Importance of the Topic:

Underlying the humour of this vignette is a serious message about investing. We all would like to be able to put our money to work for us by investing it, but often we are so eager to get a good return on our investment that we overreach and take a chance on an apparent opportunity that offers a greater than normal return. This is a risky venture to say the least. It’s important to take a moment to reflect before acting. As the old adage says, “Act in haste, repent at leisure.” There are a number of things that should be considered when investing money in order to protect ourselves from scams.

Desired Outcome, Knowledge, or Skill:

1. Learn to trust your instincts about any deal that seems suspicious.
2. Understand the validity of the saying “the greater the reward, the greater the risk”.
3. Appreciate that you should be prepared to lose all of the money you invest in a high- risk venture.
4. Realize that you should invest only with credible sources and be wary of any you don’t know.
5. Learn to look for fake websites and avoid them. Be on your guard – if in doubt, don’t do it.

Possible Activities:

1. With a partner, discuss things that you need to stop and consider before investing any money.
2. Check reliable and trusted institutions to see what investment opportunities they are offering so that you can use this for comparison with less well-known organizations.
3. Determine how much money you would be prepared to invest in higher risk investments appreciating that you could very well lose all of this money.
4. Investigate how you can tell if any website you are on is, in fact, a legitimate website.
5. As an activity, find an investment that is offering a greater than normal return and then do a check on that organization to see its history and reliability.
6. Complete a risk tolerance questionnaire to establish how comfortable you are with risk taking.
7. With a partner, discuss opportunities that you have had to invest but declined to do and explain the reasons for your decision.
8. Again, with a partner give an example of an investment opportunity you declined that proved to be a solid opportunity, and then discuss the differences between that opportunity and the ones you discussed in 6.
9. List the things that you will do in the future before you would invest your money with a specific company or organization.