What has been your single best investment?

A hair clipper that I bought 10 years ago. Cost me 25 euros. But a hair cut costs 20 euros. I need one every month (because I'm partially bald). So 20 * 12 * 10 = 2400 euro savings. That's a 9600% return on investment!

I should have bought more hair clippers...

Having a family.

It's an investment in time and energy, compromises, sometimes career plans, etc., but it's worth it.

edit: estimated cost is somewhat tapered career goals and likely foregoing early retirement, and the "return" is higher quality of life.

Technical skills, to the tune of 21% income increase year after year when averaged over the last 10 years (so about 6x from when I started).

Ironically, it slowed mostly because I tried to be a full time stock traded at some point, then realized that if I wanted active income, a job was the way to go.

Bought a house for $600K USD in 2009. It's worth almost $1.5M USD now. This is in Oslo, Norway.

EDIT: Getting an education, and having a job since I was 19, is probably also a good investment. :)

EDIT 2: Adjusted for inflation, that $600K sum is close to $800K now.

Working remotely. Biggest investment in mental health (open office space trauma) while now I have a private office, better payment (usually USA clients), more free time (saving 2+ hours/day compared to office).

$15k => 30% stake in bootstrapped $100M company

Sounds good, right? You see these all the time.

But the truth is this is one successful startup after 10-15 attempts, each of which cost me either cash or market-rate salary.

So if you factor in the opportunity cost, it's a lot more like:

$800k => 30% stake in bootstrapped $100M company

Still very good, but easily could have happened 10 years from now or not at all. Bootstrapping is definitely gambling.

Learning to cook.

You'll get tasty (and often healthier) meals for a fraction of the cost of a restaurant or a take-out. You even get a meditative/relaxing effect if you cook out of pressure, only once a day and not just for yourself. Your family and friends may even appreciate you more...

Learn English. It was 10$ per hour twice a week for several years. As a return, I can read anything readable (if it is not being translated into English, there are big chances it is not worth reading), I can speak to you, I am not locked down in our mambo-jumbo cultural space.

seeing a therapist. A really low investment (~30€ per session) and the returns are really _really_ worth it. In my case, I sometimes got stuck on a heated "debate" and they really helped me think clear.

About 20 years ago I learned how Linux generally worked. It's usually more in the background of what I work on now but feels like that skill has paid off for about 20 years straight in the form of money, promotions, thought patterns that apply to other software, time saved on managing servers. All kinds of stuff. If I had to pick just one I bet that would be it.

Best _financial_ investment: so far, it would be bitcoin, because it has enabled me to own an apartment and get out of just renting forever. It was getting impossible for me to save, but to maintain a mortgage is not a problem, even with eventual interest rate hikes.

Bitcoin, $200 to $55,000 when i sold (re-invested in other projects).

The only investment in yourself that matters is your health

After failing to take care of mine the way I should, I needed weightloss surgery a couple years ago

Don't get to where I did - invest in quality food and activity

You'll thank me for it later

Solar panels because not only is it a decent financial return (effectively 10% pa interest, and climbing with energy prices), but that's a lot of energy generated sustainably instead of by fossil fuels. I'd recommend this to anyone. From a UK perspective, it seems solar PV is still worth doing financially even without getting paid anything for export, now that electric prices are shooting up. And the possibility of one day charging your car from it.

Buying my house.

My montly mortgage payment for the whole house is ~67% of what I was previously paying to rent a single room. And of that 67%, only 4% is interest (and that 4% is going to go down with time)

So effectively I'm spending 3% of what I was spending previously.

Loans for college. I was able to pay them off in a few years by living frugally and it's afforded me a very nice paying career.

I'll also say my house. It's at least doubled in value in the past 5 years.

The Tandy I bought with lawn mowing money when I was 12. BASIC included. Library card was free. Something like a 3000-fold return, I guess, but I'm not done yet.

Family - priceless Returns - exponentially priceless

pxc 550 sennheiser wireless headphones. I got both versions. been using them everyday for the last 4 years

losing a a few BTCs I bought in 2016 on bustabit, lost about 100k but the lesson that you cant win games that are rigged from the start is an important one and it's priceless! You can't win big in someone else's house

Bitcoin. 7000% realized gain so far, before tax.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

1900% profit on GME shares. It’s running high again, this isn’t over