Calm down ladies.
To stick to the thread and to add to FlexibleResponse's input (which IMO is VG) I hope that the following (posted on a similar topic a few years ago) helps those reading this thread.
Would be interesting to hear answers to FlyingKiwi's question.
Of course life is not a dress rehearsal so an alternative is to go down to Wanchai eat drink and be merry for tomorrow........etc
Financial Education
You need financial education. This is not taught in schools. You can teach yourself to be financially smarter and recognise these types of legal "investment" scams by so called IFAs. Nobody has your financial interests at heart better than yourself. No one. Always remember this.
There are only four things ("asset classes" they are called) that you can invest in. Every "investment" product that you read about will fall into one of these or will be a derivative. Sometimes it is not clear, therefore this should raise alarm bells and look for hidden costs that will eat into the rate of return.
1. Cash or cash like products
2. Equities
3. Property
4. Commodities
Understand, assess and compare each investment opportunity against these categories:
1. Rate of return
2. Capital Gurantee
3. Liquidity
4. Ability to leverage
5. Any tax advantages
6. Costs of the product
What you need first and foremost is financial education to really understand what all of this and other terms in financial/investment language means. You are not taught any of this in school and the industry makes you feel ignorant. It preys on this ignorance to part you from you hard earned. Therefore you need to teach yourself to recognise when you are being sold a line. The upside is that you can teach yourself to be financially smarter very easily.
A good start is to read Robert Kiyosaki "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" book and then his series. He has a game also. It is very good for educational puposes. It will teach you a lot about how investment and money works. It is actually fun once you start to learn about how the industry works as it opens up all the b/s you see in the market and in the high st banks. It brings clarity. Don't worry too much about the property related stuff given the current market, but it will teach you to recognise asset class volatility and cycles. One of his best lines of advice is this - and it is the hardest to find:
- Find an expert who can give you good advice, NOT a salesperson.
Others include
- The high street banks are not your freinds. They are there to screw you.
- Build income generating assets and then build pipelines between them. Increase the size of the pipelines and velocity of the money that goes between. Don't let money stay stagnant and not earning.
- Once the sum of your portfolio and passive income exceeds your total expenses you can quit the rat race.
- Once you make passive and portfolio income a part of your life, your life will change.
- People fail financially for two reasons; they fail to manage their money and they fail to leverage their money. You have to understand how to employ power leverage (the banks money), safely.
One you start to learn and can cut throught the cr@p and educate yourself the whole industry becomes very illuminating and the common tricks of the trade become apparent.
Hope this helps. Whether you like the author or not is not the point. This is just a pointer for you as it worked for me. Educate yourself and your kids. Good look with your ongoing financial education. It's fun. At the very least it will stop you falling prey of the "financial advisors".
K