Prime Rate Credit

I myself, since I am young (I’m 33 years old, this is very young when it comes to investing and letting money grow over time, and I’ve already been investing via my 401k at work and other outside smaller investments since I was in my early twenties), tend to invest in higher risk, higher yield mutual funds as well as stocks that are geared more toward growth.

This means they may have volatility in the short term, which is why they would not be a good choice for those that are near or at retirement age, but for someone who has lots of years to invest and let their money grow, like me, they are better because over the long term, their gains and losses even out more, and their long term gains tend to be much better than those “safer” stocks and mutual funds that are recommended if you simply want to keep pace with inflation and not beat it, as well as have some pure profit in your pocket afterwards.

So, how do you know whether to invest in higher yield, higher risk portfolio additions, or the less risk, but also likely less payoff mutual funds and other investments such as government bonds and such? Well, it is always best to seek the help of a financial professional. However, a word of caution on this. Get a seasoned professional with a track record for making people’s portfolios profitable.

The difference between someone like say a college student and someone who has been in the workforce for several years have very different needs and may want different viewpoints from different types of financial counselors that have mroe experience with certain segments of the population.

There are some really good financial advisors out there, but there are also the ones that do not necessarily make the right choices for their clients when it comes to risk vs. payoff assessment. You may want to get recommendations from friends who have established a good rapport with their financial professionals, and you also may want to pay attention to whether your financial advisor works on commission for directing you to certain funds and stocks, or whether they are something called “fee based”.

If they are fee based, this means that they just get a flat fee for investing you in a certain fund, and that’s it. They do not really have incentives to get more out of you, because it is a flat fee. I took my dad along when I went with my financial advisor because he has many years of investment experience and is a former stockbroker himself, so he was able to explain to me the difference between the two.

I had initially chosen a “safe” financial counselor before when I had gotten myself in over my head with college student credit cards and needed both a financial advisor and someone to help bail me out of my credit card mess, and that was just something that suited me for that time in my life, and I now have different goals and agendas when it comes to making financial decisions for the long haul.