Would you call yourself an investor?

An Investor is a person or an organisation that invests money in something, with the expectation of seeing a financial return.

Let’s consider the ways in which you may already be an investor:

1. You invested in you

You may have invested in a college course or degree, a night school or apprenticeship, or even some professional development books. This investment may have helped you get a return via better career opportunities, salary increases, or the confidence to start a business.

2. You invested in a home

Whilst a home isn’t technically a traditional investment, there are ways it can “pay” a return. For example, you could move up in house size and value, to then later dow

nsize and “realise” (cash out) your capital growth. You could house hack and rent a room / granny flat / Air BNB your property to generate rental income from it. Many in our community do not see a house as an investment unless it fits one of the above two scenarios.

3. You invest in a pension

If you are employed in the UK and meet relevant criteria then you are likely to be auto-enrolled in a pension. There are three ways you are an investor here:

(i) The tax uplift you receive into the pension from the government for choosing to invest in your pension (e.g. you put £0.80, they put £0.20 in for you also).

(ii) The company-required match if you work for an employer, which at today’s date the legal required match was 3% from your employer, where the employee is putting in a minimum of 4%. There’s another extra return from investing in your pension.

(iii) The money in your pension is then invested in a variety of “things” – stocks and shares, bonds, cash etc.

4. You “save” or “invest” in an ISA or a regular savings account

By investing in these accounts, you will make a return either by interest (if a cash savings account) or growth (if a stocks and shares account).

Whilst there are many more ways to invest, such as rental properties, buying gold, silver and bitcoin, investing in a business venture, the above 4 are simple examples of investing that many of us are doing, or plan to do, on a daily basis.

So, are you an investor already? Most people probably do 1 and 2 with focus, 3 because the government told them to and 4 only even happens to save for “something”.

Why not make the leap to do category 4 with the purpose of intentional investing? Thoughts?

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