How You Should Invest Your Money - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. How You Should Invest Your Money Many people wonder where they should be putting their money. Should they put it in stocks? Should they put it in what I call interest earning, which is a savings or a bond? Or should they put it in real estate? And, our general rule of thumb is a third, a third, a third. A third in stocks, a third in interest earning, and a third in real estate, and that real estate, for most people, should just be their home. But the biggest driver of the return that you're going to get is how you do that asset allocation. So, the base, the starting point would be a third, a third, a third, but then you need to look at your personal risk profile. In other worlds, there's some people that have a very long window, and they can take more risks with that money, and so they may want to put extra in the stock, but how they allocate those assets is key to what the return's going to be. If they have a short term horizon, then they may want to have more money in a cash account, that they need. An analogy is, if you have a five year goal, you should have money sitting in your pantry, in other words, where it's readily accessible. Whereas if you have a long term goal, you can put your money in stocks and bonds, which is like crops out in the field growing. So, that's an analogy to look at. You want to replenish the pantry periodically with those items that are growing, but they have a higher risk.