After You Make Money, What Do You Do With It?

Hi, For now, my investments in the stock market is generating negative return for me. I am still in the stage of learning. I think I need to gain even more experience and learn more knowledge in order to be successful as an investor.

Sometimes, when you are in the learning stage in the investment process especially, it may be good to take the advice of those who recommend only investing a certain portion of your money that you have set aside for investements - perhaps only 10% - so that if the investment "goes south" or does not otherwise work out, you do not find yourself starting over once again at zero and trying to work your way up again. Consulting a financial advisor or other professional about financial planning is probably the best course of action, although you have to be careful with these, too, sometimes, because - afterall, how are they making their money? By you purchasing stocks through them? Best wishes!

Hi! You are working toward something commendable in your quest to learn and gain experience in order to make money in the stock market. Each person has their own preference as to the investments that they enjoy and would like to learn to use and to use well and for a good result. And you also have much wisdom in waiting to spend your money on "stuff" that are luxuries until *after* you have made much through your investments. Best wishes to you in your endeavors! And thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Hi,highlyclever.I totally agree with you.You opened a new window for me. From the point of view of a good investor,purchasing a house as a investment is really a good idea because the price of house in China is keeping on growing.But where I live is somewhat of a tourist attraction and it need a big sum of money to purchase a house.I can not afford it in a short time.So I want to look for some investment which need less money. My father used to buy some stocks and he lose all the money he invest to stock.So my mom is kind of afraid of investment.But I think using part of our savings to own extra money is really a good thing. I will learn more about how to invest and avoid the mistake my father has took. And I think I can learn many kownledge form you by reading your posts. Have a nice day.

A house can be a very big investment, which means that the possibility exists either for much to be gained or for much to be lost. An example of a home investment idea that might work well in a tourist area is a hotel or a motel, where visitors pay for overnight lodging. On a smaller scale, I have seen people form a "bed and breakfast" business - in which they open a room in their home up "for rent" for a day, offering travelers a place to spend the night, and then in the morning, the traveler receives a breakfast with the family prior to their departure. But an investment does not need to be made on such a grand scale. Depending on your tourist attraction, an investment could be something as simple as creating a business that sells items for tourists. I also live in a tourism area, where there is much hunting and fishing. In addition to hotels and motels (or even simple rental cabins), there are many businesses that sell fish bait and fishing lures and other fishing supplies to sportsmen who need to acquire additional equipment. Or, if your area is an attraction for tourists, these tourists will come to your area - and they will need to eat. An investment could be something as expensive as a restaurant or as inexpensive as a cart from which little food items are sold. The stock market is not the only form of investing. An investment - and a good investment - is something that will put money back into your pocket - whether you are talking about stocks, houses, rentals, hotel rooms, food, and so forth. Of course, with any business, you need to familiarize yourself with government regulations in your area before getting started. It is always good to learn and follow the government rules from the beginning. But learn the rules and then learn to work within those rules in order to find the best path for your success. If you say to yourself: "Oh, it is too hard" - then this will become your reality. If you look at something that is hard and set your mind to make an achievement - even if you are not walking toward your achievement with "great leaps" but only with "baby steps" - then you are making a move in the right direction. Find ways to make little successes, and then with each little success, find ways to grow and improve and build more successes. From this path, you can learn much as you go along, and you also do not make huge risks in the beginning that will hurt you in the long-term. Depending on the area in which you live - what kind of tourist place it is, who the tourists are that come to visit you - you can find all sorts of investments. Perhaps you invest in equipment to make t-shirts and hats. Perhaps you invest in a camera and take pictures and sell picture postcards to tourists. Or maybe you set up a photography business with your camera: There are many popular businesses in tourist areas that I have visited, where the proprietor has many costumes in stock, and customers come in and dress up and stage a scene for their picture. There are many possibilities. The challenge is to keep your eyes open to the opportunities. Cheers!

