What are some good investment ideas for a young woman in Canada with not a lot of money?

I would like to prepare for the future but I am not sure how to go about it

get a job... you need money to make money... so get some...

I suggest you consult a bank near where you live.

It's good that you want to save! Saving at a young age is a very prudent thing to do.

Not a lot of money is a very vague description. Additionally its hard for me to give you even vague advice without knowing your financial situation.

There are two basic questions you have to ask yourself are how much risk you can tolerate, and how liquid you need your assets to be.

Usually young people can tolerate a lot risk. If you're saving for your retirement (which could be 35 years off) its ok if you have one bad year of returns on your investments, as long as you average a good return. But if you're saving up for something specific in the short term, like law school or a house, you really want to be sure that you're going to get a steady return over the next few years.

An assets liquidity refers to how fast you can turn it into cash. What are the chances that you're going to need to get to your money quickly? If you have a medical emergency, or any kind of emergency, would you need to sell your investment, or would you pay for it in some other way (perhaps by credit)? If this savings is all you have, it would be prudent if your investment is very liquid. Cash is obviously the most liquid, because it already is cash. Most financial instruments, like stocks and bonds, are actually fairly liquid. Real estate, which is more of an inflation proof investment, would be an example of an illiquid asset.

Assuming you can tolerate some risk, and need your assets to be fairly liquid, the best thing for you to invest in is the stock market. There a rule of thumb that you should subtract your age from 100 to decide what percent of your money should be in the stock market. That tools a bit primitive, and a financial planner would give you a much better idea of how to allocate your money. But financial planners also can be expensive.


The best way for a small investor to invest in the stock market is with an index funds. Index funds are designed to track broad movements of a financial market as a whole. You can read more about index funds and why they're a better investment than managed mutual funds on wikipedia. Search for index fund and the efficient market hypothesis.

If your looking to invest less than 10,000 dollars, I would just put all of your money into an index fund. Look for a fund that is tied to either the SP 500 (which is tied to the performance of a broad range of stocks listed in the US) or an index which is tied to a broad range of Canadian stocks. Many funds can be invested for as little as 500 dollars to start. You can research the index funds online, and then easily buy the fund yourself using an online brokerage.

If you have more money than that to invest than that I would perhaps invest in several different index funds. Perhaps you could allocate 40% of your money to a fund tied to Canadian equities, 40% percent of your money in a fund tied to the S&P 500, and 20% to a index fund for companies in foreign stocks. Investing in the Canadian fund will protect you in case the U.S. dollar severely weakens against the Canadian dollar.

If you have much more money than that to invest, please go see a financial adviser. There are plenty in your area (no matter where you live) that would be delighted to help you.

Hope that helps.