When you invest your money in bonds it is like you are the banker for a company. You are giving your money to a company in exchange for their promise to pay you back with interest. The interest that you will get paid on bonds that you invest in is variable among companies and there are different bond repayment terms that each company will have.
When you invest in bonds you should plan to have your money tied up for a few years. Usually companies will have a bond repayment period of around ten years, but the good news is you will be able to get an interest check either on an annual basis or a semi-annual basis for the bond that you have purchased. Then at the end of the term the original money that you have invested will be paid back to you.

Usually bonds take a lot of cash to purchase. If you only have a few hundred dollars to invest then you may have a hard time finding a bond to purchase. You will need at least a thousand dollars to purchase a bond but most of the time you will find that you need thousands of dollars to make the investment that you want to make.

Depending on your age bonds are a great way to invest your money. If you are getting older in your investment years then bonds are definitely a great way to invest. You will want to do some research on the company that you are interested in to make sure that they are a stable company before investing any of your money. If the company is stable then you will have a great investment on your hand. You can get a great return on your money without taking a lot of risks by playing banker to different companies.

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We’re having our very first (but not our last) contest here at Beginner Investing!

The contest starts right NOW and ends on October 31 at 12:00 noon EST.

First, the prize….one winner will receive a copy of The Morgan Stanley Guide To Personal Investing.

Actual customer review:
“This is a concise & intelligent primer for those beginning investing, as well as those with some experience who hold trust in the responsible management & guidance of Mr. Gardiner. It provides easily understandable descriptions of markets ranging from bonds, to funds, to options.”

Here’s how to enter:
All you need to do to enter is post about the contest and link to this post. Leave the link to where you posted about it in a comment here so we can keep track of the entries.

Good luck!

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When I left one job to go work for another, I had to wait a certain time until I could enroll into their 401K plan. The company only had 21 employees and one third of them had started within the past year. Since the company was small, it had been using a local financial broker in the city and a representative come down to the office to talk with all of us.

He spoke to each of us to see how he would best invest for our individual needs. I told him that I since I still had over twenty years before I would retire and was thinking of investing more on the aggressive side. On the forms that were in front of us, there were well over a hundred and fifty different ETFs, mutual funds and bonds, but nothing towards individual stocks. He told me his suggestions and at the time I wasn’t has informed as I am now, so I took his advice and agreed.

I received a quarterly report from them about nine months later and noticed that there wasn’t much growth in the portfolio. I ask some of the other employees how they were doing with their investments. Out of the five of us that discussed our investments, none of us were the same age, marriage status, or had the same amount of dependents. The odd thing was that roughly 60% of each of the portfolios were invested in the same funds. We realized that these funds that we were invested in, were high commission earners for the “salesman”. These funds were also the laggers in the portfolios.

I tried to reach the representative who handled my account to get answers, but it was next to impossible to get to speak to him. I spoke to the owner of the company I worked for to see if he could make contact to get some answers, but it never happened.

I left the company about three months later and decided to move my money out shortly after leaving. They informed me that I shouldn’t be looking to take the money out, “I would do better if I’d just leave it in there”. I received my annual statement from the firm and noticed that my account had increased by less 5% overall.

I decided to get my money out and put it in an IRA with one of the online discount broker. They had me jumping through hoops with all the forms and procedures that it took almost two months to finally get transferred. They told me that there would be early withdrawal frees and penalties. At that point I didn’t care, I just wanted it out of their hands. If it wasn’t for the online discount broker going straight after the firm directly on my behalf, who knows how long it would have taken.

After the firm took out its management fees and costs as well as the penalties for removing my money, I had only a 2% gain for the time that I was invested in the plan. The firm was able to take over three percent of the profits for themselves.

When someone else is handling your investments, you need to know what you’re being charged for otherwise you might lose a good portion of you retirement fund to costs. You might think of it as only 1% of your portfolio each year, but consider how much that first year of capitol would be twenty years later, it adds up once you factor in compounded interest on the principal from those earlier years of investing.

Be aware of what you’re paying for, it could mean the difference in when you can retire.

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