Welcome to Smuggle Me

I’m happy to finally say that my wife and I have been very fortunate this past year and we finally have a nice little nest egg in the bank. We’ve been lucky to NEVER been in debt in our marriage and except for a future house I don’t expect that will change. However, now that we have money in the bank we need to see what type of investments we should make to get the most out of our money.

If you’ve looked at a bank’s money market or savings account then you’ll quickly realize that they are ripping you off. I have been looking into Zion’s Internet Money Market account as an option since it pays 5% interest which isn’t too bad. My brother and father have used it and really like it. My dad and brother both use to work for Zions Bank so I know they are a solid company.

I must admit that I have been intrigued by the concept of online investment. In fact, I’ve talked to my wife that I was interested in using some of the money I made blogging to see what it was like to invest online. There are a few options out there. Zopa is one example which is working in the UK and is coming to the US real soon. Another is called Prosper. They are both very similar. It is essentially peer to peer lending. Basically, as an investor you make a bunch of loans to various people. In fact, you can choose the credit rating of the people you will give a loan too. By distributing the loans across a large cross section of people then you are able to cover someone not making their payment. It’s a very interesting concept and I love that you could make the interest that before only the bank could make.

Has anyone else tried it out? I’d really like to get in and try it with some money I don’t care about. My idea is to take a small amount of money which I will continually reinvest and see how much money could be made with it. What do you think?