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Admit it. You’ve daydreamed more than once about hitting the investment jackpot. Your goals are modest. You just want to earn enough money to buy yourself an island. Or at least a second home on an island. So, what’s the secret to discovering the next big thing? Read on for some tips that’ll help you chart a course through the murky waters of investment toward big returns and the island of your dreams.

Tasty Profits: Invest in Restaurants

Consider industries where there will always be demand for the product. For example, people will always need to eat. So, restaurants, especially trendy ones in heavily populated or touristy areas, offer a sweet deal to investors.

Get your slice of the pie early and eat up the profits when the restaurant takes off. Celebrities know the restaurant business is lucrative, too: Ashton Kutcher and his Dolce Group have launched several venues including Ketchup, Dolce, and Geisha House with great success.

Don’t Forget Diversions

Just as people will always need to eat, they’ll always need diversions. Even when the economy’s bad, they still see movies, go bowling, and attend sports events to help them forget that their finances are in the toilet. Take a cue from Jay Z who invested in the Lakers, and consider how you could capture some dollars by investing in a sports franchise.

Entertainment delivery companies such as Hulu, Netflix, and Vudu are leading the way into the new frontier of time-shifted television viewing and on-demand movie watching. Investing in the early stages of these and similar companies may have big pay-offs in the future.

Follow the Big Dogs

Celebrities are making big bucks by investing in industries where there’s a reasonable expectation of success. However, expectations and a company’s size aren’t always harbingers of profit. Just look at Circuit City and Kodak. So, to avoid putting your money in a company that may become a sinking ship, garner wisdom from investment gurus who make a living by spotting the next big thing. Read an article by Fisher Investments about how Ken Fisher navigated his way toward a ginormous portfolio.

Tech is Trending

People are investing in tech companies and partying like it’s 1999. Yep, it’s cool again, and potentially profitable, to put money into online and high-tech ventures. Getting an early piece of the action on a revamped or brand new social media platform could net you profits worth tweeting about.

Let Justin Timberlake be your guide:  he and a group of other savvy investors just re-launched Myspace, making it available online and as an iPhone app.

Even if you don’t have thousands of dollars to pour into multiple ventures, leverage your dollars in the crowdsourcing movement. Considered to be the ground-iest of the ground floors of investment, crowdsourcing lets you give small amounts of money in exchange for recognition and in-kind gifts. While that may not sound lucrative, an early investment could open the door for additional opportunities in the future with a company that’s on its way to becoming the next big thing.

A key issue to consider if you become unemployed is the loss of your health insurance coverage. You won’t want to be without it, but you will also have to face the fact that it can be quite expensive. Consider the choices you have and how you can make use of them as you hunt for a new job.

What you can expect

At the time you are laid off, your employer should provide information regarding the health benefits available to you at. In addition, if you feel that the information you are given is insufficient, find out if you can continue your coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA).

What you should know

Note that the law requires your employer to make health insurance available to terminated employees for 18 months via COBRA, usually at their expense. However, some employers provide this insurance in the severance package they offer for a specified time. To obtain this coverage, you must enroll within 60 days.

What you can do

You can also get in touch with your state health department because a number of states offer health insurance that covers families and individuals for a fee. If this is true in your case, you will have to meet certain asset and income requirements in order to participate in the plan.

Above all, don’t delay in looking for health care insurance that is right for you, and avoid making an uninformed or hasty choice that you come to regret. If you have a pre-existing condition, you have 63 days to find other coverage and avoid a waiting period in your situation.

Here are some options for you to consider:

With a major medical plan, you will pay a premium that is really affordable by choosing a high deductible. However, while this program will cover you if you face a medical event that is catastrophic, you cannot rely on it for in routine, predictable health care situations. You can also opt for less-expensive short-term medical insurance coverage that will expire in six or twelve months.

If you want to find an insurance plan with a lower premium, you can also look for one that doesn’t provide treatment at many facilities or find an inexpensive medical plan without a deductible that includes coverage for your basic health care needs, such as a brief hospital stay or a routine office visit. In addition, determine whether any school alumni associations or insurance companies in your state provide temporary medical coverage for the unemployed that would meet your needs.

Certain members-only warehouse clubs, trade associations and unions also provide various types of medical coverage, such as vaccinations and screening, and you can contact them for information.

While being unemployed reduces your income and a pre-existing condition may keep you from qualifying for the various options mentioned above, assistance from your state or certain high-risk pools may help you in paying for your medical coverage until you find a new job.

If you are an unemployed worker under the age of 26, you can be covered by your parents’ group insurance plan. This is part of the health care reform bill, and you don’t have to be a dependent or a full-time student to qualify.

Determine if your children can participate in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which is available in every state.

If you currently participate in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program that means that you are eligible for Medicaid. Others may also qualify for this assistance, depending on the income and resources currently available to them.

With any type of long or short-term investment, there are always a number of risks that will effect the success of your investment. If you put too much money into one particular investment, of course, you stand to lose a large sum. Likewise, if you are perhaps too hesitant, and do not invest enough, your savings may very well become eroded by inflation. By seeking professional Investment Management advice, you will ultimately minimise the risks of your investment and gain some degree of protection for your capital.

