What to Do with $50,000 in Savings

Q: Melissa Blackman asks, I have $50,000 in the bank. Now what do I do?

Money in the bank… Do you want to do something fun here?

Give it all to me.

Put it in a parachute, go sky diving and yell “Free bananas for all” as you plummet towards the earth.

Buy a really crappy house.

Fill a storage unit of old VCRs.

Put a pair of ridiculous rims on an old crappy car.

Get a set of really sweet… oh shoot, what are they called? Grills? Get an awesome grill.

Buy an entire church tickets to Freedom Fast Lane Live.

Boost a Facebook video of you saying to your crush, “Hey, check me out now” and buy a lot of traffic.

All jokes aside, there are two answers to this question.

I know that, for me, when I hit a certain point, and it actually was $50,000 that was in the bank account, which was about six months to a year’s worth of expenses for me at the time, that was a new level of freedom for me.

There is an ROI on freedom and feeling secure about your financial status. So if you don’t have an emergency fund, where you really feel like you’ve got six to 12 months worth of something to take care of you in the event of an emergency, do nothing.

Just put it away and know that you are now free to go do things that you want and take a little bit of calculated risk, because if it all doesn’t work out, you’ve got a nice fallback option.

That’s what I decided to do when I had my first $50,000 in the bank.

If you’re looking to invest $50,000, I had made the mistake too many times of thinking, I’ve got money, I’m just going to throw it all into something. So I would say incrementally invest in something that you believe in, whether it’s a dividend paying stock, or it’s a real estate investment trust, or it’s a down payment on an investment property that you want to buy and rent out for somewhat passive income.

These are all things that are good incremental movement for you to invest in.

But I’ve made the mistake of trying to diversify into things that I’m not necessarily good at doing. So where I would spend the money is on acquiring a business that supported the rest of your efforts.

If you don’t have a business, put it into a different type of income stream. But if you’re an entrepreneur and you are building a business, what can you use that money for to overall support the health of the company.

Is it in more traffic? Is it in sponsoring influencers? Is it in acquiring a high traffic website that isn’t monetized that can support some of the products that you’re trying to sell?

These are all very very good uses of funds that might not have that immediate win that so many people look for, but it gives you the long term after effects that really drive business.

$50,000 is just enough to be able to spend a good amount on traffic, and or acquire a small property that makes either a little bit of money or allows you to support the efforts that you’re doing.

Those are the areas of business that I would focus on.

If you don’t have a business, I’d put it into a dividend paying stock that you’re incrementally investing in, meaning you’re not just dumping all the money in there. Or you’re putting it into a real estate transaction that you are going to finance the rest and then have the renters pay for it.

So $50,000 probably isn’t going to change any life or business, unless it just frees you up to be comfortable and take more strategic risk. If you’re beyond that point, put it into a business, or a passive income stream.