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[...] What’s the best investment you’ve ever made? http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/best-investment-career-time-money/ [...]

lynnor

Hmmm….well a recent one was to enroll in and complete a CFP(R) course. Even if it doesn’t lead to a successful career change, I am MUCH more informed about finances and estate planning and retirement than I was before. And related…joining a related organization and attending meetings. Great networking, getting to know more about the biz and people. Thinking this will all reap great dividends (and now my face/name has been in front of potential employers more than my classmates).

Vig

You nailed it. Invest in yourself.

My best financial investment was a class I took to receive a particular computer certification. I was one year out of college and making $36k at the time. After completing the class and passing the test, within one month I had a job for $75k. That was ten years ago. Since then Ive received numerous other certs but none made such an impact on my financial life as that first one.

Chris Rakowski

Surely your best personal investment hasn’t been related to business relationships or your career…or is it?

One would hope your friendship and family “investments” have outweighed your business/career investments.

Personally, my time and energy investments in my friends and family have made me a far better person than any career investments I’ve made.

Erica Douglass

Joe Vitale talks about this; he calls it “prosperous purchasing.” I like that term.

The best investment I ever made was taking a $15,000 inheritance and rolling it into my web hosting business. I turned that into over a million dollars.

When most people get a windfall, they put it toward debt or buy a house — both low-ROI investments. I will never regret using mine to grow my business.

-Erica

kunal

Investing in self.

Life is a learning experience.

Meg

I spend 3 hours per week cooking and distributing food to homeless and poor people in my area. This actually costs me nothing but my time (yes, I know that time is money, but these are evening hours that I would most likely be spending on the couch relaxing). Not only does it give me good perspective on what is really important in life, but I’ve also met many other successful people who have decided to give back to our community. You can learn a great deal both from the people you are serving with, and the people you are serving. I’ve also found that potential employers respond positively when they see volunteer activities on resumes.

Andrew

There have been many investments that I have made in my life which have already paid their dividends (and will continue to for years, like my wife and family). There are others that have years, maybe decades before they mature. But there is one step that helped put me on the path I am on today. I took 15 minutes to write a letter to a DI college hockey coach about who I am and why I should play for his team. That letter (and years of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears) initiated a relationship that would grow into hundreds of friendships and opportunties. Many more of these situations have occured in my life, but that one got the ball rolling. Ultimately it comes down to being willing to put yourself out there and then investing the time and energy it takes to seperate yourself from the pack.

Eric

Ramit,

This is your strongest post yet. You must invest in yourself before expecting results with your life. I’m currently in the process of saving for 12-months of living expenses for an opportunity to travel for a couple months and then work for myself – not for the ‘man’.
Thank you for the encouraging post.

Eric

WM

Answer to your question: cutting spending has concrete, easily predictable results. If I save $5 on my groceries today, I’ll have saved $5. Simple. Investing gives the promise of some vauge outcome in the future that is not gauranteed.

Similar to why some people might make paying off their morgage a higher priority than getting into an investment portfolio. The investment portfolio might make more, but if they pay off their debt they know the exact return they’ll get.

My best investment was choosing the right program and the right university that allowed opportunities for things like two international exchanges and coop semesters while gettting a practical degree. Nothing too different.

Alison

My aunt made an awesome investment in giving me her old car when I was in my last year of college. It was a 9 year old Honda, and she had purchased a new one without trading it in or donating it to a charity. Because she didn’t make me pay for it, I was able to start saving money for a car as soon as I started working. A year and a half later, I paid her back by donating the car (in her name) to a charity that was important to both of us. She was able to get the tax credit, and I was able to start off my career without consumer debt. She completely set me up to be financially responsible at a critical time in my life, and that investment she made on my behalf has carried me through quite a few large financial decision.

Rachel Tera

My best investment – your book.

$10 later I went from no savings to multiple savings accounts and a roth IRA. I didn’t think I had the money to save until I read your book. Now I save effortlessly.

Seriously, thanks

Sarah

My best investment is $80/mo in a year-long training course that has made me happier and inspired me to pursue all kinds of further opportunities.

The reason people are obsessed with saving is that it’s something that is relatively predictable and easy to control; spending to grow a business or seek opportunity doesn’t always pay off.

stephanie@thrive

I spent money to study my husband’s (fairly obscure) first language in an intensive college setting. I got 2 college degrees on scholarship and have never been in debt, but it was still a great feeling to pay cash in exchange for knowledge I cared about. The difference it has made in my life, being able to understand and participate in the conversation around the house when his family is visiting, is priceless.

