Is starting a side venture not your idea of fun? Don’t worry. An ongoing investment doesn’t have to be as involved as creating a new side business or flipping a house. There are several low-maintenance, passive ways to invest your money that can be just as lucrative.

Many investors just hand over a check to a financial advisor who can invest the funds wisely for them. It’s clean. It’s simple. The best part is that these investors are still able to build a healthy amount of new wealth, which they can continue to reinvest and grow.

Others may choose to blend their investing style, creating a fun mix of active and passive. Investors putting private capital into HMB are a great example of this style. Instead of giving their money (and control) to a financial advisor, investors in HMB get to learn about where their money is going. This makes their role slightly more active than the former group’s, while the rest of the investing process is fairly hands-off. They simply have to wait for their checks to come each month.

Do you know about self-directed retirement accounts? If not, you’re not alone. But we must say, just because you haven’t heard of a self-directed retirement account (often called a self-directed IRA), that doesn’t mean it isn’t one hell of a snazzy vehicle (because it is).

It’s an alternative to traditional retirement accounts like a 401K or an IRA. And here’s why it’s so great: A self-directed retirement account still offers you traditional investment options like stocks and bonds, but it doesn’t limit you to them. You’re given the freedom to make alternative investments in company shares or in real estate as well. You can even lend these funds. A good portion of the private capital put into our company’s loans comes from self-directed retirement accounts.

No one style of investing trumps another. How you invest is not as important as your decision to invest. Allowing your money to collect dust is a tremendous financial waste. It’s a disservice to you and your future. Why limit yourself to a diet of seeds when you can grow fruit trees?  

This article is an excerpt from the book “The Whiteboard: Go from Blank Canvas to a Productive, Leveraged, & Highly-Profitable Business” by Chris Haddon and Jason Balin. Please click here to see more.