You need to diversify and not only rely on popular commercialized methods,these offer very low interest rates compared to other things you can do with your monies,so lets look at my favorite options.
1) Precious metals,the beloved safe haven
The stock market is becoming less popular,and gold is making a hit. They have even came up with a gold ATM machine,it dispenses gold bars,coins etc. Gold and Silver are actually global currencies and have been for millenniums. And as a rule,ever since money was invented, the more money we produce, the more paper gold is worth. Usually when economy is bad,gold generates high returns.Since the stock market crash,gold has surged to insane heights. The thought of having several safety deposit boxes full of gold,platinum,palladium bars and bags of silver coins when I retire seems interesting. Over a 30 year period it’s easy to hoard yourself tons of precious metals. The goal would be to stop investing in precious metals after 15 years and keep it an additional 15 years and sell it when you retire.Or keep liquidating it bit by bit.
Back in 1970 you could purchase one trow ounce of gold,that’s a one ounce gold bar or coin for 20 dollars! The price of gold at the time I am writing this article is nearly 1400$ for an ounce. That exceeds a seven thousand percent profit.If your plan is to invest for the long term (10 years or more) I suggest putting some money in physical gold safely tucked away in a small safe deposit box which you can get yourself usually as cheap as a checking account(if you add all your fees) keep in mind there is no deposit fee for safe deposit boxes. However silver, palladium,platinum have proven to be equally if not better investments than gold. They estimate the price of gold reaching 3000$ within 5 years.That’s way better than what the bank has to offer me at the moment.
2) Safe investments
There exists a number of guaranteed investment plans,basically there is no risk,other than you are not able to withdraw money for a given period..GICs (Guaranteed investment contracts) offer really tiny returns,however if they are for 30 years,they may compound to an impressive amount by the time you retire.Generally the longer the investment the better the return.
Pension plans,RRSPS and whatever the bank or government has to offer are all good ways to guarantee yourself a specific amount,anything left over than you calculate you may not really need should be invested in bonds,commodities etc…
3)Loaning money to companies (Bonds) and Shares
Rather than giving your money to the bank,why not give it to a company?They do pay more, however there runs a low risk that you may lose your money if the company goes bankrupt (in some types of investment this may not apply) The ROI(return on investment) is different for each companies,and trust me when I say you have plenty of options. Usually you get paid a dividend by the corporation based on a percentage of your capital. You may withdraw your capital at any time and suffer penalties or not be able to withdraw anything for 1-3 years it depends on the contract.Shares/Stocks are not recommended for long term investing.