Thoughts on the Best Ways to Invest $1000

Nearly a couple of years ago I asked the readers, what’s the best place to invest around $1000?.

Earlier this week, Jim Wang asked 24 experts and a wannabe (myself) about the best ways for newbie to invest $1000. I figured he’d get the same two answers from everyone:

1. Vanguard Mutual Funds or ETFs
2. or a Robo-Advisor

And of course those were the two things I mentioned. (I may have cheated by giving two ideas.)

In fact a number of people echoed those thoughts. Since I expected those two, I’ll give you some thoughts on the other ideas mentioned. Those ideas were largely thinking outside the box. Everyone has their opinion and that’s what makes us (and life) exciting. So here are my thoughts on a few of the suggestions (for what it’s worth):

Spend the money by Marginal Revolution – Simply because rates on investments are low right now. It’s an interesting thought as much of the year the markets have been flat and interest rates are very low.
Pay down debt by The White Coat Investor – Love this, but I’d say pay down bad debt. There’s a difference between Good Debt and Bad Debt
What’s your goal by Investor Junkie – This was probably the best of the non-standard advice I had read.
Invest in yourself by Nerd’s Eye View financial planning blog – I’ve never been a fan of Invest in Yourself, because there are a lot of investments that give you no return and suck up your time and energy. It’s really hard to know which are good investments… and if you did, you’d probably have already invested in them, right?
Invest in what you know by John Paul Engel – Not a huge fan of Peter Lynch’s buy what you know as I mentioned before. I knew that everyone would carry internet phones in their pockets back in 2004 and bought Palm stock. How do you think that worked out for me? I’ll cover another company that went similarly bad for me in a few days. There’s a big difference between the idea and the execution of the company. It can be almost impossible to know how a particular company is going to execute, right Enron investors?
Save it in an Emergency Fund by Cashville Skyline – I kind of thought this went without saying, but when you assume that, you can get in trouble. Good idea on Kate for saying it.
Depends on the person by Three Nine Financial – This is almost like me cheating and offering a couple different options. Yes it does indeed depend.
Don’t be emotional by Hylland Capital – Once again, this is a great suggestion and the kind of thing that I simply would have glossed over.