1. Increase your 401k contribution
This
is incredibly simple, and it involves nothing more than adjusting your
allocation. Save a mere $83 a month more (that's less than $20 a week)
and you're investing $1,000 a year.
If you want access to more investing options, consider opening up an individual retirement account or brokerage account to buy exchange-traded funds. These investments are similar to mutual funds, but they trade like stocks and come in much broader varieties.
If you already have a diversified 401k and are looking to supplement your retirement funds with some growth, or if you're ready to take on a little more risk for the shot at greater rewards, a $1,000 investment is more than enough to get you actively involved in the stock market.
Not too active, of course, because the vast majority of brokerage accounts are going to charge you for every transaction. So if you pay $7.50 each transaction, buying and selling 10 stocks in a year will cost you $150 -- or 15% of your entire $1,000 investment! You'd need to pick significant winners each time just to break even.
A better plan is to buy a "set it and forget it" stock that you can rely on for long-term growth and a decent payout via dividends. These are most commonly large companies with stable operations -- such as Apple (AAPL), Coca-Cola (KO) or McDonald's (MCD)
The housing market is battered, but many experts believe a recovery is under way -- or at least, that a bottom is being formed. If that's true, one of the best investments you can make right now is to fix up your home with the expectation of boosting its resale value.
Replacing an entry door with a midlevel 20-gauge steel door costs a little more than $1,000, and it pays back about three-quarters of that in resale value, according to industry estimates. Decent garage doors are more like $1,500, but they pay back at a similar rate. A much cheaper option is to buy storm doors for the front and back -- decent-quality doors cost only a few hundred bucks apiece.
Another quick fix? Redo the vanity, faucet, mirror and light fixture in your bathroom. If the walls aren't fully tiled, slap on a quick coat of paint -- a weekend project that's reasonably easy to do yourself and costs about $1,000. Bathrooms are small and thus easy to update.
Author and Web entrepreneur James Altucher says his best investments have been "in either myself or people I knew very well who were building companies." I fully believe in this notion.
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