Your thirties is the time when your finances can accommodate your basic needs, your savings, as well as some extra for fun. (As they say, work hard, play hard!) It’s also a great time to be smarter with your money by exploring proper vehicles to make it grow.
Here we list three investments which you may want to consider. As Investment Advocate Speaker Aya Laraya of Pesos and Sense once noted, making your money grow is not just about saving, but also about placing it in the right baskets.
1. Insurance
Getting insured basically means getting financially protected. Insurance shields the money you’ve set aside for everything else you want to do in your life from unexpected occurences so that you won’t have to give them up when something happens.
“Insurance really is about being prepared for the future,” explained Manulife Chief Marketing Officer Melissa Henson during their recent #StartYourStory campaign launch. “It’s something that is best thought about early, because life can throw curve balls at us at any time… A lot of us have a lot of dreams and goals and aspirations and those are the things that we save up for.”
A common misconception about insurance is that it’s expensive, however, proper planning and consultation can actually make things easier on your budget.
“In reality, it’s not necessarily expensive, kasi marami namang iba-ibang products, maraming iba-ibang types of insurance, maraming iba-ibang ways of paying for it: you can pay monthly…quarterly...annually, or you can make [a] one-time big-time payment. Pero ‘yong monthy, puwedeng hindi siya ganoon kalaki, like a few thousands lang, so para kang naghuhulog sa savings account every month.”
2. Bonds, Funds, and Stocks
These are the investments that you commonly hear about, which include time deposit and trust funds, treasury bills , corporate bonds, mutual funds, stocks, and the like, which involve assets being bought from an institution with the aim of monetary growth. Your earnings (or losses) are dependent on how your institution, the national economy, and the global market perform.
Sometimes, these investments also double as insurance policies. “There are a lot of insurance products now that are tied to investments,” Ms. Henson noted. “Meaning, you put your money in and then when your policy is mature, you actually get earnings out of that also. So it’s like investing, in bonds in equities, or mutual funds, or UITFs, except there’s an insurance component. So you’ve invested your money, and if anything happens to you, you also have insurance.
“Basically when you put your money in all of these funds, the earning or the return of interest is typically higher than when you just keep it in a savings account and definitely higher than if you just keep it at home under your mattress and not put it in any investment.”
3. Real estate
Property is one great non-financial investment you can make once you have enough money for it. It’s more than just buying your own piece of land or condo space: It can generate money through rent and buy-and-sell, and the appreciation and depreciation of your property depends on where it’s located.
