I have about 20 000 usd. How can invest them to do good in the world?
"Vanguard has a Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund.  Their web page says ""Some individuals choose investments based on social and personal beliefs. For this type of investor, we have offered Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund since 2000. This low-cost fund seeks to track a benchmark of large- and mid-capitalization stocks that have been screened for certain social, human rights, and environmental criteria. In addition to stock market volatility, one of the fund’s other key risks is that this socially conscious approach may produce returns that diverge from those of the broad market."" It looks like it would meet the qualifications you require, plus Vanguard funds usually have very low fees." One of the best things you can do for this purpose, while getting a modest ROI on a passive investment, is invest in a company that profitably does whatever you want to see more of. For example, you could invest in a for-profit company that sells needed goods to low-income people at lower prices.  Something like Wal-Mart, which is one of the most effective anti-poverty engines in the US.  You might also say the same of something like Aldi (owner of Aldi stores and Trader Joe's), which is a discount store chain.  This is true even though a company like Wal-Mart is seeking to make money first.  Its customer base tends to skew heavily towards low-income consumers, and historically to rural and elderly consumers.  When Wal-Mart is able to provide food, clothing, appliances and the like to poor people at a lower cost, it is making it marginally less painful to have a low income. Peter Suderman can explain why Wal-Mart is a humanitarian enterprise: Walmart’s customer base is heavily concentrated in the bottom income quintile, which spends heavily on food. The bottom income quintile spends about 25 percent of income on food compared to just 3.5 percent for the top quintile. So the benefits of Walmart’s substantially lower prices to the lowest earning cohort are huge, especially on food. As Suderman points out, this view of Wal-Mart dramatically lowering prices that low-income people pay for food was corroborated by an Obama adviser. That's just one company.  You can pick the industry and company that best suits your personal preferences. Alternatively, you could invest in something like Whole Foods, a company with multiple missions to improve the planet and the community, in addition to the more typical mission of being a prosperous retail chain. Of course, as a general proposition, a less than entirely altruistic, charity-inclined investment doesn't need to be targeted at those with low incomes or at saving the planet.  You could invest in almost anything you think is good (yachts, yo-yos, violins, energy production, industrial inputs, music performances) and the company will take care of making more of that good thing.  You didn't say whether your goal was to help the poor, the planet, arts, sciences, knowledge, community, or whatever. What I understand you to be saying is you are willing to accept a lower ROI in exchange for some warm-fuzzies from your investment.  That seems perfectly valid and reasonable to me, but it makes it much more subjective and particular to your tastes.  So you'll need to pick something that's meaningful to you.  If you're going to trade ROI for positive feelings, then you should pick whatever gives you your optimal blend of emotions and returns. Alternatively, you could invest in something stable and predictable to beat inflation (some sort of index or fund) and then annually use some portion of those profits to simply give to the charity of your choice.  Your investment and your charity do not necessarily need to be the same vehicle. "Shariah compliant investments attempt to achieve your ""ethical investing"" ideals. Many countries around the world have a long list of shariah compliant investments and lots of journalists will go great lengths to reveal when a company is not really shariah compliant. Standard & Poors (S&P), an American financial services company, hosts a Shariah compliant index too, but on the Toronto Stock Exchange in Canada due to the Islamaphobia rampant in the United States. But of course, international companies are indifferent to any single country's social problems, and in your new pastime as an international speculator you will get the same luxury too and exemption from the political spectrum. S&P/TSX 60 information can be found here: http://web.tmxmoney.com/tmx_indices.php?section=tsx&index=%5ETXSI Business sectors prohibited from the Shariah index include: Gambling, Pornography, Tobacco, amongst others. In the United States, the concept has been renamed ""B-Corporation"" (a play on the federal term C-Corporation and S-Corporation), and has garnered enough of a movement that several states have created these as entities people can actually register them with the state, but these are not recognized as ""B-Corporations"" to the federal government. Shariah compliant investments will be easier to find worldwide, due to the popularity of the associated religion." "I'd suggest you to separate ""doing good"" from ""earning profit"". Look at the guys like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (or Carnegie and Ford for that matters). They understand that you can't reconcile the two goals, so they donate for free what they earned for profit. If you want to make a social impact with your money, you can check the charity programs that have a confirmed record of a positive impact on people's lives. Non-profits that studied such programs publish their results extensively: AidGrade compiles this research and suggests direct donations to the programs that demonstrated best outcomes per dollar invested:" "FTSE ethical investment index: http://www.ftse.com/products/indices/FTSE4Good ""The FTSE4Good Index is a series of ethical investment stock market   indices launched in 2001 by the FTSE Group.  