Here's a free financial seminar:
If you want returns comparable to the 85th percentile of individual investors, that is, only 15 people per hundred do better, then buy and hold an S&P 500 mutual fund. Continue to put a sizeable part of your income into it each month. This is as close as you can come to harnessing the earnings power of America's most profitable companies, for your personal benefit.
Vanguard's fund has the lowest fees so will compound the best over many years. I like Fidelity's since they have better customer service - not the quality of advice, but longer phone hours etc. and I have all my 'family banking' brokerage, checking, credit card, etc with them.
Or if you have the temperament for it, more money is made by active development of real estate than by passive investments. Risk is correspondingly higher.
Ask your seminar adviser what percentile their customers fit into. And ask the presenter his/her personal net worth. That's the whole point. If they aren't proud of their accomplishments why should you invest with them?
My credentials? Retired at 54 after starting with zero 25 years before. Earned an MBA along the way. Investing all boils down to finding what compounds the fastest.
Ok, school's out.