legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1005
Breaking in here just to clarify the difference between saving and investment.
When you save, you aquire something of value that you do not use now, but want to use later. That is the whole point of saving - the time aspect. If you can not use it later, it is not saving, it is just waste. You can save anything, like food, but under normal circumstances, you save money.
Investing is buying capital you use to create something of value to sell to others. You can just sell your work, but sometimes you can use your capacity to create more value. Capital is machinery, tools, raw materials, buildings and so on, things you don't need yourself, but smart as you are, you use that capital to create value for others. The "for others" aspect is not strictly necessary, but in our world, the division of labour is very effective, so it is normally better to do things for others. So investing is the same as using your money to buy capital, with the intent of making something useful for others.
Note that you first have to save, before you can invest. If you have no money, you can not invest. See caveat below.
The difference between what is consumer goods and capital is not totally well defined. It depends on the people involved, which is you. For instance, you can buy a flat, which is consumer good, but you might also like the prospect of renting it out sometimes, in which case it is capital. You can buy a frozen hamburger, which is a consumer good, but you can also think of it as raw material capital, where you add labour to convert it to a meal, which then becomes the consumer good. A car is a consumer good, but you can easily view it as a tool enabeling you to go to work, then it is a capital good. It serves the purpose of making you money.
Even money can be capital. If you think of yourself as a forex trader, the money you play with is capital, it serves to make you more money of your preferred type.
Finally, financialization makes it possible to invest without taking on the difficult task of running a firm. You can lend the money to someone who does, and get a part of the value creation in the form of interest. It also enables an entrepreneur to start moneyless, he can loan the money needed to buy capital. But someone has to save first.
The basic idea is that you save money for the purpose of buying stuff later, and you invest by buying capital goods with the intent of making something of value for others.
By investing or lending, you can get profit or interest, and therefore earn something from your savings. If you can take the risk. Due to the risk, you normally do not want to invest all your savings.