For all investments, to truly understand your ROI you need to appreciate and factor in the costs to maintain said investments. 

Here are some high-level costs:

  1. Purchasing a car as an investment:
    1. Cost to maintain
    2. Cost to store
    3. Cost to sell
  2. Purchasing Bullion:
    1. Cost to store
    2. Cost to buy
  3. Purchasing equities (i.e. stocks) on your own
    1. Cost to transact
    2. Margin vs. Cash account
    3. Cost to run a margin account needs to be factored in your return (you pay interest to the house, holding your trading accounts). 
  4. Owning shares in a mutual fund or some other investment vehicle not managed by you
    1. Fund managers need to get paid
    2. The Fund takes a portion of profits
  5. Get rich quick doesn’t exist as an “underwritable” sound strategy 
    1. Getting rich quick is like winning the lottery, would you be able to borrow money against a lottery ticket? NO!
    2. Real estate ownership makes a landlord leverageable, and look wealthy (access to cash allows them to spend money)
    3. Some debt is good, some debt is bad.
  6. Purchasing Art
    1. Storage costs
    2. Marketability of the art (who will your buyers be?).
    3. Broker fees