A number of stock market   indices are available, for example covering UK shares, US shares,   European markets, and Japan, with inclusion based on a range of   corporate social responsibility criteria. Research for the indices is   supported by the Ethical Investment Research Services (EIRIS)."" -   Wikipedia" There isn't going to be one right answer, but LessWrong has some posts on effective altruism you might find helpful. They also link to a TED talk "In the UK, one quirky option in this area (OK, admittedly it's not a passive) is the ""Battle Against Cancer Investment Trust"" (BACIT).  Launched in 2012, it's basically a fund-of-funds where the funds held charge zero management charges or performance fees to the trust, but the trust then donates 1% of NAV to charity each year (half to cancer research, investors decide the other half)."
You chose the worst case though, his last year alive. The GDP of the world is something like $85 trillion.  1.05^x = 85 *10^12  x = log base 1.05(85*10^12 ) //reddit should add subscripts, that would be nice  x = 657   2014-x = 1357   He was born in 1343, so if he invested when he was 14 he would be good. There's a few different types of investments you could do. As poolie mentioned, you could split your money between the Vanguard All World ex-US and Vanguard Total Stock Market index. A similar approach would be to invest in the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF. You wouldn't have to track separate fund performances, at the downside of not being able to allocate differential amounts to the US and non-US markets (Vanguard will allocate them by market cap). You could consider investing in country-specific broad market indices like the S&P 500 and FTSE 100. While not as diversified as the world indices, they are more correlated with the country's economic outlook. Other common investing paradigms are investing in companies which have historically paid out high dividends and companies that are under-valued by the market but have good prospects for future growth. This gets in the domain of value investing, which an entire field by itself. Like Andrew mentioned, investing in a mutual fund is hassle-free. However, mutual fees/commissions and taxes can be higher (somewhere in the range 1%-5%) than index funds/ETF expense ratios (typically <0.50%), so they would have to outperform the market by a bit to break-even. There are quite a few good books out there to read up about investing. I'd recommend The Intelligent Investor and Millionaire Teacher to understand the basics of long-term investing, but of course, there are many other equally good books too. "Since I, personally, agree with the investment thesis of Peter Schiff, I would take that sum and put it with him in a managed account, and leave it there. I'm not sure how to find a firm that you like the investment strategy of.  I think that it's too complicated to do as a side thing.  Someone needs to be spending a lot of time researching various instruments and figuring out what is undervalued or what is exposed to changing market trends or whatever. I basically just want to give my money to someone and say ""I agree with your investment philosophy, let me pay you to manage my money, too."" No one knows who is right, of course.  I think Schiff is right, so that's where I would put the amount of money you're talking about.  If you disagree with his investment philosophy, this doesn't really make any sense to do. For that amount of money, though, I think firms would be willing to sit down with you and sell you their services.  You could ask them how they would diversify this money given the goals that you have for it, and pick one that you agree with the most." I would strongly recommend investing in assets and commodities. I personally believe fiat money is losing its value because of a rising inflation and the price of oil. The collapse of the euro should considerably affect the US currency and shake up other regions of the world in forex markets. In my opinion, safest investment these days are hard assets and commodities. Real estate, land, gold, silver(my favorite) and food could provide some lucrative benefits. GL mate! "Markets are amoral. If you don't buy stock in a company that has high growth/earnings, someone else will. By abstaining you will actually make it cheaper for someone else who is interested in making money.  Investing in ""socially responsible"" funds will only ensure that you have less money to make a moral difference in the world when you decide to transition from working to philanthropy. Edit to clarify -- You aren't interested in buying individual stocks directly, that leaves you with two general options: You can make a statement with your investment now, or you can take the better returns and make a difference with your money later." That's what I would do; 1.2 million dollars is a lot of money, but it doesn't make you retired for the rest of your life: There is a big crisis coming soon (my personal prediction) in the next 10-15 years, and when this happens: government will hold your money if you leave them in the bank (allowing you to use just part of it; you will have to prove the reason you need it), government will pass bills to make it very hard to close your investment positions, and government will pass new laws to create new taxes for people with a lot of money (you). To have SOME level of security I would separate my investment in the following: 20% I would buy gold certificates and the real thing (I would put the gold in a safe(s)). 20% I would put in bitcoin (you would have to really study this if you are new to crypto currency in order to be safe). 