20 Ways to Invest That Don’t Involve the Stock Market

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When it comes to investing, this apple fell far from the family tree.

I became a Wall Street investment adviser, otherwise known as a stockbroker, in 1981 and have been an avid stock investor ever since.

My parents, on the other hand, didn’t own a single share of stock until their late 50s, and only then because my mother inherited a utility stock from her aunt.

You can’t blame them. My parents were survivors of the Great Depression, a time when stocks fell nearly 90% and some bank depositors lost it all. So it’s natural they’d prefer Treasury bills over stocks. To them, the stock market was more a casino than a place for your life savings.

It also helped that in their day, they didn’t really need Wall Street, since they could easily earn 8% or more in risk-free T-bills or certificates of deposit (CDs).

These days, with savings rates hovering near zero, many of us have been practically forced into stocks. But even for true believers like myself, we can’t put all our eggs into a volatile basket.

So it’s important to be aware of other potential investments. And there are a ton of them: by my count, more than 20. (Not all great ideas, of course.)

And that’s what this week’s “Money!” podcast is about: investments that don’t involve stocks. So if you’re like me and are reaching the upper boundaries of what you’ll comfortably keep in stocks, or you’re like my parents and want nothing to do with them in the first place, this is your podcast.

As usual, my co-host will be financial journalist Miranda Marquit. Listening in and sometimes contributing is producer and novice investor Aaron Freeman.

Sit back, relax and listen to this week’s “Money!” podcast:

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Show notes

Want more information? Check out these resources:

• How to Get Started Investing With $500 or Less
• 7 Ways to Slay Your Fear of the Stock Market
• 13 Dumb Investing Moves — and How to Avoid Them
• GOBankingRates: 13 Ways To Invest That Don’t Involve the Stock Market
• HuffPost: 10 Ways to Invest That Don’t Involve the Stock Market
• Investopedia: 5 Alternative Investments for 2021
• HowStuffWorks: 10 Reasonably Safe Alternative Investments
• Forbes: Think The Stock Market Is Expensive? Here Are 14 ‘Alternative’ Investment Ideas
• The Balance: Best Investment Alternatives to Stocks
• Subscribe to the Money Talks News newsletter
• Take our course The Only Retirement Guide You'll Ever Need
• Take our course Money Made Simple
• Miranda Marquit’s website