Last week, I was watching a drama show on TV and in a particular scene, the husband and wife were talking about investments. The husband said his friend is making $10,000 a month on top of his regular office hours job. He said his friend asked him to invest with him. The problem was that the capital needed would be $50,000. The husband said that the investment involves stocks. The husband suggested that he put in 50% of the capital and his wife, the other 50%. Upon hearing this and the insurmountable capital needed, the wife got astonished and was strongly against the idea of investing such a huge sum in stocks. She reasoned out that stocks are extremely risky, stocks are equivalent to gambling, she doesn’t have enough capital and she would not allow her husband to invest $50,000 in such a venture. The young couple has a pre-school daughter as well.
This whole scene perplexed me. What intrigued me the most was that the wife said stocks are risky and they are the same as gambling. Since they have a kid, they certainly have to finance for her needs as well. So, doing proper investment is one of the way to grow money.After the show was over, I asked my Mom how do the layman finance their personal needs, for example, for kids’ education, house, car, etc if they view investments as risky. My Mom replied that most do not really know how to invest and view investments as risky. They rather sock cash away in the bank as it’s “safer”.
My take on this whole drama scene is that saving money in a bank is actually “riskier” than doing prudent investments. By just saving money in a bank, inflation will be eating our money away. The average historical inflation is around 3% per year. Thus, our money is being eaten away at 3% yearly.
Warren Buffett once affirmed that risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing. Lack of knowledge promotes risk. So, since many do not know that $50k today is not worth $50k tomorrow, just saving money in a bank is “riskier”. We should educate ourselves by reading books on personal finance and look for alternative prudent investments that will allow our money to grow. Investments are certainly not risky if you know what you are doing.
What are your thoughts on this issue?
SudhanP.com 
Read? Saving, Lending, and Investing
Hi Createwealth8888,
I just read your post. Thanks for the link!
Can I debunk your post? I would like to say that by investing in good companies after thorough analysis, you can eliminate all the enemies of inflation, bankruptcy and emotions. When you invest in fundamentally strong companies at an undervalued price, your returns will most probably be more than inflation, they rarely go bankrupt and since you are invested in a good company, you can curb your emotions. Just my thoughts…
Hi FF,
i always tell people if you believe the BANKS are safe for keeping your money then don’t you think it’s better to buy the Banks’ stocks? Is there any real difference, if the Banks go kaput? (Of course now there is a little difference, as each personal’s bank account is protected up to $50K, right?)
Quite true!