40% I would invest in regular finance products (bonds, stocks and options, FX). 20% I would keep in the bank for life expenses, specially if you don't want work for money any more. 20% I would invest in startup companies exchanging high risk hoping for a great return. Those percentages might change a little depending how good/confident you become after investing, knowing about business, etc... Most people when asked what would they do with $X dollars say:  Pay debt (their own / loved ones)  Buy a nice house  Buy a nice car  Travel   460 million is plenty to do all those things. With the rest I'd start a bond ladder and try to live off the interest What is the goal of the money?  If it is to use in the short term, like savings for a car or college, then stick it in the bank and use it for that purpose. If you really want this money to mean something, then in my opinion you have only one choice:  Open a ROTH IRA with something like Vanguard or Fidelity and invest in an index fund.  Then do something that will be very difficult:  Don't touch it. By the time you are 65, it will grow to about 60,000.  However, assuming a 20% tax bracket, the value of that money is really more like 75,000.   Clearly this will not make or break you either way.  The way you live the rest of your life will have far more of an impact.  It will get you started on the right path. BTW this is advice I gave my son who is about your age, and does not earn a ton of money as a state trooper.  Half of his overtime pay goes into a ROTH.  If he lives the rest of his life like he does now, he will be a wealthy man despite making an average income.  No debt, and investing a decent portion of his pay. You can invest more that 20,000 in Infrastructure bonds, however the tax benefit is only on 20,000. Further the interest earned is taxable. The best guaranteed post tax returns is on PPF. So invest a substantial sum in this. As your age group low you can afford to take risk and hence could also look at investing in ELSS [Mutual Fund].   A note on each of these investments:  LIC: If you have taken any of the endowment / Money Back plan, remember the returns are very low around 5-6%. It would make more sense to buy a pure term plan at fraction of the cost and invest the remaining premium into even PPF or FD that would give you more return.  NSC/Postal Savings: They are a good option, however the interest is taxable. There is a locking of 6 years.  PPF: The locking is large 15 years although one can do partial withdrawals after 7 years. The interest is not taxable.  ULIP: These are market linked plans with Insurance and balance invested into markets. The charges for initial few years is quite high, plus the returns are not comparable to the normal Mutual Funds. Invest in this only if one needs less paper and doesn't want to track things separately.  ELSS/Mutual Fund: These offer good market returns, but there is a risk of market. As you are young you can afford to take the risk. Most of the ELSS have given average results that are still higher than FD or PPF.  Pension Plan: This is a good way to accumulate for retirement. Invest some small amount in this and do not take any insurance on it. Go for pure equity as you can still take the risk. This ensures that you have a kit for retirement. Check out the terms and conditions as to how you need to purchase annuity at the term end etc. No doubt. But someone who is motivated by greed or money may use that motivation to do great good, at great profit. If someone could become the first trillionaire by turning China and India – and the US – away from fossil fuels, and that's the way they're motivated, and without that motivation they wouldn't bother, I'd be asking how I could help them make the Big T. Oh, geez, well-regarded arguments against investing, hmm? Well, I have a couple. They're not against investing per se. They're asking about your priorities and whether you might have something better to do than inevesting: And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain   rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself,   saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my   fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and   build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And   I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many   years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be   required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast   provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not   rich toward God. -- Luke 12:16-21 Christian or otherwise, there may be better things for you to do with your excess cash - indeed, with your life - than simply invest it to bring yourself more money. Many people find charitable contributions more important than spending a little more money on themselves (immediately or in the future). Of course, you will need to decide what these things are that matter to you. Perhaps you would like to contribute to traditional charities. Perhaps you would like to fund education, or a religious organization, or the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party, or the Libertarian Party, or the Green Party, or the Tea Party, or Occupy Wall Street. Perhaps you'd like to fund research into something. Perhaps you simply have friends and family that you want to make happy. Perhaps a small vacation to spend time with family is worth more to you now than the investment returns will be worth later. Moreover, note that economic decisions like this are made on the margin - it's not so much a question of whether you invest at all, but whether you should invest more or less, and spend/donate more or less. