You’re not the type to go on the beaten path—the fact that you’re here reading an article about the Self-Directed IRA suggests exactly that.

So the word “unconventional” is not new to you. You embrace the counter-intuitive, the unorthodox, the innovative. And when it comes to your wealth—one of the most important areas of your life—you’ve decided that you want to do more than just what the “average” person does.

If that paragraph described you, then you’ve come to the right place. Here we’re going to discuss some of the top tips and mindsets—many of which are unconventional in the minds of the average investor—to help you get a hold on your financial future and invest like you know you can:

• Consider using loans to expand your potential for retirement growth. The idea of using a loan for your investments might seem foreign to some. But there’s more than just the traditional path of acquiring a car loan and a mortgage. You can use a non-recourse loan, for example, in acquiring real estate for yourself with a Self-Directed IRA. This helps you build the kind of wealth that wouldn’t otherwise be available to you.
• Cast a wide net. The idea of casting a wide net is popular—but the unconventionally wide net will really help you to diversify your investment holdings. Consider a whole range of investments for your retirement, including everything from raw land to gold and silver. The stock market is not the end-all-be-all of investment; don’t treat it that way.
• Investigate the options. Have you considered investing in promissory notes? In private companies? Have you heard of tax liens? If you haven’t heard of any of these options, it might be a good idea to investigate the options at your disposal. Of course, simply because an investment in your retirement account isn’t conventional is no guarantee of success—but it does broaden the scope of your knowledge and helps you to learn the options available at your fingertips.
• Don’t get too unconventional. Art, alcoholic beverages, life insurance—these are not protected assets for retirement accounts. It’s tempting to include all sorts of investments in a retirement account once you know what you can do with a Self-Directed IRA, but you should try to pay attention to the prohibited transactions as well.
• Buy and hold. Yes, we know; many people are interested in Self-Directed IRAs because of all of their options. The idea of buying an asset and holding onto it for a long time seems, well, kind of like what everyone else is doing with their investments: playing the long game. But you can do the same. The prices of gold and silver, for example, are best utilized if you hold them for a long time; buying and selling them like stocks is a bad idea because of associated costs. Just because you’re using a Self-Directed IRA doesn’t mean you have to abandon every conventional strategy.
• Use a Self-Directed IRA to protect investments in private companies. Many people wouldn’t think of using a retirement account to give themselves some protections when investing in a private company…but with a Self-Directed IRA, you can invest in private companies and hold equity without using access to the stock market and publically-traded companies.

The Self-Directed IRA is all about the unconventional: unconventional retirement assets that go against the mainstream. But that doesn’t mean you have to abandon all of the good conventional ideas that are out there. To learn more about using a Self-Directed IRA, call us at 1-866-7500-IRA(472) or keep reading here at AmericanIRA.com.