A lot of people tend to think that the words ‘savings’ and ‘investments’ can only be attributed to certain amounts of money and that you have to have a lot of money, maybe over $100,000 before you can think of some serious investing.
Thankfully, we live in a world where banks and other financial institutions have gone further than stocks and securities, and it is now possible to invest $50,000 and a lot less in some really profitable assets.
With these new investing vehicles in mind, here are some good ways to invest 50k wisely, with diverse options for every person’s risk tolerance.
Ways to Invest $50,000
One main point to cover before we get into the investments themselves, you should always look to diversify your portfolio. Even if I were only making a $5,000 investment, I would make sure to not put more than 20% into any one area.
Savings Account
Like any starting investment, it’s a good idea to look at the safest option that’s out there. High-yielding savings accounts, simply put, are savings accounts with banks that offer a much higher rate of interest.
A lot of banks offer these to customers who have a reputed banking history and are willing to lock away a sizable amount in these accounts. Online banks have streamlined their operations and offer interest rates similar to that of the best CD accounts.
While you are not going to get amazing rates with any bank, high interest savings is a low risk option and may be the best way to invest 50,000 dollars short-term. Top interest rate banks include:
Betterment
Also called robo-advisors, platforms like Betterment are great because everything from investment selection to re-balancing and allocating assets is taken care of and at really reasonable costs.
Betterment allows you to take a quick questionnaire and determine how much risk you want to take. From there they do all the investing for you.
Betterment is perfect for those who aren’t particularly good with understanding the market, and this is only one of the many ways technology and data are making lives more productive.
Fundrise
It used to be difficult to participate in REITs because you had to be a accredited investor or have a very large sum of money to participate. That has all changed with the emergence of Fundrise.
Fundrise allows you to start investing in their REIT accounts with only a $500 investment. They also have no requirement to be an accredited investor, making them one of the most accessible REIT in the market. This is a great diversification play with a really nice rate of return.
Index Funds
Index funds are a type of mutual funds structured in order to keep tracking the results of a market index. This way you get to take advantage of all the stocks that are a part of the index without having to buy individual stocks.
There are a ton of brokerages or CFPs through whom you can purchase Index Funds. I would suggest doing your research on your own and saving a ton of money in trading fees using one of these brokers:
All of these brokerages have low fees for index funds and have great tools for exploring which funds are right for you.
Roth IRA
One of the best investment options for retired individuals is a Roth IRA. If you’ve received your pension or social security, or have returns from other investments, you could definitely look at investing your money this way.
Plus a Roth IRA is definitely a great investment idea for an amount like $50,000 since it leaves you free to access your money at any time you want, with absolutely no restrictions.
The best part? You can access the money you invest without paying a single dollar in taxes or withdrawal penalty (you will pay a penalty on any of the interest earned if you withdraw it early).
Not only this – you use after-tax dollars to pay towards a Roth IRA, so your future profits coming out of it are exempted from taxes as well.
You can open a Roth account at any normal brokerage. Some of the best places to open an Roth IRA are:
As we mentioned above Betterment is a robo-advisor and will handle all the investing for you . Both Ally Invest have a wide variety of investments for you to choose from and offer both mutual funds and ETFs to make diversifying easily.
Worthy Bonds
Worthy Bonds allows you to invest in small business debt. The debt is issued as a bond that is secured by some form of company property (inventory is the most common collateral).
You can buy the bonds in $10 increments and they are 100% liquid. For your investment you get a clean 5% interest.
Lending Club
If you are not familiar with peer to peer lending, it works by individuals who need a loan going through a credit worthiness process.
Those who are eligible, according to LendingClub’s standards, will have their loans listed on the marketplace where individuals can invest in the loan. As an investor, we get access to the interest these borrowers pay.
The best part of this investment is that you can invest in one note with only $25. This gives everyone the opportunity to diversify into a bunch of loans at one time.
With a $10,000 investment you can purchase a small piece of 400 different loans. That way if any one loan doesn’t pay out, you only lose 0.25% of your investment
Precious Metals
While precious metals like gold and silver aren’t directly impacted by the stock market, they do have a more direct relationship with the rise and fall of the dollar.
You can’t exactly predict that, can you? While this makes precious metals somewhat unreliable in terms of their value, they come with a host of benefits – one, they are actually an asset you can have complete possession of.
This means that while their value might go down with that of the dollar, they aren’t going anywhere far from you, and you can always wait for an optimal period before you trade them for money.