Elizabeth

Loved the comment that the best investment is a library card!!! Libraries are good for everyone! I just changed careers and became a librarian. Haven’t found a job but I’m happy in my new career and I just keep learning.

My best investment though was maxing out my 401k contributions each year. Truly – the money is out of sight out of mind and grows and grows and grows (except of course when the market tanks…but hang in there)

Vin

Best Investment?

Isolating myself from my past. Being able to get away from the people, places, things, and memories that held me down.

I’m 24, now, and have been in college for about a year. I am majoring in Business Management with a focus in finance. I found a full time job working at an investment advisory firm and am spending any free time I have studying for the Series 65 exam.

Dividends? None, yet. A guy can hope, can’t he?

Marc

Some years back, selling a Utility Van, ridding myself of its payments and taking the $1800.00 in equity and investing in Nursery Stock to start a Wholesale Nursery that then grew to provide a full time income.

Another time, when IRS rules changed on Company Cars, took a buyout of $1000 from my employer [instead of taking the Vice President's wife's Vista Cruiser] and purchased a new Pickup @ 2.9%. Over four years all payments, insurance, gas and maintenance were fully paid by employer reimbursed miles. When I left that Company I had a vehicle fully paid off and still worth several thousand dollars. One of my fellow employee’s had the Vista Cruiser and when he left – no vehicle. Gotta love billable miles.

I then took the equity in the Pickup and used it to Purchase a Skid Steer Loader that was paid off in two years.

I then had the pickup and a skid steer loader paid off. Then by using the loader to automate many of the Nurseries Processes including mixing my own growing media. I was able to save even more money by not employing as many people part-time. Many processes were palletized, cutting out the heavy lifting and repeated restacking.

Financial Samurai

The best investment was turning $3,000 into about $160,000 one year out of school back in the late 90’s. That was pure LUCK. It’s too bad I didn’t have more money to invest then in the dot com bubble.

The second best investment was just going to business school and investing in my eduction. I really think that education is key, after your own drive and work ethic.

Heffer

Best investment was an ipod nano. Working as a temp I could barely afford it at the time.

I prefer to load it with Podcast instead of music, had it running 8 hours a day at work–while I did data entry–learning about everything.

Chris

$100 on running shoes. I could barely afford them at the time but decided to buy them anyway. I rekindled my love with distance running and ultimately ended up losing 20 pounds. Not only did I pick up another great hobby, but my quality of life really improved.

Concojones

I really loved comment #5:

$1000 or so to move out on my own and get started in a new city. [...] There’s something to be said for building a new life from scratch and expanding my network. Already, after two months, I’ve found rewarding work that is expanding my skills and paying the bills.

Joel

The best investment I’ve ever made is getting a Masters degree. It’s already paid for itself many times over. It took two years of my life and about $12K but I have no regrets about getting it. That is easily my best investment of time and money.

Barbara

Best investment ever? Easy – the Landmark Forum. 3 days, a few hundred bucks, changed my life completely.

Larry

quitting my job and moving to an island. i’m back where i started now but the life lessons and friends i made have changed my life for the better. and it wasn’t cheap, but well worth it.

Kimmoy

The best investment I made is in my GPS! LOL I rarely waste time now getting lost, I can take it with me wherever I go, don’t have to print out maps or use my phone to get directions anymore.

Joining Pam Slim’s Quickstart program was a great investment for me also, it’s where I was able to build a strong foundation for my business venture.

Going to Spain for a semester before I went to college was also one of the best investments I made; I saved money to prove to my family that I wasn’t particularly crazy to travel across the country before I turned 18

Janice Plado Dalager

The best investment I ever made was the Public Speaking class I took at the community college, the summer before my junior year at the university. I never knew I had it in me to speak in front of a group of people until I was forced to give 4 speeches in that class. I’ve never been afraid of it since then.

My second best investment was buying, reading, and doing the exercises in “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers. It was the first self-improvement book I ever read. Having lived 20 years protecting myself in shyness, it was a real catalyst to changing my self-esteem around.

In retrospect, both investments (about $100 and $20, respectively) ultimately proved to be of enormous value as TOOLS to achieving whatever life I wanted, then or in the future. I have relied on these two “skills” to get me through change, over and over again in the past 15+ years.

