3 questions to ask about investments to achieve your financial goals

People set financial goals in order to be comfortable and improve the quality of their lives. One of the most important tools for achieving financial goals is investments. Channelling your money into investments ensures that it continues to make you more money, that you are ahead of inflationary pressures and that you are closer to meeting your financial goals.

Below are a few questions to ask about your investments to achieve your financial goals:

1. What do you want from your investments?: When you are looking to invest, your main thought should be what you want from your investment, knowing your goals and needs really help you in narrowing down your appetite for risks your willing to undertake. You might want to look at the best investments that offer you the most comfortable risk that you are willing to take with your money.
2. What investment tools are appropriate for you? You will need to look at the different investment tools such as stocks, bonds or mutual funds to identify which one will be more suitable for your investment plan. A good rule of thumb is to start looking at investments that are with low risk, once you are confident then you can add medium risk investments to get a better return. You should never look into higher risk investments until you have built low and medium risk investments, high risk investments can lose money so you need to be prepared for that. When you are investing, the chances of a return are higher when you accept more risk but to improve the balance between risk and return, you need to spread your money across different investment sectors in which the prices don’t move in the same direction. This will diversify your investment and protect your money.
3. How will the investments be managed? It is important to reach out to an investment portfolio manager to guide you through your investment options. They will be able to tell you which investment will be appropriate for you and help you understand different financial products. If you like to be hands on then you can invest in individual shares but you will need to understand the risks.

Be sure to always keep an eye on your investment to make sure that it is helping you towards your financial goals. Keep up with your investments, your returns and be sure it is still in line with your goals