"For indeed, the investor's chief problem - and even his worst enemy - is likely to be himself" - Ben Graham in his book The Intelligent Investor. What is the best way to invest your money for the future? That my friends is what is commonly referred to as a loaded question. You might say it's really not that complicated, oh the woe of the many who have uttered that statement. Were I to opine on the virtues of investing in the common stocks of small growing companies, who by the way are often fraught with risk, and you determined based upon my unbridled optimism for small cap stocks, to invest your entire retirement portfolio in the afore mentioned little growth engines that could. You quite possibly could find your self regretting your decision in only a few years time. As where, I quite possibly might find myself running down the middle of the street assailed by a hoard of disgruntled investors.

Were I to have the answer to the holy grail of the investment world, I would probably not be writing this article. What is the best way to invest your money for the long term? The answers we find in investment books, from stock market gurus, on web sites related to investing, from friends, relatives, and finally the guy at the corner store, are many and varied. I would venture to say that the real answer can be found inside each of us. To understand my supposition you must attempt to understand yourself. Thus, Ben Graham's quote.

"Past performance does not guarantee future results". I'm sure many investors have heard or read that little ditty at some time. Let's cut this phrase down to it's proper size, I prefer to read it this way, predicting the future is a fools folly, or simply the future is unknown. However, regarding investing one variable we can attempt to predict is our own behavior. The investment world is built upon supposition, one particular belief is that when we are young we can afford to invest in classes of investments that carry a high level of risk. The supposition is that if a young investor incurs losses at the hands of the market, he or she can make up those losses overtime because their investment horizon is longer. The beliefs and suppositions regarding investing are endless, your hard earned money is not.

Factors we control regarding our investment practices might include: our level of knowledge related to markets, economies, interest rates, analysis of companies, our behaviors in concert with market conditions, and our investment philosophies. To know ourselves in relationship to investing we must look at our own personal abilities in these areas. We must be honest with ourselves regarding the level of knowledge we posses, once we have done this we can begin to influence these factors that we exercise some control over.

This should not be an exercise in personal exploration that requires you to go to a stock market spa and resort. It's a simple acknowledgement of our level of knowledge regarding investing. If we acknowledge that we really do not understand most of what is involved with investing in stocks, mutual funds, exchange traded funds. Etc. That is fine, and acceptable. Armed with this acknowledgement we must then determine how we wish to proceed. We can either determine to hand over our investing activities to a trained professional, or to increase our level of knowledge regarding investing. Another possibility would be to utilize a financial professional with the majority of the funds you wish to invest initially , say 80% of our money set aside for investing, and to utilize a smaller portion in this case 20% of our funds, to use for our own investment activities. As you increase your level of proficiency you might increase the portion of money that you control. Over time you might decide that indeed you can do better than the so called professional.

Other variables that you must consider would include your age, your financial security, and ability to suffer losses while investing. You may determine that based upon your age and or your financial situation it is safer for you to utilize investment vehicles that carry very low risk, those that carry an intermediate level of risk, or those asset classes that carry the highest level of risk, or some combination of each risk level.

For the individual investor risk related to potential return on investment is a very important topic of concern and should be fully understood. Different asset classes carry varying levels of risk, it is therefore imperative for investors to understand these classes. The risk pyramid chronicles risk in asset types: the lowest risk in the bottom one-third, US Treasury Bills, US Treasury Bonds, CD's, Money Market Funds; the middle one-third contains Federal Agency Bonds, Conservative Bonds, Municipal Bonds, Balanced Mutual Funds, Index Funds, and Blue Chip Stocks; the top one-third contains International Bonds, Rental Income Properties, Growth Stocks, Foreign Stocks, Collectables, Junk Bonds, and New Ventures. Investment risk increases as you go up the pyramid! For more information related to this important topic see my article located on the web at: http://www.helium.com/tm/458369/great-military-philo sopher-advised

Knowing the best way to invest for the long term is far less important than understanding our own abilities and behaviors. It is through this process that we can begin to make our best guess at what the answer to that riddle might be. In my opinion there is no right answer to that question. Growth stocks, mutual funds, value stocks, bonds, index funds, small cap stocks, balanced mutual funds, life - cycle mutual funds, possibly a little of each, or higher exposure to one class of investment and less to another. Perhaps a better question to ask might be, knowing my abilities and limitations in regards to investing what would be the best way for ME to invest for the long term?