You can buy gold or silver in the form of coins and bullion bars, and the best part is that if you have a serious financial crisis where your other assets are locked, these can function as a barter.
Wine
This definitely seems out of place, doesn’t it? Sure, you know wine can be really expensive, but wine as an investment?
Yes! Sure, this one needs you to be a bit of a wine connoisseur, and the returns, like any other investment will only come along in a few years. But rest assured, this is legit. It isn’t something out of an inebriated imagination.
It is also one of the classiest ways of investing – you’ll need to invest in a cellar, in keeping meticulous records of your vintage wines, and keeping a close eye on the maturity so you know when to put them on the market.
This is definitely an investment you can raise your glass to! One of the wines with the highest returns (nearly 14.3%) is the Chateau Pavie from the Bordeaux region of France, in particular with its 2004, 2001, 1999 and 1998 vintages.
US Treasury Securities
A good alternative to high-yielding saving accounts or cash deposits is to invest in US Treasury securities.
There may be a lot more lucrative 50k investment ideas on the market, but these have remained, for decades, one of the most reliable and traditional ways for Americans to invest.
While the interest rates on US Treasury securities is typically slightly lower (because the US Treasury is one of the highest rated debtors globally), it is still a worthwhile option to consider while making that $50,000 investment.
US Treasury securities come in four basic kinds: notes, bills, bonds and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities.
Bills are the most basic of these 4, with a maturity date of one year or less which also makes them a good asset to withdraw in case of need.
Notes have a maturity of 2 to 10 years, and bonds start with a maturity period of more than a decade going all the way up to 30 years. Bills have the lowest interest rates and bonds, the highest.
The fourth kind of security – the treasury inflation-protected kind is more exciting, in terms of how it operates.
Essentially, the principal value of the security will rise based on the increase in the consumer price index, which could make you money in addition to the actual interest on the security.
The US treasury has a portal called Treasury Direct where you can buy these securities as well as hold them, starting with investments as low as $100.
Bear in mind, that similar to the high-yielding savings account or the Roth IRA, you won’t get wealthier with this sort of investment, but it is definitely a good move if you’ve earned a sizable amount of money and want to keep it safe for cloudy days.
How I would invest $50,000
My two main goals when investing any amount of money is to make sure to get a solid rater of return and to diversify my investments to prevent a single investment from tanking and taking my entire investment with it.
Needless to say, when you have an amount this big with you, it is a wise idea to check if a part of this needs to be allocated towards priorities such as clearing debts or student loans, or even putting away a sizable amount, say $20,000 invested towards an emergency fund to tide you over in tough times.
If I were planning on what to do with 50k, here are my investments.
$10,000 Betterment – I currently use Betterment as one of my families Roth IRAs and it has worked very smoothly, even with the recent ups and downs of the market. A $10,000 investment would almost max out our Roths.
$15,000 Fundrise – In my real world life this is one of the next investments I am going to make. The platform is easy to use and getting into real estate is a great diversification play, especially since we have a lot in stock based investments.
$5,000 Savings Account – This would go into my emergency fund or a place to store money for other opportunities. I like have a $5,000 investment on hand in case a sweet deal comes along.
$5,000 in Stocks – While $5k only represents 10% your $50k investment, I feel like like it is a good amount to learn how to invest in individual stocks. I would use Ally Invest here because they give you the best combination of tools and price.
$3,000 in Worthy Bonds – Getting 5% with low risk investing is hard to pass up. If you couple the liquidity of this $3k investment then I have a total of $8,000 if a great investment opportunity comes along.
$2,000 Index Funds – Index funds are a great hands off approach and an easy long term investment decision. I would probably use Ally Invest for this $2k investment since they have some of the lowest fees of any brokerage.
Final Thoughts on Investing $50k
At the end of the day, the most important word I want you to take away from this exercise in investing $50,000 is diversify.
So many people lose thousands of dollars by putting all their eggs in one basket. Don’t be that person, and go out and start investing!
Bob Hickman says
What can I expect as a return on any of these suggested ideas?
Paul Moyer says
Hi Bob,
I wish I could tell you what to expect on returns for any investment, I would be MUCH wealthier than I am now. The only ones on the list you can know for sure are the investments that are less risky. Worthy Bonds, for example is a flat 5% interest.
https://www.savingfreak.com/go/worthybonds?subsub=