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[DJ]

Become a loan shark.

[klingon13524]

Alternatively; loan sharks.

[timotheus]

Right now I have most of my savings in an ING Direct savings account. You get 1% a year, which is better than the majority of interest rates a bank will give you for a savings account. (Seriously though Fed Reserve, frigging up your interest rates, so savings accounts can become more lucrative!)

Also, http://treasurydirect.gov/ allows you to purchase US Government Bonds directly and easily. It's another good option, with the added bonus that while the bond is maturing, you can't spend it! Forced savings, yeah!

Personally I would stay away from anything in the stock market, even investing in funds that closely match the Dow Jones activity.. I think we are going to have another big dip here soon. At the least, it is not going to grow for some time. If you have some specific companies you know of that you feel make an excellent product and want to invest in, that is an option, but, like all stocks, even the good ones go down during a crash.

[Zrk2]

Become a loan shark.

When we set up the deniable grow-ops there will definitely be some druggies around trying to get money for drugs, you can prey on them! Perfect!

[Bdthemag]

As a matter of fact, spend all of your money getting a large group of people from Bay12 to you. Then we will form an organized criminal group that goes by the name of "The Internet Crime Squad", then we'll go around "protesting" when we're really just trying to get a lot of money by stealing and killing people.

What could possibley go wrong?

[Mephansteras]

Okay, let me set the scene a little:

Twenty-year old college student, recently started my first job. I have a decent stash of money, and I know I can use it to make more money. But how?

I know the simplest thing would be to open a savings account and put as much as feasible in it, but I suspect the interest rate would be disappointingly low (I haven't actually checked yet though).

Any (fairly simple) suggestions?

If you're willing to put in the work, you could use that money to start a side business. Looking for cheap deals at swap meets, garage sales, pawn shops, and the like can bring in some decent money. Especially if you trawl e-bay and the like for collectables.

Find someone's old GI-Joe collection in good condition, buy it up cheap, and sell the toys off on e-bay for a big profit. Old Magic the gathering cards and the like work well too. Heck, even just watching various things on e-bay and finding stuff going for way under the regular price can be a good option.

There is risk, of course, and it can be a lot of work. But you can also make a lot of money that way if you're good at it.

[kaijyuu]

Invest that money in your education. The less time you have to spend at a job, the more time you can spend on your studies (either shooting for a very high GPA, or just getting the darn thing over with as fast as possible with lots of classes at the same time).

[Heron TSG]

I just rediscovered by old toy car collection I started when I was about 4. There are perhaps 250 cars in it that were each bought for 50 cents or so apiece over the course of six or seven years, plus a few fancier ones. Looking on eBay, there seems to be a huge market for old toys from the nineties. I only sampled a dozen models or so, but if that trend continues for all 250ish, they'd be worth well over $1200, a profit of almost $1000. Barring appliances and computers, things tend to rise in value with age.

[Montague]

I'm trying to figure out what to do with my money as well.

My opinion, stay away from gold in any shape or form or any mutual fund, stock or investment . It is in a absurd artificial speculative bubble that due to burst any day now, its too late to make any money off that.

Real estate market is still imploded, being a landlord sucks anyways. If you must invest in real estate, go for the run-down inner-city properties, avoid suburbs and rural properties like the plague. Gentrification is a increasing trend that isn't showing any sign of slowing down.

I'd avoid most mutual funds/ money markets/ hi-low caps, because you don't know what sort of toxic crap their value is attached to

If you like shiny things or speculating on commodities, buy up copper, petroleum and rare earth elements. These things have real intrinsic value and are becoming more and more scarce. Copper prices in particular took a price drop which could mean its a good time to buy copper as its sure to go back up in the future.

Petroleum will go right back up in price once the economy picks back up, Exxon-Mobile stock is the single top performer right now and there isn't any reason why it won't pick up even more in the future when fuel prices inevitably returns to its previous levels. Big evil corporations are usually safe bets anyways.

Short-term, 5-10 year high interest CD accounts are easy enough if you don't want risk and just want your money to do something slightly more productive then gradually lose value against inflation.

Anyways, that all is my outlook on it and its how I'm going to invest my money.

Another thing, one thing I've noticed in terms of a business type investment is simply buying used cars off private owners for cheap, and selling the things off at auctions, or list them at higher prices then what you paid for them somewhere else. This is the basic business model of any used car dealership that does trade-ins. If you advertise that you'll pay slighter more then Car Max, you'll collect a lot of business from people trying to sell their cars quickly. Being a useless middle-man is the easiest and safest type of business model and used cars car market is booming because people can't afford anything better and others are selling cars at desperate prices for survival money.

Just an idea, like any business it will consume time and effort and might not pay off.

[ILikePie]

Brownies. I hear they sell for quite a bit in certain places.

[Virex]

I'm trying to figure out what to do with my money as well.

My opinion, stay away from gold in any shape or form or any mutual fund, stock or investment . It is in a absurd artificial speculative bubble that due to burst any day now, its too late to make any money off that.

If you really believe that it's they're going to crash, you may want to go short on those things. It would net you a fortune.

[Siquo]

The problem with going short is the short-terms involved.

What I do: Put your money where your heart is. Find a fund that actively tries to make the world a better place, while making you some money.
Personally, I've got most of my assets at the Triodos Bank.

[Caz]

Depends how much money you have, but buying and renting out property to pay the mortgage is always a good idea, so is some kind of business if you're good at that sort of thing. Put your money in a bank if you want to make about as much interest to break even from inflation, lol. Buy a field and plant apple trees, then market your great organic cider. Pretty much limitless things to do depending on your imagination. Find something you love doing that will make you money. You could spend it on education to find a better job (I'm not too sure how that works over there though since education is free in my country) but from what I've heard even university graduates are having trouble finding more than minimum wage jobs now?

Growing food is always useful and cuts out the do job->get money->buy food middle step.

[Leatra]

Money comes and goes. Try not to risk it too much.

[dr_random]

Buy a small power plant and sell the juice that everybody needs: energy. Cogeneration is a nice thing: Find a hospital and sell them electric power and heat in one go. Depending on the incentives wind and solar power might do well also.