Best way for safe investment for starters?

I started with CD accounts, money markets, any better sure investments that are not going to decline in monetary value?

i already lost some money on mutual funds

i would recommend high yielding government securities or corporate securities of well known stable corporations with fixed interest earnings. those securities should also be traded it the market, which gives you the opportunity to buy and sell them at a very low risk. if you observe the market carefully you should be able to net 15% per annum.
you have not to limit yourself to american securities, because securities in many other countries have higher yields.
like in all investments market studies and observance are a must and you should not put all your eggs in one basket.
cc

start a roth ira...low risk

It is very unfortunate that you had a bad experience with mutual funds. I say that because over a long period of time--10 years, they beat the pants off of safe investments. 10% annual return as opposed to about 4% to 6% for a safe investment.

The very best safe investment in my oppinion is t-bills. 6 mo bills currently yield about 5% which is free from state and local taxes unlike cds. You can purchase them directly from the U S government. Here is the link

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/prod...

But if I were you I would not give up on mutual funds just yet. It does help considerably if you hold different mutual funds with different objectives. There are also index ETFs that have a lot going for them. Take 50% of your money and invest it in t-bills. Take the other 50% and invest 1/3 in EFA, 1/3 in IWN, and 1/3 in IWD. Then 3 years from now see which 50% has performed the best. I will be willing to be that the return of the 50% invested in the funds will return over twice as much. But there is of course the possibility that it may not and there is also the possibility that you might again loose money. But if historical trends hold, you will not.

when you invest, like in mutual funds and stock, you can't just look at what happens over a short period of time. since you are new to investing, you should stick to mutual funds, they are much safer and they spread out your money to hundreds of stocks instead of just owning a few individual stocks. you could start out with a balanced fund which is more on the conservative side and owns stocks and bonds. I know that the American Funds has a balanced fund that has been in business for around 30 years and has only lost money I believe in 2 out of 30 years and it's average return a year is around 10%, that is great investing right there........what you want to do is set up an account where you automatically put money into your account once or month, or whenever you get paid. the money would go directly from your checking account into your investment account, it is very convenient, and it is like you are forcing yourself to save and invest. and as the stock market bounces around in price, up and down, you keep buying shares at different prices each month. this is something you should do your entire life while you are working, if you do this and hopefully overtime you can begin to add more and more to your account as you make money, you will have a huge pile of money saved up for yourself. look up American Funds or Vanguard on the internet and call them and they will help you get started. also you should do the same think as I described above with what is called a roth ira and than you will have a great investment account that you never have to pay any taxes on your gains. but get started right away on this, on try not to worry so much about what is happening in the stock market right now, right now it is good, and keep pumping that money away each month into your account...you can easily make yourself a million dollars or more by doing this......time is the number one secret in the stock market and by you taking advantage of time and starting to save at an early age you are well ahead of the rest of the world that spends all of their money and has credit card debt payin 18% interest up to their neck......go and buy a few good books about investing.....even investing for dummies is a very good book. good luck to you my friend...you can start saving with only $50.00 a month!!!! go for it