Money (or the love of it) is said to be the root of all evil, but we can’t live without it. Money certainly isn’t the most important thing in life, health and happiness come first, but having money can make a huge difference to the freedom we have and the choices we are able to make. If you’re poor you probably have to get up way too early and spend you’re time working for other people doing things you’d rather not be doing. If you have wealth you can get up when you choose and use your time according to your own wishes. You might not work less, you probably won’t, but you’ll sure get more satisfaction from what you do.

This article gives some advice on how you can move towards that happy day.

Why do YOU Want to Invest?

We all want and need money for different reasons. It might be to put a deposit on a house, put our kids through college, take the trip of a life time, retire early etc etc. There are as many different reasons as there are people. What’s important is to identify YOUR reasons. Once you discover how to invest money, and develop your own personal investment strategy, it is your reasons for investing that will help keep you to your strategy rather than straying from it in favor of some short-lived gratification, like a visit to the sushi shop rather than a microwaved ready-meal.

What is Investment?

Investment is the forgoing of utility or pleasure that might have been derived from money in the short term in order to generate greater and/or more sustainable utility or pleasure in future. An extremely simple example: I can choose to eat out today, or I can save the money I’d spend doing so in order to be able to eat out every week in a few years time.

It can be seen that investment takes a certain amount of discipline. Hence the need to maintain the motivation that comes from defining your own personal financial goals.