It is nice to have a distinction between online money and offline money (although taxes need to be paid on both! ) For me, my offline money is a little less accessible for offline purchases - so that I use it for similar purchases as you - webhosting, etc. Others have specifically mentioned that they do not get a PayPal debit card, because otherwise they would spend their online earnings - and they find that it is nice to be able to keep these online earnings "off limits" in order to be able to accumulate some form of savings. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

I think it is commendable to have goals and to work towards those goals, and there are always challenges and always other things that compete for our money. It all comes down to setting priorities and then finding the resolve to do what needs to be necessary... although sometimes family issues can come into play and make those decisions very difficult. I'm glad that things work out for you, and I wish you the best in the future! Thanks for replying to my discussion!

Thanks! Everyone wants to make money. Many have different ideas on how to accomplish making money. You would like to spend your money on travel. Where would you like to travel - within China or abroad? Cheers to you! Hope you are well.

I want to go to USA. Can you show your picture to me? Then,I can find you in USA. ha ha...(*_*)

This is how many people seem to spend their money - on bills, food, and clothing - the basic necessities of life that people need to survive and make it to tomorrow... or to the next pay period. Best wishes to you! Thanks for replying to my discussion!

A lot of people work towards that goal of making extra money in order to support their families and pay the bills, whether that work is online or offline. Best wishes to you in finding something that works for you and your family!

Here is some honesty! You will buy food... A lot of people spend money exactly this way. Their first thought is for their stomach, and so they get their money in their pocket and they run off for buying food. (Food is a good purchase. It gives you the energy to work hard for more money to buy more food! ) After your groceries and your cell phone, you talk about sharing money with your family and your parents. This is a very important aspect of making money - is the willingness to "give something back" and to be generous. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

A lot of peoples' earnings - either online or offline - seem to go towards paying for those "necessities of life" - the food, clothes, housing, utilities - not even to mention the GAS! (lol) Babies are more expensive than most people realize, and diapers alone can be a HUGE expense - not to mention all of the other accessories that are needed for bringing up a child. (It is all worth it in the end; it is just very expensive...) It is always interesting to see where people spend their money. Thanks for your reply!

Your response really gave me pause to think. I believe that we can all find ways to set aside money in a savings format, even if we live with other people. It is not easy - because children want toys, adults want clothes (and toys, too...). But the challenge is to develop a discipline of taking money that comes in and saying, "This money is not going back out again. This money is not going to be spent, no matter how much we need it. It has a different purpose. It is already spent on making our future a better place to live." Maybe like our friend above, this means putting the money into an account where you don't have easy access to it - no debit cards or anything like that. The money goes in, but it is difficult to come out unless you have to make a concerted effort to make it come out. And then when you make it come out again, that money needs to find ways to put more money into your pocket - and not just be something that is here today and gone tomorrow. Part of the challenge that may help you with being able to save money is to start keeping track of where your money goes. It is like me with eating. When I do not keep track of what I am eating, I eat everything. I consume **thousands** of calories. When I write my consumed calories down on a sheet of paper, I discipline myself to account for everything that goes into my mouth... And maybe such a discipline for whatever comes out of your wallet (or purse) would prove helpful in the long run for your ability to handle money well. Thanks for your comment! I appreciate your thoughts!

It sounds like you have a good (certainly ambitious!) savings plan. After you have spent you money on food, clothing, entertainment - and a few wonderful trips - you will still have your 50% in the savings for your future expenses. This is what investing is all about - using your money now to take care of yourself in the future. Congratulations to you, and best wishes!

I hear you and share your sentiments! Loan or credit card payments can take a huge toll on the amount of money that is coming in. It can be shocking how much is paid in interest alone. I had a loan payment for my student loans from college, where I was paying $80 per month. Of that, $30 was for interest! This motivated me to do whatever was necessary to pay off that loan as quickly as possible. What kind of investments do you make with your money? Do you find success? Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Best wishes to you!

