One thousand pounds is a lot of money. If you take a global perspective, not a YouTuber turned millionaire or a local Royal borough of Chelsea perspective. It takes effort to save it and the last thing you want to do with it is to let the Cookie Monster - inflation - eat that dough. Which means you want to put it to work - invest it. Let me share with you today how you could invest that kind of money today.

Quite frankly, I don’t remember how I saved my first one thousand. I suspect it was during my second serious job in the UK, when I worked as a mental health support worker and opened my first Individual Savings Account. One of the viewers reminded me that we used to have those small blue books, which looked very similar to a small notebook like this one. Every time I’d like to deposit or withdraw some money into my ISA, I’d take it to my bank and a friendly person behind the counter would put it into a printer and that way leave a record for me to look at later. I don’t have that book anymore as, well, as you might have noticed, don’t hold on to a lot of stuff. Anyway, that’s the story of my first one thousand pounds. How did you save yours? Let me know in the comments.

Let’s jump straight into it. The first and most preached, but not necessarily practiced, way to invest a thousand would be the stock market. Why? Because it pretty much guarantees, long-term, to beat the inflation and interest your money would make if you put it into a savings account, no matter how good that savings account interest rate looks. There’s two main ways you can do it:

- invest in Index Funds or ETFs - Exchange Traded Funds or

- invest in individual stocks, for dividends

Index Funds / ETFs

I usually compare investing in Index Funds to buying yourself a radio station or a record label. You don’t know who will be popular and who will turn out a complete flop but because you have so many artists on your roster, you don’t need to care. Overall, you’ll make a decent profit anyway.

The same goes for Index Funds. If you buy the famous S&P500 fund, your “company roster” will consist of 500 biggest companies in North America. Almost 30% revenue of this fund comes from foreign markets so you’re accidentally becoming globally invested at the same time. No, you are not going to make over 700% profit in a year, but because S&P500 has been averaging over 10% a year since 1920s… and that includes some rather low points in financial history like: The Stock Market Crash of 1929, The declines off over 36% in the 1960s, over 48% in the 1970s, The Dotcom crash of the early 2000s, the Recession of 2008 and the Recession of the Pandemic in 2020... most people predict, assume and hope for similar results in the future.

Individual stocks

Most of us, and that includes you, my friend, will not do better than Index Funds. But this doesn’t mean we can’t try. If you are like Simon Cowell and a) know the ingredients of the next pop star and b) are not afraid of moving back with your parents if things don’t go according to your plan, then investing in individual stocks might be exactly what you’re after. If you haven’t already, I suggest you educate yourself on reading company accounts and figuring out what to look for when researching businesses. This book should be a good start. If you’re not too keen on filling your head regularly with numbers, yet still want to invest in individual stocks - your relatively safe option is to put your money into so-called blue chip companies. In poker, blue chips are the highest value pieces. Similarly a well-known, well-established and well-capitalised company (large enough to survive a downturn, with a high credit rating) is considered crème de la crème. Most of blue chip companies pay dividends so you can get your hands on some passive income, too.

Property

Stock market behind us, let's talk about the national favourite - property. Can you become a property owner with a thousand? Yes, you can. This handy book explains how you can become a property investor without much money to start with. One of such options is a Purchase Lease Option. Here's how it works. You find a cheap house that has been on the market for a long time. You contact the seller and offer to take the weight of an unwanted mortgage off their shoulders with an option agreement. For a nominal amount of money, you get an option to buy or sell their property, for a fixed, agreed on, price, at any time during a pre-agreed future period. Your main expense is the solicitor's fees and you get to buy a property at a low price along with a guaranteed income as you lease it back to the original owner.

Now, there's a lot to be said about how ethical this type of investment is. Some say it's taking advantage of financially vulnerable people. Others say it's a transaction between a keen seller and a savvy buyer. It's up to you how you see it. I mention it as property investing is usually seen as one for which you need a lot of capital, and that is not necessarily true.

Side hustle / business

Another way you can invest a thousand is to pump it into your side hustle or your business. If you haven't got a side hustle but are considering one, put your idea to the test with my free Six "S" Side Hustle checklist.

Side hustles are a bit like travelling to a foreign country. When you treat them like that, you can clearly see how you can invest in them. When travelling, you need a basic use of the foreign language or a guide book. Similarly, in your business, you need to gain skills you don't currently have - the best way to do it is to focus on what needs improving and then getting a course on the subject. I buy and complete courses all the time - my latest one is on how to be a better YouTuber. You cannot travel without some sort of bag and, depending on where you go to, equipment. It's just the same with your side hustle.

A word of warning - if you keep thinking that you need more and more equipment INSTEAD of producing work with what you already own... you're falling into the fake obstacle trap. In other words, it's great to buy a new laptop because your old one broke down and you need to write your blog. But it's not good to buy a new desk, a reading lamp and a set of notebooks when all you needed was a laptop. Procrastination has many faces.

Finally, when you are trekking in the desert, it helps to pay somebody to let you use their camel. If you can save time and effort by outsourcing tasks that use up too much of your precious time, use that one thousand to do so. It doesn't have to mean hiring somebody to prepare and manage your social media content. Let's face it - a thousand is not going to be enough for that. But it could mean hiring a cleaner for the next few months and using that time to work on your side hustle.

Yourself

And finally, for those of you who don't have a side hustle, a business and don't give a hoot about either - invest in yourself. Read books! Books are one of the best ways to expand your horizons and tackle the input output challenge. You know - if you want to speak, you need to listen first. If you want to write, you need to read. Books give you a multitude of ideas and can shape your mindset and teach you a thing or two about life. I'm a forever fan of libraries - I simply don't need to own everything I read. But I still do buy and keep or sell on books. This is my latest purchase. This year I decided that I want to read everything by Adam Grant. Because he's an interesting guy.

I'd say that for me, books are the first step in self-investment. Then comes education - it could be an informal or a formal course. Let's see... say you want to qualify as a mortgage advisor - right now, it will cost you less than a thousand pounds and could lead to paid employment. I'd say that's a great price for a new career!

What's even quicker and, in my opinion more effective, than education is coaching.

I've worked with a business coach, with a personal trainer and with a swimming coach so far and the returns, even when not monetary, always out-weighted the investment. I coach clients about money and believe me, the transformation they experience is priceless. You can check out my current offers if you're interested in working with me and seeing it for yourself.

These are some of the ways you can invest a thousand today. Remember, you define your rules. You can invest a whole thousand into a property or you can divide it - buy a new microphone and start a podcast, buy individual stocks, Index Funds and complete an online course on public speaking. All up to you. Just keep in mind that all the above investments will perform much better when you give them time. So knowing yourself is the first step in making the right use of this money. Good luck!