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards:      I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all   kind of fruits:    I made me pools of water, to water therewith the   wood that bringeth forth trees:    I got me servants and maidens, and   had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great   and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me:       I   gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings   and of the provinces: I got me men singers and women singers, and the   delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all   sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.     And whatsoever mine   eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any   joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor: and this was my portion of   all my labor.      Then I looked on all the works that my hands had   wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all   was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the   sun. -- Ecclesiastes 2:4-11 Because in the long run, we're all dead. Anywho! It's all a matter of returns and risk analysis. Even spending on yourself and charitable giving can be thought in these terms (the returns are not 'more money', so they may be harder to analyze, but they're important too). Congratulations on making it at minimum you are close to a 2 millionaire if I understand your numbers correctly.  Here is what I would do if I woke up in your shoes: 1)  Take some time.  Budget some money and time.  Go live abroad, take hang gliding lessons or become scuba certified.  Something like that.  The only thing I really dislike about your situation is that your wife may be precluded on going with you due to her business concerns.  During this time dream, plan and decide what you want your life to look like.  You seem to understand that you won't be happy doing nothing for a really long time.  Its not a big deal if you blow 50K or so doing this.  Take the wife to Paris, go visit the Galapagos Islands.  2)  You are going to have to become wise about investing.  I'd put close to one million in stock based mutual funds.  That may sound scary, and you might seek others out to help you with this transition.  I feel like that your time spent in your business may have precluded you delving into this area of knowledge.  For now, you may just want to stick it all in interest bearing accounts, and slowly invest the money.  Don't invest in things you don't understand, and you have to be on the look out for the next Bernie Madoff.   3)  Its hard to speak to your desire to downsize your home.  You could probably buy a nice ranch in Nevada from the sale of your home if that is what you desire, but you may kind of hate something like that. 4)  Could you start more of a boutique business?  Not one that occupies all of your time, but one that takes 20-40 hours per week.  Something that interests you, not something that is overly a chore.  Perhaps you can consult in the field that your former business was in.  You most certainly have a lot of intelligent things to say.   5)  Be generous.  Find worthwhile charities to give time and money to.   Congratulations again.  Take some time to dream, and then make those things happen.   Edit:  You may need to make new friends.  Actually wealthy people are a very small segment of the population and are out numbered by people who act wealthy.  Its going to be hard, but you need to find people that have a certain level of wealth but are also don't make you uncomfortable with their level of spending (either high or low). [Here's](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-much-money-exists-in-the-entire-world-in-one-chart-2015-12-18) and explanation.  The broadest interpretation is that there are quadrillions (1,000,000,000,000,000) of dollars in various markets.  Bill Gates could become a Trillionaire, so even his wealth is a drop the ocean. Well, not really, but you get the idea.  A lot of this money is constantly on the move, it is impossible to track down all the movements. Value is increasing, Value is destroyed etc.  Your bank account can be tallied, but it's impossible to track down the money of the world, a continent or even a small country. Even bigger companies have trouble tracking down their money.  The idea of the 'tally' is a bit of an outdated one, it came from a time when there was a gold standard, and when old fashioned marxism  was still a thing.  //edit: words, English, difficult "Look at the Calvert Funds. They have a variety of ""socially responsible"" funds with published selection standards. Beware of mixing personal politics with business." "This is clearly a scam, and you should stay away from it. Anyone reading this knew that from the title alone - and it seems that you know it too. Don't ""test"" whether something is a scam by putting your own money in it. That is exactly how these scammers make money, and how you lose it. How their scam works is irrelevant. The simple fact is that there is no way you can safely earn 20% return over the course of a year, let alone in 1 day*. You know this is true. Don't bother trying to figure out what makes it true in this case. There is no free lunch. Best case scenario, this is a hyper-risky investment strategy [on the level of putting your money down at a roulette wheel]. Worst case scenario, they simply steal your money. Either way, you won't come out ahead. Although I agree with others that this is likely a Ponzi scheme, that doesn't really matter. What matters is, there is no way they can guarantee those returns. Just go to a casino and throw your money away yourself, if you want that level of risk.  *For reference, if you invested $100 for a year, earning 20% returns every day, you would have 6 million trillion trillion dollars by the end of the year. that's $6,637,026,647,624,450,000,000,000,000,000. that number doesn't even make sense. It's more money than exists on earth. So why would they need your $100?"