Ask HN: Where should I invest extra cash?
The stock market is high, i am not living in my current city (Boston) for more than 4 years, and I have extra cash. Where should I invest my money if im not going to need it for the next 4 yrs at least?
If you want a passive investment and lower risk, pick a mutual or possible index funds to toss the cash into. These are also nice cause you could easily add to your holdings each month and make a little money. But just expect that the risk profile being low means returns will mirror that, but the advantage is the money will grow and be pretty damn safe for when you want it.
If you want a little more active investment but still low to moderate risk (IMO), you could go with ETF's and even the purchasing of individual stocks of larger slower moving organizations that have stable returns. You won't make large returns this way, but it is risk balancing. The risk (or reward of higher returns) comes in which ETF or stock you decide to invest in, which also comes with how much time you want to devote to it. If you have a lump sum of cash, say 100k or more, you could easily turn this over to a manager and let them deal with it for you. Anything less then $50-$100k and the fees will eat into the profits too much likely, but you'd have to talk to specific managers to find out.
Lastly, while people are scared of real estate because of the crash, real estate is still the single largest method most people in this country use to gain wealth. Whether through rentals or fixing houses or through investing in others flips/rentals. You can make really good returns and get your money secured by real property. Depending on your risk/reward ratio this can have as wild as swings as the stock market, but the upside is generally better for most average consumers. Personally, this is where I place my money more and more. But in contrast, my parents are of the mindset that stocks are safe and real estate is risky (they have always felt this way), so everyone has their personal thing.