The very fact that there has never been more choice in the various investments available means that it is important to have a system to manage your research and your investments.

Perhaps you will discover unusual investments that compliment more traditional ones. It’s worth taking the time to explore, and the internet makes it a breeze in as much as you can research broadly before sitting down with a specialist and making final decisions.

Before getting into any kind of detail you need to determine some broad parameters.

i) Long term / short term / fixed / variable

ii) High risk / low risk / managed / self managed

iii) Capital growth / income / both

iv Estate management / tax implications

In order to keep track of research, keep computer details or written notes of all of your research. It will be easier to make comparisons when you start drilling down into specific details. There are excellent sites that track just about everything from investing in gold, art, stocks, bonds and the like to beautiful works or art.

Your personal circumstances will exclude many options but by exploring anything and everything and keeping notes you have a much better idea of what will work for you and the likely returns.

You can also make note of long and short term performance.

Gold and silver as an example have maintained their buying power pretty much throughout history. Silver seems out of parity with gold at the present so it will be interesting to see what happens in the near future. Global influences tend to play a major part in the performance of many investments and taking some time to research on global trends is prudent.

Due diligence and a system to follow up the research is the key. Determine what you need to achieve and have a functioning system in place to compare what specialist are saying. The old saying, look at the fruit on the tree, holds pretty good. Check past performance of the advisers before deciding with whom to place your money.

Remember too to check out the more unusual investments as there are some strange but potentially exciting good investments around.