John Jacob Astor, a famous American businessman, trader and investor once said, "Wealth is largely the result of habit." If you save and invest your money wisely, even demonetisation cannot affect your money or prevent you from earning profits. Here are 4 alternatives to your mattress for keeping your money!

You can buy stocks/shares of companies:

• Stocks or equity are shares that are issued by companies and are bought by the general public.
• If you can invest for a medium to long term tenure of five to ten years, then you could invest in stocks as returns offered by stocks are usually high.

Invest in bonds:

• A bond is a loan that you give to the government or an institution in exchange for a pre-set interest rate paid to you regularly for a specified period of time.
• You earn interest till the bond is active and once it expires; the total face value of the bond is paid to you.
• There are many good bonds like government bonds which generally provide a high rate of return on investments.

Invest in mutual funds by SIP:

• They can help you to diversify your portfolio and regulate returns
• Mutual fund take for a long period of time by Systematic Investment Plan (SIP)[wherein you invest an amount as less as Rs. 500 regularly] can turn out to be very useful for you.
• They are professionally managed, thereby saving you the hassle of finding time to manage your portfolio and monitor returns.
• You can get also enjoy tax benefits with funds like Equity Linked Savings Schemes.
• Investing in Debt Mutual Funds could also be beneficial. The major portion of debt funds are invested in high-yield bonds such as governmental bonds and RBI bonds, either for short term (less than 3 years) and long term (more than 3 years).

Opt for bank FDs:

• Bank Fixed Deposits (FDs) are one of the oldest and safest ways to save money.
• You keep aside a fixed amount of money with a bank or financial institution for a fixed number of days or months or years. In turn, interest is earned on this money.
• The rate of interest differs according to how long you keep the money there (tenure) and the individual policies of the institution with which you make the deposit.

Consider Gold ETFs

• If you want to invest in Gold but would prefer not to bear the tension of storing and maintaining it, consider Gold ETFs.
• ETF stands for Exchange-traded Fund, where you, along with thousands of other investors, pay money and buy ‘units’.
• The vehicle or the Fund then invests your money in Gold.
• You can then trade—buy and sell—these units on a common platform with other investors.
• One gold ETF represents approximately one gram of actual gold. The only difference is that you own the piece of gold in an electronic/paper form.

So, don’t leave your money lying around- make it work hard for you!

Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks, read all scheme related documents carefully.