Real value in an investment is determined in if and how the consumer chooses to use it after the purchase. If it’s just going to sit on the shelf collecting dust, it doesn’t matter if I spent $1 or $1000 on it until I can determine how it’s made my life better.

My personal experience with favoring spending cuts vs. investing:
It’s not an excuse, but I grew up a child of immigrant parents who worked AND SAVED very hard to get my brothers and I through college, like their parents did. That was their ultimate investment. My primary generational training in investing is centered around necessity – vs. value. Cutting spending and saving what isn’t spent is the easy part, because it’s cash-based. If there are numbers after the dollar sign, you have the choice spending it or saving it.

Honestly, “spending vs. investing” is a conflict I’m still challenged with. I see that I have invested in myself, but I can’t say that I knew how valuable that class was going to be at the time. I just remember needing to make it absolutely count toward something.

Credit Card Chaser

The best investment I ever made was an investment of time and money into starting my first business. Another thing that is up there on the list was paying out of my own pocket to get my MBA and my CFP(R).

John

1. The best investment I ever made was dropping several grand on an engagement ring and a wedding ring.

2. I prefer saving money to earning money because people expect me to actually do something in return for giving me money. Saving money, on the other hand, means not doing something. I am lazy. I would much rather not do something than to do it. Plus, at the current tax rate, a penny saved is about 1.5 pennies earned.

Daniel

Have to admit that the 4-hour workweek was the best investment I ever made.

Student

My two best investments:

Working for free. My current and past two jobs have been unpaid internships. I’m now a sophomore in college and have more opportunities and a better resume than 95% of my colleagues, including many juniors and seniors.

Losing a couple hundred dollars investing in stocks using an etrade account. I began investing about two years ago and was smart enough to pull my money out before the market completely crashed. I lost some money but learned a great deal about money, investing, and the markets, and was able to make the decision to pull out when it mattered most.

Katarina

Thanks for a great blog. A few years ago I paid my sister 5000 SEK, about 700 USD, to quit smoking. It was a lot of money at the time since I was a student but totally worth it. I had spent so much time worrying about her health (as a smoker she also maintained a crappy diet since smoking reduces hunger) and biting my tounge watching her light up, I felt desperate enough to offer her money. I was very surprised that she said yes and quit a month later. Aside from peace of mind from fantasies about her dying from lungcancer, I learned a valuable, valuable lesson of how important the right incentives are. There were so many negatives for her to have a smoking habit; being smelly, having bad nails, getting winded when running, supporting the ruthless and immoral tobacco industry, being stigmatized as a disgusting and undisciplined person and the potential future threats of illness. On top of this she was studying to be a nurse and felt she would lose a lot of professional credibility if she couldn’t stop. Despite all of these negative aspects she kept smoking, putting quitting at the bottom of her to-do list in a distant future. The minute I offered her a reward that was big enough for her to buy really nice shoes she gained momentum to achieve her goal. Prior to this I had used punishment to get myself moving, no going to the concert if the paper is not fininshed and similar, which worked sometimes and sometimes I just ended up procrastinating, feeling miserable for missing out on the fun and having written no paper. Rewards are much, much more effective than punishment for meeting goals, they give you energy to get moving. I would never have used this strategy on someone else because a) I’m not mean and b) I wouldn’t think it would ever work, yet I did it to myself.
I’m not sure how much this investment has earned me in absolute numbers but I’m sure it is a lot since my efficiency has increased enormously. This is why I love your blog, you go to the bottom of why people, even smart people, do things that are not in their best interest when it comes to money but it can really be applied on several areas. I’m pretty good with money so I often feel smug reading personal finance blogs, but the advice you give here is really thought-provoking and reminds me of the importance of living consciously. Thanks again!

Vas

My house and a website I purchased has been the best investment I have made so far. My site paid itself off within 6 months(better than any bricks and mortar business) and it continues to make money. And my property over the last 2 years has increased in value by 105k which I am thrilled about. It also is large enough for a development to occur on it in the future.

The Best Investment I’ve Ever Made « One-Year Tightrope

[...] 9:47 PM on February 26, 2010 Personal finance blog I Will Teach You To Be Rich has an interesting post about personal investments, with a few good examples of things not normally considered to be investments, but that have paid [...]