What Is Investment?

There is an old saying. It goes something like, "Don't work for your money. Put your money to work for you."

Of course, I know that you have to work for your money. If you were independently wealthy, I highly doubt that you would have reason to read these words on this blog. But the idea is still something which you can put to use.

Away with Stereotypes!

You may be under the impression that investment is something that sharp guys in sharp suits manage in air-conditioned offices. Maybe you are invested through your retirement program at work but you have no idea how it works or even how much you have. It's just something those financial guys on the other end of the telephone are handling for you, right?

So Can I Invest My Own Money?

Investment is just a form of saving. In fact, when you put money in a savings account, you are investing. You are sticking your money in a bank and letting them use your money in return for a meager interest rate.

Not everyone is aware that banks are using their savings account money but they certainly are. They make loans with the money that you provide and earn much more than they pay back to you.

There are more productive ways to invest your money, though having a savings account is a good idea. You can invest your money in stocks, bonds, land, precious metals and a variety of other possibilities. Most importantly, you can generally make more from these investments than you can with a savings account.

How Much Does This Cost?

Not long ago, investment was expensive. You had to pay a broker to purchase stocks for you. Before the Internet, we lived in the great age of the middlemen. These people made money providing access to things like education, the stock market, real estate and so on. Increasingly, as automation advances, we live without expensive middlemen.

This revolution began with stock investment several years ago when agencies like ScottTrade or ETrade began offering clients the opportunity to make stock purchases and trades for small fees. This situation improved considerably just a few years ago when RobinHood began offering completely free trades on the stock market.

So the answer is that investment is free. Totally and completely free. The other day I bought a couple shares in a small company, They each cost 50 cents and that is all I paid for them. There were no fees or taxes. I just paid a dollar with a few taps of my phone and became owner of two shares. If I want, I can also turn around and sell them at no cost, instantly.

A lot of people are so used to the old way of doing things that they cannot believe this is true. They think that I am leaving something out or forgetting some small fee but the revolution has happened. This service is completely free. Its tie to take advantage of these advances and start making some money

What Should I Invest In?

We will go into this in more depth in a further set of articles. In the meantime, know that you have a wide variety of investment options. They include stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, real estate, precious metals and other alternative investments.

Why Should I Do This?

Because you should be financially free. Whether you are single, still married or one of the many divorced men who have been financially raped in court, a knight should be economically stable. You do not need ot be rich but you should be knowledgeable about money and capable of managing your own finances.

Also, we live in a time when we can no longer count on family to take care of us when things go bad. Those of you who have strong families (like Robert), God bless you. But those of you who find yourself afloat in a  sea of semi-strangers (like Joab), need to have more than your paycheck to protect yourself. Investing can give you protection and freedom.

That security can help you become a better knight of the Resurrection.We are not locked up in monasteries praying for a better world. We will have to forge it with our own hands.

The Debt Problem

I remember when I was in college in the early 90s and I received my first credit card offer. It seemed absurd to me. I had grown up in a time when only solidly established, middle-class people were able to have credit cards and most of the didn't. Yet there I stood, in the dirty kitchen of a run-down college rental, holding a credit card offer with a line of up to $1,000 in my hand.

I accepted with some trepidation. All over the country, the same thing was happening to other young men and women. For the most part, we accepted the offers with varying amounts of enthusiasm. And then the fun started.

The Era of Good Feeling: Full Employment and Cheap Credit

Being a young American man in the 90s was wonderful. The employment levels went up to the point where it was relatively easy to get a job anytime that you wanted. I recall quitting jobs that I held during college for virtually no reason, other than I wanted a break. I was sure to pick up another one whenever I wanted.

Furthermore, I had a credit card! Nothing was out of my grasp.

Admittedly, I did not go crazy with my credit card. I had been raised to be frightened of debt and I kept the card in my wallet for an emergency.

The Other Side of the Coin

But I did not need to go crazy with the card. Nor did my peers. The cards would creep into our lives if they did not charge into them.

And those jobs? Sure, we could get jobs whenever we wanted them but they were not great jobs. I'm not saying that they were not genuine jobs being created back then, requiring good educations and high skill levels. But the the loss of the manufacturing jobs that our fathers had was masked by a proliferation of low-skilled, part-time service jobs that were advantageous for single young men and women looking to lead frivolous lives. These jobs were not foundations for careers, though.

So many of us staggered through the 90s. We had a great time, but by the time the dot-com bubble burst in 2000/2001, we were in debt up to our ears with multiple credit cards.

Even riding this debt, banks loaned us money during these years and many of us bought houses. I did. And as the house appreciated in value, I and many of my peers treated our property like a credit card. We refinanced and took the equity as cash to support our lifestyles.

The sad thing is, looking back, is that we didn't even really have enough with these credit cards and HELOCs to live lavishly. We bought better groceries that we might have otherwise. We bought nicer cars than we night have otherwise but we were not driving ferraris and flying to France on a whim. Maybe that would have made the coming credit debacle worth it.

American Debt in History

When the debt began to overcome me at this time, I was initially wracked with shame. I felt that I had lowered myself and become something less than a man. I was a debtor, like those poor souls sent overseas from Britain to penal colonies.

While I am certainly not proud of the mess that I had made for myself, I look back on it with a little more perspective now. It turns out that some of history's most admired men were terribly irresponsible debtors. Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe were both swimming in debt when they died.

This is not meant to excuse my financial irresponsibility. I just came to realize that I was in good company when it came to debt and I was not the only man who had fallen victim to fiscal carelessness.

Where Do We Go from Here?

If you are like me and are trying to come to grips with your financial failures, you need to go cold turkey. This is easy advice to give but not the easiest to heed. However, anyone who has dealt with a drug addiction may know that this is the only way to get out.

Cut the credit cards. They're maxed out anyway, right? As for how you manage life after that dramatic move, there will be more articles to come.