It is widely believed that to make the kind of money you need to lean back in life – a situation appealing to almost everyone and a motivation for most – that somehow you need a big win. The vast majority never achieve it. A tiny, weeny, infinitesimally small number scoop the National Lottery. Some, a few, manage to build a business and flog it, float it or otherwise cash-in. But that’s not the safest or the easiest way.

To build a saleable business takes a huge amount of time, skill and luck. We have friends with grown-up children who hardly saw their kids as they were developing and didn’t even take one single holiday for 11 years. They did sell their firm, for a packet (£35m), and are now happily retired and still quite young, but have no especially strong bond with their offspring. They’re assuredly wealthy, but work/life balance-wise they’re the first to admit that they haven’t been successful.

Then there are those who work the same hours, sacrifice as much for their commercial cause, only to see it wither/die/implode as trends change. Always with a view to that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, tunnel vision restricts seeing either competitors racing up on either side, or the end of the road hurtling towards. Poof, it’s all gone. A whole lifetime of work down the pan. And a social security retirement. And this could happen to any of us, if we put all our eggs in one basket: a family business.

Our philosophy is different. We believe that by far the most secure and comfortable method to achieve prosperity is to develop it slowly, deliberately and systematically over the course of time, such that a whole variety of income streams build, from a drip to a trickle to a flow to a river to a flood and then, hopefully, possibly, a tsunami. If you have to stop at a flood, then fine. Even a river’s quite good, which will more often than not automatically lead to a flood.

Small … steps. A collection of ever-increasing small steps. All sorts of people collect things –  thimbles, fridge magnets, snow globes, teddy bears, experiences, wives – so why not investments? One investment per year, over 30 years equals 30 investments. Each of those investments will provide a return, a yield. That yield will/should grow: a small yield in the first year, a larger yield thirty years later. And that on top of the other 29.

If you made just two investments per year for 30 years (say starting when you’re 20 and finishing when you’re 50, or 25-55, or 30-60) then that’s a total of 60 investments over the course of your working life returning 60 separate income streams, all building, all growing, all providing. And that’s just two investments per year, or one every six months. That gives you six months to find a good one, 182 days of part-time research and advice-taking.

But we’re not talking about ISAs, here, or ludicrous Premium Bonds, or pretty much anything the government or a bank has to offer (which are primarily of more benefit to the government or the bank). They won’t return you much more than inflation, if not less after tax. We’re talking property, land, stocks and shares, small stakes in start-up enterprises that become big businesses, wine that matures, art that appreciates, classic cars, theatre shows that run in the West End for decades, films that screen for a hundred years, ideas and intellectual property that flourishes, books … ad infinitum.

But only those investments which won’t go bust. That are as safe as houses and that can either return significant yields, which can be reinvested in either more-of-the-same or spread into different vehicles, or offer excellent capital growth. Always with a view to making around 10% pa on your money. If inflation’s 2%-or-so, then you’re still quids-in.

So … What? Which? Where?

Well, pretty much the kind of opportunities we feature in our monthly newsletter The Wealth Foundry.

Within this month’s pages you’ll find 12% returns per annum, fully-secured on property where you don’t need to get your hands dirty. You can probably roll the profits over. From people we’ve worked with for years. You get on with what you do and they’ll make your savings earn proper money.

Property purchase deals at 20% below market value. And mortgage brokers we can recommend to members who scour the market for the very lowest deals.

A cast-iron 3% per calendar month paid on cash on short-term loans (the equivalent to growing your money by a third in a year), underwritten by government credits.

Exclusive advice on how to make 15% returns pa from the uber-trendy (and tax-efficient) vogue of holiday letting.

There are start-up ventures from serial entrepreneurs who have simple never failed (100% success record – award-winning people) who have made 1,000%+ profit on products, enveloped in tax-efficient vehicles, where the government gives you 50% of your investment back straight away and takes zero percent of your profits.

How good does it have to get?

Then there are entry opportunities to ground floor concepts that are slightly more chancy, yet are mitigated by over 80% and offering the prospect of enormous scalability, so … it makes the risk/reward ratio worth at least a small punt.

And shortly (in about 4-6 weeks) we will be launching a new website venture, totally allied to TWF and its ethos, from which all members can benefit and who will be first to experience, and play with. It’s fun, and exciting. And we can’t wait to show it to you.

To find out more you can take a free trial subscription to ‘The Wealth Foundry’ by Clicking Here.