and constant purchases while taking advantage of the price volatility. Just like people do in their 401k, except you don’t panic when the market drops, you continue to purchase at a lower historical price. You cannot time the market, even though some people get luckier than others. If I only had $1,000 to my name, I would not dump it into the market, all at once anyway.

That being said, I’ve made some purchases over the last week because of the huge swings. I hold a little cash in my retirement account for these kinds of swings. And I don’t expect to make a big short term gain, this is to get my investments back into the market for the long term.

You are correct and I agree. However, the OP wanted to invest a $1000 in to something rather than have it just sit in an savings account. My concerns were how liquid did the OP want his money and how much risk he was willing to take. Lots were telling him to put it in in a mutual fund or something similar. If the OP had put it in anything remotely aggressive he would probably be negative on his $1000 investment over the last three weeks.

 

[Mack45]

Parks, I am curious about the OP's 1000 bucks and what he did with it too.

 

[SlugSlinger]

You are correct and I agree. However, the OP wanted to invest a $1000 in to something rather than have it just sit in an savings account. My concerns were how liquid did the OP want his money and how much risk he was willing to take. Lots were telling him to put it in in a mutual fund or something similar. If the OP had put it in anything remotely aggressive he would probably be negative on his $1000 investment over the last three weeks.

There is no doubt they would have lost money if the op bought stock. However, if they did some short selling, bought some put options or sold some call options, then he’d be up 10%. For most people the market is a good long term investment and shouldn’t be tested for the short term gambles.

 

[ARnut]

Parks, I am curious about the OP's 1000 bucks and what he did with it too.

I ended up putting it into savings for the time being. My work is not going well roght now so I better keep it handy just in case we shut down for a little while.


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