In recent years, financial info and trading on the Net has made information available to everyone if they know how to use it. A friend of mine’s husband trades online and made a lot of extra $ trading big companies like Home Depot or Qualcomm. That was over the past 3 years or so. He told me he would have doubled $100K in one year, but she kept on spending everytime he made a profit–so the account hovered over the initial deposit. The profit was money turned to cash and spent on improvements.

By contrast, I’ve had some mutual funds that grew minisculy since 1995. I put them in growth rather than an index because supposedly that was my best strategy. But unless one is saavy at choosing a fund, like me you can end up with duds. There are some I have seen that performed up to 32%. I was hoping to average 8%…but basically earned less than what I could have in a CD. I think it’s difficult for an amateur to maximize their investment unless they are lucky.

I am an amateur, but it seems to me from my experience so far that if you are a very smart investor, real estate appreciation as an investment is less lucrative than stocks. If you watch the stock market all the time and know how to invest, you can achieve higher gains faster. Most people are amateurs and are too busy just living life to constantly be watching what their stocks or mutual funds are doing…and it there goes time and money if you don’t stay on it.