It sounds like you definitely have a plan for where you would like to go and how you would like to get there, and one of the best ways for achieving this is to understand where your money is going and whether it is going to the places where you want it to go. I like that you have listed your business as first priority, and then you have other things like phone, food, etc. When you make investing a priority, you put a priority on your future and the ability to sustain yourself in the future. Cheers! and thanks for your reply!

You are in the company of many people, who make money and then use it to purchase their favorite things. And if this is the biggest goal that you have for your life, to purchase your favorite things, then my best wishes to you in your endeavor! Thanks for replying to my discussion!

Another person who spends their money on education! Good for you. Being a student is an expensive pursuit - especiall with the non-education related expenses of food, rent, and gas - but you do need to eat, and you need to live somewhere, and you need to be able to get around! (And gas is especially expensive these days...) Costa Rica in the wintertime sounds like an excellent place to go, especially if you live in a winter environment that is cold. Congratulations on reaching the half-way point in that goal! Have you developed online money making skills that have furthered you significantly in your quest to earn and save money? I am always interested in learning how others are making money online. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Best wishes on your education (and your goal of making it to Costa Rica in the wintertime...)

You are a very disciplined person to save your online earnings, as earnings from any source can be so easily spent. Taking away the temptation by cutting off the channels for easy access (i.e., a debit card) is also a wise idea. At the beginning of any process, the progress is only seen slowly. I am working towards weight loss and am in the middle of my process. I walk almost every day on a treadmill for an hour (and go about 4 miles), and when I hop up on my treadmill and look at the big 00:00 to start, it seems that there is a long way to go before I will hit that final 60:00 and be able to get off again. But I have learned to look for little landmarks along the way. I finish a quarter of a mile in approximately 3 minutes and 20 seconds, so I find myself working toward those little goals along the way, and then I find it easier to reach my cumulative goal of four miles in sixty minutes. The point of this ramble? To congratulate you and encourage you as you start out small and work your way toward your bigger goals. Congratulations! and thanks for sharing your thoughts!

I think every person who is trying to make money online hopes to reach that point where they can say that their online earnings are "significant", but my question was about earnings in general. I received $15 from myLot last month, and I used that money to pay for about 45 days of my webhosting service for my webpage over the course of the next three months. A lot of people take the money that they make online and use it to treat themselves to something special. I have heard good things about this latest Batman movie, but I have not yet seen it myself. Thanks for your reply!

Hi, niv_musicman ~ Have you learned new information since you received your losses in the stock market? Have you found new ways to protect yourself from such losses in the future? If you have, great! You have learned from the mistakes of the past and have put them to work for your benefit in achieving success in the future. If not, then maybe you would want to take the time to learn more about the stock market, how it works, and how you can protect your money, before simply feeding more money back into the machine and simply *hoping* that the value of your stocks *goes up*. Many people do this - they lose money in the stock market, they spend more money in the stock market - but there is a saying about doing the same activity again and again and expecting different results. If there is a way that you can find to alter the activity - or maybe even to find something else that you can learn well enough to make it work better for you - this would be a good path to take. Sometimes it is good to cut your losses and go elsewhere. Sometimes it is good simply to learn from the mistakes of the past and re-route your course for the future - whether you are talking about continuing in the stock market or going elsewhere. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Successful investing to you in the future!

I think that a lot of people are like you. After they work very hard to earn their money, they treat themselves to a reward of something that is important to them or to having a good time. And depending on your situation in life, this may be a good way to use your money. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

This is another way that a lot of people use their money. It is a good use, as the knowledge that you gain in an education is something that can remain with you and can be put to good use. House rentals and food both can be very expensive, depending on the type of housing and the type of food, as well as the location where you want to live. (If you live close to the university, then you can walk or bicycle... if you live far from the university, then you also need to consider paying for transportation as you calculate your expenses.) Best wishes on your education!