When you drive a car, fly a plane, step outside your house or even stay inside your home, there's some sort of risk. When you buy stocks or invest in real estate, there is also risk. Everything you do or don't do has some sort of level of risk associated with it. To stay ahead of inflation and make a good return on your money, you'll need to consider investing. By being too conservative because of your fear of risk, you may lose out on wealth building.
Diversification is a good insurance against risk.
It is one of the best ways to protect yourself against risk. You can diversify in the stocks and bonds that you purchase for your investment portfolio. You can also diversify into real estate investments. The first thing to do is determine what your financial goals are and how far away you are from retirement. If you have 30 years until you retire, you might be more comfortable with riskier investment products as you have plenty of time to wait out the lows.