Black Friday is just about over. Hopefully you scored some great deals. If not, it's not too late to take advantage of Cyber Monday.
And, according to Mark Cuban, you definitely should take advantage.
A few years ago at our IGNITION conference, Cuban gave his advice for investing to people of various incomes/savings. This is one of our favorite things Cuban has ever said, and we like to post it every year around this time as a reminder.
People with $25,000-$100,000 should first pay off any debt they have "because that's a guaranteed return," says Cuban.
If you have extra money, don't put it into public equities, says Cuban. He says you're better off using the "transactional value of cash."
What is that? That means, get the most bang for you buck at times like Black Friday, or, since you perhaps missed that, Cyber Monday instead.
A lot of people think that investing in stocks is the best way to grow money and avoid inflation. Cuban thinks the market is risky and can very easily vaporize your money.
As for inflation, he says you can fight inflation by using cash to get discounts. So, if you hold onto your cash through the year, then go shopping on Cyber Monday and get 30%-40% off of stuff, you're going to beat inflation. Or, if you go to a store and offer to pay cash if you can get a discount, you can avoid inflation. That's what he calls the "transactional value of cash."
This all changes is you're over $100,000 in savings. In that case, think about investing in public or private companies. Here's a clip with Cuban explaining it all:
Produced by Kamelia Angelova, Robert Libetti & Dan Goodman