Scams will be reported to yahoo.
You could buy a house in Detroit.
I donno anything local to michigan except some houses which are going for $300 a piece supposedly but I donno if there is a catch there or not. You would probably know more about those. Anyways I would recommend buying a CD while you leanrn about stocks, bonds and options.
Pick up a few books and read up on stocks. Go for low risk, low yield stocks first since you are new at this. Read as much as you can and watch youtube videos and documentaries. If you find the topic interesting then open a brokerage account somewhere and start buying stocks. Don't open a forex account, I know lots of ads are out there promoting forex but trust me stocks are much better and safer to start out with.
I recommend a low fee brokerage like sogo who charge $3 a trade and also give you 100 free trades to start so make your first few trades really small ones. Trust me when you are playing small for the purpose of learning then you don't need people charging you $10 a trade like most brokers do so sogo is good in that respect. Later if you become more seasoned you might want a fancier broker. And one last word of warning, never never buy and sell the same stock in the same day more than three times a week. It's the PDT rule.
https://www.sogotrade.com/Setup/Default.…
While you are learning about stocks also read up on options. That is a must if you want to be an investor, get this book on options:
http://www.amazon.com/Option-Volatility-…
Option Volatility & Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques by Sheldon Natenberg
Standard investment advice is that you should invest in a diversified mix of stocks, bonds, and money market funds. If you are like most people you will invest part of your money aggressively in stocks, and part conservatively in money market funds and bond funds. However, some young people will go all stocks, and some very conservative people will go all money markets. The links below have on-line questionnaires which will give you an idea of how to do "Asset Allocation," determining how much to put in each type of investment.
You want to buy a diversified portfolio of stocks as individual stocks are too risky. Highly knowledgeable people can buy a properly balanced portfolio, but most folks have a difficult time balancing things on their own. They will misbalance their portfolio by buying all small stocks or all growth stocks, or some other misbalanced assortment of stocks. Back in 2000, Some people bought all Internet stocks; they got burnt when they all crashed together. You have to diversify across industries. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best to buy mutual funds that will diversify for you. Buy no-load, low cost funds. Mutual funds should have expense ratios of less than 0.5%.
If your company offers a 401K plan at work, try to invest the most you can. The money grows tax free, and some companies will match your contribution. Investing in a mutual fund IRA is also a good idea. If you have children, you may want to consider a 529 plan or other college savings plan that grows tax free.
I like index funds. Because of their broad diversification, you are less likely to have a dramatic drop in value. They also have the lowest expenses. For stock funds, I would suggest putting ~70-80% of your money in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. and ~20-30% in a foreign stock index fund. However, there are many different opinions out there on what the best mutual funds are. Read the links below and form your own opinion.
If you have high-interest debt, like credit cards, it is best to pay this off first before trying most of the investment ideas above. You should also have 3-6 months of salary saved up as an emergency fund in a bank or money market fund before trying more risky investments.
I will warn you that there is a tremendous amount of stock investing books and websites that teach stock investing strategies that don't work. Particularly bad are people that teach "technical analysis" systems that sound impressive, but don't work.
Believing advice you get on Yahoo answers can be risky, so read these websites for further information. If you find it too confusing, contact a professional financial advisor. They will charge you significant commissions, however.
In the years ahead, I'd recommend stable, dividend-paying stocks, high quality bonds, commodities and emerging markets to hedge against inflation and slow growth in the US.