Investment Ideas

Just one point, gold and silver in the hand is useable. Gold and silver stored in an account away from you is not available at need. Assay costs can eat you alive when dealing with them. Sealed, assayed metals from a consistent dealer may alleviate some of those costs. A preferred smelter can give spot cash as to the weight and spot price of gold that day. There are some that cheat at both.
I was jeweler and found out the hard way. And found a good smelter, you will have to do your own research.
~Richard

I have physical gold and silver coins stored away where I can reach them anytime :)

Spend it all on a big party, buy all the stuff you want, the world is going to end, we're all doomed, so it just doesn't matter.

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Originally Posted by henryconchile

That all depends.

Ideally that is true, but there are a lot of factors to consider, like (debt) mortgage tax deductions, capitol gains tax, long term stock price & dividend increases, etc. It can be enough to drive you nuts, but a bit of patience and homework can help you figure it all out.

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I agree that a mortgage is a little different.
Most other consumer debt, IMO is best to elminate before investing in anything with a lower return.
Even when considering potential future gains of an investment, there is a lot to be said for not having that debt hanging over your head.
If life happens, it's nice to not have to worry about those things.

I learned this the hard way.
I had to pull money from most of my investments, and lost most of my gains.
Meanwhile, the interest on my debt continued to rack up.

At 23 time is on your side for stock investments. Now I deversified by using mutual funds and going kind of risky in the earlier years and and got more conservative as time went on.

Also, if you look there are funds that are retirement funds that do this for you. You pick a time frame and the balance of the funds change as time progresses.

Another route I also took was using the Bob Brinker's "MarketTimer" magazine here:

Bob Brinker's Land of Critical Mass : bobbrinker.com Marketimer © Moneytalk Bob Brinker

I did very well following it's suggestions and also reading on the website.

I started at about your age with about the same amount, am now 62, retired at 55, and live very well on my investments and ,hopefully still have Social Security.

Good luck on your endeaver. Steve H. [Paco }