How would you suggest I invest my money?

[cmrocks]

I've decided to take some time off school to keep working. Right now, I work for my Dad's exploration drilling company. We mostly work in the arctic and in Eastern Canada looking for diamonds. I'm not really enjoying myself at school so I want to give something else a chance for a while.

My job involves working out of town, in camps for about 5 months of the year. The rest of the year, I don't work at all and can go wherever I want in the world. I make about 80k - 90k before taxes ($600 a day) during the five months that I work. While I'm working in those camps, I don't spend a dollar of my own money. I also don't pay for flights anywhere because I put those on company expense. I can get away with putting a lot of hotels on company expense too.

I want to start a decent savings/investment type thing. I want to have enough money to travel but other than that, I want to devote as much as I can to saving. I would honestly like to retire as early as possible while still spending and doing enough to enjoy life.

I'm not exactly sure how much can be put away but I'm guessing I'll be able to set aside about $20,000 a year.

What should I be doing with that money? There is one thing that I'll be doing for sure regardless of whether or not it's the best investment. My brother and I are going to buy a house in a tropical country. Since we can take our time off anywhere we want, we want to get a house somewhere warm and on the ocean to spend our time off. We're most likely getting a house in Cartagena, Colombia. We're going 50/50 on the place and looking to spend about 200,000 and put about 60,000 down on it. Other than that, I have no idea where to invest my money.

I'd like to keep a percentage of it in an account to play around with high-risk mining stocks. I work in the industry and I've personally seen quite a few companies going from $0.20 to $1.30 or from $3.00 to $12.00. I'd like to play around in stocks like that a little bit. I have access to quite a bit of information in this business that might take other investors a bit more effort to find out. I can quite easily find out what stage of exploration they're in, what they're initial finds have been, what kind of exploration program they're running, who is doing their drilling etc.

Any advice would be great.

 

[aarghh]

It depends - if you already have some money put away for a cash/savings buffer, and therefore have a longish investment horizon, I'd put all of it into index funds - disttributed across different types of markets. If IRA type accounts are available in Canada, I'd use those first.

Besides the real estate plan, you may also want to evaluate what your personal goals are - do you need to put away money for completing college, and things of that nature.

 

[pscolari]

You might be able to gain exposure to mining companies through a vehicle that tracks the S&P Metals and Mining Index. The index YTD has pretty solid returns. I think it around 9.75% approx through 6/30. The downside is the top holdings would not be the growth stocks you are looking for, as their market caps are huge.

It sounds like you should just open an account at Etrade or one of their like if you want to personally pick the names yourself. At the very least, open a money market account and pick up somewhere around a 5% return on your cash that is in the bank.

 

[jett]

definitely go with ETFs, probably the simplest would be to just pick a bunch of different sectors you expect to do well over the timeframe you want the money locked up. Dump it in there and ignore it. If I had 90K just laying around with nothing to do that's what I would do.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by DucatiCole

I've decided to take some time off school to keep working. Right now, I work for my Dad's exploration drilling company. We mostly work in the arctic and in Eastern Canada looking for diamonds. I'm not really enjoying myself at school so I want to give something else a chance for a while.

My job involves working out of town, in camps for about 5 months of the year. The rest of the year, I don't work at all and can go wherever I want in the world. I make about 80k - 90k before taxes ($600 a day) during the five months that I work. While I'm working in those camps, I don't spend a dollar of my own money. I also don't pay for flights anywhere because I put those on company expense. I can get away with putting a lot of hotels on company expense too.

I want to start a decent savings/investment type thing. I want to have enough money to travel but other than that, I want to devote as much as I can to saving. I would honestly like to retire as early as possible while still spending and doing enough to enjoy life.

I'm not exactly sure how much can be put away but I'm guessing I'll be able to set aside about $20,000 a year.

