I'd like a few choices, to earn the most income with $1000000 long and short term please.

High returns are correlated with greater risks. So a lot depends on your sleep at night factor.

Short Term

If you have a mortgage then pay it off. That's traditionally one of the best investment returns you can make.

If you don't have any savings, then park a chunk of cash in an account that gives you reasonably quick access. Having six to twelve months of living expenses at hand is considered a good cushion.

Park the rest in term deposits split across the major banks. This gives you security in case one fails, and you can take advantage of government backed savings guarantees.

The stock market works better over the long term due to its volatility, and housing has high entry and exit costs, so neither are recommended over the short term.

None of the above is going to make you much money, but it'll preserve your capital.

Long Term

If you want to be hands off then I'd do the following:

• Pay off your mortgage.
• Ensure that you've got six to twelve months of living expenses in cash.
• Put about 70% of what's left into a cheap stock market tracker fund.
• And put the remaining 30% into a cheap bonds fund.
• Rebalance from time-to-time to keep the split even.

The stock / bonds split is something that Warren Buffett advocates.

For a more hands on approach, I'd look at starting a company. But bear in mind that the failure rate is likely to be high. Roughly half of all new businesses fail in the first five years, and only a third make it to the ten year mark.

I'd suggest splitting the money up, and use a chunk of it for passive investments, and maybe keep $100K or $200K for start-up costs. If the business needs more capital then you've got access to it, and if it fails then you're not completely wiped out.

 

I'd post the same thread, lacking any useful information over and over until someone paid me to go to stop posting the same thread

 

Really? Personally, I have found the questions really intresing.

 

Thank you for the various extremely helpful suggestions. You have given me some good leads to think about and learn more about and i'm grateful for the time you put into responding to me with this.

I dont know much about any of them, eg shares, or commercial property, or business, or sourcing properties overseas, though high yeild country properties i could source i guess which was part of one strategy.

My lack of experience, low risk profile, is a problem. I want to be very cautious to do this right with the least. . I cant afford to make enormous mistakes. I am very grateful for the very thoughtful suggestions thank you.


When i say for the most return short and long term, i guess i mean that i dont want to spend the first 5 years without income paying off some property before it brings income, and i dont want to find that in 10 years a commercial property is obsolete and unsuccessful, so i' looking for low risk secure income, income both in the short term and long term .

 

Justine,

I'm curious as to where you got $1M. It may indicate where your skills are, which might hint at what best to do with the money.

If its a windfall, I'd tread very carefully.