Listen to The voice of Experience

Investing is often a complicated and complex procedure, and understandably, you may be concerned that your lack of market knowledge will result in a potentially large loss of capital. Professional Investment Management firms however, are decidedly experienced in their field, and with a detailed understanding of the current market, will utilise the latest advances in investment theory in order to secure your investments.

Peace of Mind for the Present and Future

To succeed as an investor, you must be able to dedicate a considerable amount of time to evaluating the market and keeping track of your investments. This will involve ongoing personal dedication, and a sizeable amount of paperwork. By entrusting your financial investment to experienced Investment Management professionals, you are not only providing yourself with more time and space for the demands of the present, but you are also helping to secure a potentially stable life for yourself and your family in the future.

Empowering you as an Investor

The main reason why people chose to hand over the responsibility of their investments to Investment Management services is that it provides them with far greater security and far less risk than if they had overseen their investments personally. However, the more ethical and supportive Investment Management firms will actually offer services to support your own understanding of your investments, allowing you to eventually take control yourself. Such an approach will allow you to eventually take back full control of your investments, with a superior understanding of investment strategy and a greater financial return.

Ongoing Personal Support

Naturally, you will want to stay up-to-date with the progress of your investments and will desire ongoing support and perhaps reassurance from those who you are entrusting with handling your investments. Investment Management firms are very appreciative of this and accordingly, offer continual support via phone calls, face-to-face meetings, online webcam meetings and email. The very best Investment Management services will extend their support throughout the weekend, in the knowledge that your concerns may arise at any given time.

Tailored to Suit You

If you are seeking investment guidance from a professional firm, the chances are you do not understand which investment choices are most suitable for you and your specific needs. Of course, professional services such as the Investment Management from Sanlam have extensive experience with clients of all backgrounds and will have specific tailored advice based on your personal investment needs.

In highly competitive fields of work such as fund management and share trading, overhead tasks like registry services are becoming areas of specialty, with niche companies offering registry solutions and the like. Following the lessons of Ford’s infamous assembly line, this type of business works on the basic principle that specialisation in areas like corporate and share registry services is the key to efficiency, and therefore increased output, in any line of work.

Staying on the positive side of the bottom line, day in and day out, is not just about increasing the amount of work done but decreasing unnecessary overheads within your workplace.

Such as with registry services and registry solutions in the field of fund management, many business owners may think that their employees waste time doing menial tasks. But, taking a step back, many successful businesses come to realise that it’s the employees themselves, and the skills and training they have, that are wasted on menial tasks or tasks for which they have no training.

Leaving overheads such as share registry services to these providers of registry solutions may seem like even more of a hassle or unnecessary expense, but the reality of the situation is that cutting the menial tasks out of your business allows for workers to focus on the tasks that match their skill set; to challenge themselves with work and by putting aside registry services to the experts, and to become experts and specialists in their own fields.

What’s more, outsourcing registry services and the like to companies that focus on share registry services as their core business, means even faster output with less mistakes. Outsourcing a time-consuming and ultimately costly overhead of your business can only add positives to your bottom line.

When hiring out tasks like share registry services to registry solutions providers, you are not merely replacing one group of workers for another. You are also investing in the information and contacts you will acquire by hiring specialists. They will do more with registry services than what your distracted employees would have been doing otherwise had your registry solutions not been outsourced.

Renters insurance is certainly worth the expense and there are a lot of reasons why. As a renter, you have an obligation to insure the possessions in your home. While this may seem voluntary, most landlords require renters insurance. They do this because renters insurance is generally inexpensive, usually costing about $15 per month. The amount of money you are insured for can be as high as $25,000. This provides you with a lot of financial protection, for a very low price. Landlords see renters insurance as a responsible thing to purchase and they will sometimes not allow tenants into the facility without it.

Renters insurance covers your possessions

If you own a computer, television, phone, or expensive furniture, then renters insurance is very important to have. It covers virtually all of the items in your home up to a certain amount of money. The amount that you are insured for is generally somewhere between $10,000 and $25,000. This provides you with financial support in case your possessions were to get damaged or stolen.

Renters insurance provides coverage under many circumstances

Renters insurance can actually cover you in a wide variety of circumstances. This includes fires, floods, hurricanes and even theft. Therefore, if your items are damaged in a storm or if they are stolen by a criminal, then your insurance company can cover the replacement costs. It’s very important to have this available because bad things can happen unexpectedly. You never know when someone could break into your home or when a storm could hit. If it happens to you, you’re going to need the financial assistance.

Why is renters insurance inexpensive?

Renters insurance is affordable because the insurance companies do not have to charge a very high premium for the coverage. Renters insurance is purchased by millions of people, amounting to a substantial amount of profit for the insurance company. Very rarely do hurricanes, floods, or fires occur. Similarly, theft is not a very likely scenario when you are renting. This means that the likelihood of you having to use the insurance policy is low, as it is for everyone else on renters insurance as well. However, it’s still important to have as a safety net between you and a potential financial crisis. Since most renters insurance policy holders will never have to put the plan into effect, the insurance company collects a lot of money and this allows them to price their policies affordability.