Columnist David McEwen

- If you haven't already started saving and investing, start today. Investing a little now is better than saving up a large lump sum and then getting started.

- Pay yourself first. Money you spend on housing, food and even debt repayments is money that you pay to someone else. Why not put 10% aside from every pay cheque into a separate account and treat that as money you pay yourself.

- Don't be too conservative in your investment approach, otherwise your returns will remain low.
Learn about different types of investments and use them to build up an investment portfolio.

- Match your investments to your age and risk level. Learn how to approach investing using a life cycle investing strategy.

- Make investing fun. Gather up your friends and start an investment club. Learning to invest as a group reduces the fear level and makes investing both educational and social.

- Never invest in an investment you don't understand. If your financial advisor can't explain how it works, avoid it.

- Be wary of investments that sound too good to be true. If an investment pays 20% in a marketplace in which 8% is the typical return, don't touch it.

- It is not possible to beat the market using publicly announced information. If you see a piece of news in the media you should remember that the effects of the news are already in the asset's price.

- Riskier investments produce higher potential returns. The market prices in risk. To take advantage of the increased returns associated with increased risk, you have to have a long investment horizon.

- Diversification helps you by doing two things: it averages the risk among all your investments, and it narrows the effect of risk (that is, if something bad happens, it's only happening to a part of your portfolio).

- A sound investment strategy can only be achieved once you have chosen an investment time horizon. Are you saving for the short, medium or long-term?