Consumers like you and me love choice, and the kind folks who provide financial investment services have taken care of this most salient trait of ours quite substantially. Instead of keeping your cash assets under your mattress, today there are countless alternative investments that offer various incentives, returns, and features to meet the needs of every type of individual in today’s society.
A young person today, embarking on adult life in the world of work or going on to study after high school, may not feel the same urgency to provide for his or her family’s future as, say, a middle-aged father. old or older person. Still, a young person may see the point in keeping their money safe in a bank or other financial institution and earning interest on that deposit over time. For them, convenient access to their funds, along with savings incentives, is probably more important than attractive rates of return, as they require the ability to deposit their earnings and save for their goals, but given that the young are arguably the oldest consumers of non-durable goods, they also need to be able to access their money when they need it.
An older person may need to establish a definite savings strategy to buy their first home or to pay for those vacations abroad. As such, they may not need regular access to their funds and may be prepared to hand over their assets over long periods of time for a proportional rate of return. Being more aware of value, future contingencies, and existing liabilities, this group of people will often be more selective about the security of their investment balanced against the return they receive.
Then there are the people who, for one reason or another, whether it’s recent retirement or the proverbial ’empty nest’, where the kids grew up and became financially independent, accumulated a lot of assets and wealth, and are in a position to able to take greater risks than when they had long-term responsibilities. For these people, it is often the case that they have certain assets that they have dedicated to their future well-being and surplus assets that they want to risk to enhance their wealth.
Last but not least, there are the elderly, who over time have lived life to the fullest and simply want to attend to their needs, which may involve medical contingencies and also bequests to family members. They want to preserve their wealth rather than risk it to build more and, along with convenience, they are more than willing to give up high rates of return for simplicity and security.