What should I be doing with that money? There is one thing that I'll be doing for sure regardless of whether or not it's the best investment. My brother and I are going to buy a house in a tropical country. Since we can take our time off anywhere we want, we want to get a house somewhere warm and on the ocean to spend our time off. We're most likely getting a house in Cartagena, Colombia. We're going 50/50 on the place and looking to spend about 200,000 and put about 60,000 down on it. Other than that, I have no idea where to invest my money.

I'd like to keep a percentage of it in an account to play around with high-risk mining stocks. I work in the industry and I've personally seen quite a few companies going from $0.20 to $1.30 or from $3.00 to $12.00. I'd like to play around in stocks like that a little bit. I have access to quite a bit of information in this business that might take other investors a bit more effort to find out. I can quite easily find out what stage of exploration they're in, what they're initial finds have been, what kind of exploration program they're running, who is doing their drilling etc.

Any advice would be great.

I think Colombian chicks are some of the hottest in SA, aside from Brasil. ^_^

 

[drizzt3117]

Originally Posted by DucatiCole

I've decided to take some time off school to keep working. Right now, I work for my Dad's exploration drilling company. We mostly work in the arctic and in Eastern Canada looking for diamonds. I'm not really enjoying myself at school so I want to give something else a chance for a while.

My job involves working out of town, in camps for about 5 months of the year. The rest of the year, I don't work at all and can go wherever I want in the world. I make about 80k - 90k before taxes ($600 a day) during the five months that I work. While I'm working in those camps, I don't spend a dollar of my own money. I also don't pay for flights anywhere because I put those on company expense. I can get away with putting a lot of hotels on company expense too.

I want to start a decent savings/investment type thing. I want to have enough money to travel but other than that, I want to devote as much as I can to saving. I would honestly like to retire as early as possible while still spending and doing enough to enjoy life.

I'm not exactly sure how much can be put away but I'm guessing I'll be able to set aside about $20,000 a year.

What should I be doing with that money? There is one thing that I'll be doing for sure regardless of whether or not it's the best investment. My brother and I are going to buy a house in a tropical country. Since we can take our time off anywhere we want, we want to get a house somewhere warm and on the ocean to spend our time off. We're most likely getting a house in Cartagena, Colombia. We're going 50/50 on the place and looking to spend about 200,000 and put about 60,000 down on it. Other than that, I have no idea where to invest my money.

I'd like to keep a percentage of it in an account to play around with high-risk mining stocks. I work in the industry and I've personally seen quite a few companies going from $0.20 to $1.30 or from $3.00 to $12.00. I'd like to play around in stocks like that a little bit. I have access to quite a bit of information in this business that might take other investors a bit more effort to find out. I can quite easily find out what stage of exploration they're in, what they're initial finds have been, what kind of exploration program they're running, who is doing their drilling etc.

Any advice would be great.

Any reason why you're targeting Colombia specifically? There are plenty of warm tropical countries in Latin America that would be more suitable places to buy "resort" housing IMO.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by drizzt3117

Any reason why you're targeting Colombia specifically? There are plenty of warm tropical countries in Latin America that would be more suitable places to buy "resort" housing IMO.

My guess is the women.

 

[cmrocks]

Originally Posted by drizzt3117

Any reason why you're targeting Colombia specifically? There are plenty of warm tropical countries in Latin America that would be more suitable places to buy "resort" housing IMO.

The reason for Colombia is because my Dad is on the board of directions of a gold exploration company that has quite a bit of property in Colombia. They are still in the final stages of going public and such so there's a pretty high likelyhood that we'll be working down there in the next few years. The gold property isn't really near Cartagena but we decided there for a few reasons. The main reason is that we'll be shipping lots of equipment from Canada to Colombia and Cartagena is the main port city. It would be the best place to rent yard and garage space to keep a South American base of operations. Our drill equipment isn't huge but it's still a pain to ship all over the place. It's easier to hire charters directly from Cartagena rather than trucking everything to Bogota then flying it in. Prices are also quite a bit cheaper in Cartagena.

