Investing

Investing can be split into two separate categories, one is micro investing and the other regular investing. Micro investing is when you squirrel away small amounts and build your nest egg slowly over time. Investing is for stock standard regular investments which start from around $500 and head upwards from there.

Below are some investing platforms available, I use some of them and if you sign up using the referral link I could make a small commission.

Micro investing

Banks

Find a bank with high interest savings accounts. A lot of banks are always changing the terms and conditions for their savings rates and time limiting them, so I chose to just stay with ING which has a current savings return rate of up to 5.5%.

Fixed income

Blossom has a current targeted investment return rate of up to 7%.

Peer to peer (P2P) lending.

People lend money to people taking out loans. Money smart has some great advice (here) around investing in these types of platforms.

Plenti has a current investment return rate of up to 6%.

Society One had a targeted investment return rate 4-6%.

Stock market

Raiz has a variety of investment options with varying rates of return.

Super

Superannuation, this one is pretty obvious but investing more of your salary into super for your retirement. You can look into government co-contributions for low income earners here. There is a super cap which increases every year, it is currently $30k, once you exceed this amount from employer and personal contributions, any amount over $30k will be taxed higher. More info from the ato can be found here.

ETF’s

Commbank has an ETF platform called pocket that allows you to micro invest in ETF’s. Each trade requires a minimum $50 trade and each trade up to $1000 costs $2 brokerage fees.

Property

BrickX allows you to invest in property by buying a minimum of 1 “brick” in a house. Each house is split into 10,000 bricks and you can buy a minimum of 1 brick at a time. The prices do vary as they’re based on the price paid for the property. You then earn a portion of rental return which varies depending on how many bricks you’ve bought in each property.

Regular investing

Invest in the stock exchange, this is great for people looking to diversify their portfolio as you can select a range of investments with relative ease. But having some knowledge about business and how business works may help you achieve better results.

Invest in government bonds. You can essentially loan the government money in the form of a bond and you’ll receive a rate of return back including your investment. They’re usually a relatively safe investment so the returns aren’t huge.

Corporate bonds. Similar to the government bonds but you’re lending money to a company.

Invest in gold and silver. This has been around for a very long time and because the dollar isn’t linked to it, it won’t lose its value if the dollar value falls. It always worth speaking to a proper financial advisor if you’re at the stage that you can invest in gold.

Property. This one tends to raise people’s blood pressure a bit from both a landlord and a tenants perspective. So if you’re looking for a more passive form of investment with minimal stress this option likely isn’t for you. Between negotiating rent increases, legislative changes in favour of tenants, potential damage to property and loss of income if something happens its far more volatile than other investment options. But, it is an option if you’re looking to add variety.

Commercial property. You can invest in commercial property and rent it out to businesses, again just being aware of how legislative changes can affect your investments, what businesses are renting the space and it may sit vacant for some time based on movement within the economy.

Angel investing. Think shark tank, but instead of investing in established businesses that necessarily have cornered a market, you’re investing in startups, usually for a stake in the company.

Managed/index funds. Here you essentially pool your investment funds along with other investors and a fund manager will then buy and sell assets on your behalf.

Crypto. For diversification of your portfolio and for an investment not reliant on stock market success.

There are so many more opportunities but this gives you a broad overview of some of the most popular investment opportunities.