 

[cmrocks]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

My guess is the women.


That is definately a good guess. I've only visited a few times but I had a sore neck after the first few days there from spinning around constantly.

 

[drizzt3117]

Originally Posted by DucatiCole

The reason for Colombia is because my Dad is on the board of directions of a gold exploration company that has quite a bit of property in Colombia. They are still in the final stages of going public and such so there's a pretty high likelyhood that we'll be working down there in the next few years. The gold property isn't really near Cartagena but we decided there for a few reasons. The main reason is that we'll be shipping lots of equipment from Canada to Colombia and Cartagena is the main port city. It would be the best place to rent yard and garage space to keep a South American base of operations. Our drill equipment isn't huge but it's still a pain to ship all over the place. It's easier to hire charters directly from Cartagena rather than trucking everything to Bogota then flying it in. Prices are also quite a bit cheaper in Cartagena.

You know Colombia isn't a very safe place to live, right? When we send consultants there we have to hire bodyguards to ensure their safety.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by drizzt3117

You know Colombia isn't a very safe place to live, right? When we send consultants there we have to hire bodyguards to ensure their safety.

It's not as bad as it used to be ;p

And the women are worth it. DC is gonna get mad play down there if he buys a house. Sure he could do panama or CR, but I'm not sure if those countries are as much "fun." And they're probably more expensive for the type of property he probably wants.

edit: I went to school with a 4 colombians. You're right about the bodyguards but it's really just being cautious most of the time. And I'm sure colombia is like any place else, it depends a lot on where you go. There are parts of major us cities i'd never dream of venturing in to.

DC, you should check-out some expat forums and see what the situation is like from people that are actually living down there.

 

[drizzt3117]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

It's not as bad as it used to be ;p

And the women are worth it. DC is gonna get mad play down there if he buys a house. Sure he could do panama or CR, but I'm not sure if those countries are as much "fun." And they're probably more expensive for the type of property he probably wants.

edit: I went to school with a 4 colombians. You're right about the bodyguards but it's really just being cautious most of the time. And I'm sure colombia is like any place else, it depends a lot on where you go. There are parts of major us cities i'd never dream of venturing in to.

DC, you should check-out some expat forums and see what the situation is like from people that are actually living down there.

My friend who worked at Siebel had one of his employees kidnapped at Mcdonalds in Medellin. He got returned 18 hours later with no real injuries after a ransom was paid but having a gun to your head and having a kidnapper talking casually about sending a finger to your company is not the way i'd like to spend my vacations, but that's just my $0.02. Buying a house and living large in Colombia isn't exactly keeping a low profile, either.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by drizzt3117

My friend who worked at Siebel had one of his employees kidnapped at Mcdonalds in Medellin. He got returned 18 hours later with no real injuries after a ransom was paid but having a gun to your head and having a kidnapper talking casually about sending a finger to your company is not the way i'd like to spend my vacations, but that's just my $0.02. Buying a house and living large in Colombia isn't exactly keeping a low profile, either.

Medellin is the worst city. Cartagena isn't as bad.

I also know people that had family kidnapped in Colombia, but they weren't your average citizens.

I'm not entirely disagreeing with you. He should definitely do his due diligence, rent there first (for an extended period of time, not just a couple weeks), and then decide.

 

[cmrocks]

I've heard pretty mixed things about the safety down there. The people I know who actually live there have nothing but good things to say. It's also really improved in the past five years as well. To be honest, I'm not really that concerned. I'm not mouthy and I have enough common sense to keep myself out of trouble I think.

At this point, nothing is for sure anyways. We're going this fall again to really look at real estate a lot more and start looking at what we're going to need to get everything set up down there. We're having one of our machines sent down there as soon as it's finished in the arctic which will be late September.

 

[GQgeek]

It's good that you're keeping an open mind. I think Colombia gets a bad rap. I'm intending to visit next year. I'm going to Peru this year.