Which asset should you invest in if you are starting to invest in 2025?
All asset classes are shared in this article.
Why Should You Start Investing?
If you invest your money and it grows at a rate of 20% annually, then it will double in around 3.5 years.
Which means one becomes two in 3.5 years, then two becomes four in the next 3.5 years, then four becomes eight in the next 3.5 years. This means within just 14 years, you can make your money 16 times.
So, to multiply your money so quickly,
You need two things:
- Time
- Rate of return
And these things are available to you.
In this article, I will share all the instruments with you where you can invest your money and, according to their rate of return, how many years it will take for your money to double.
We will get to know in this article.
But before that—three things are extremely important.
If you do not have these 3 things before starting any investment, then you are being stopped.
1. Term Insurance
Probably your income is running your family, and the lives of many people depend on your income. God forbid if something happens to you, then they can be in trouble.
Hence, term insurance ensures that if something happens to your life during the term for which you have taken that insurance, then your beneficiaries or nominees get an amount.
Whatever your annual income is:
Life insurance cover = 20–25× your annual salary
It means if your annual income is ₹5,00,000, then your life insurance cover should be:
25×5,00,000 = ₹1.25 crore
And this term insurance is the cheapest.
Any other insurance plan—investment, endowment, ULIP, etc.—will cost more, and if the coverage amount is the same, the returns will also be less.
That is why I do not recommend them.
Term insurance is what you have to go for.
2. Health Insurance
During COVID, many families did not have health insurance, and because of that, all of their savings were wiped out due to hospital expenses. You don’t want this to happen to you.
If your parents are aged and getting old, or if you have your own family, then health insurance is extremely important.
Even if you have health insurance from your company, still take one of your own because the day you leave the company, that health insurance will lapse, and it is a big hassle to transfer it.
So take your own health insurance. Take a separate one for your parents
because theirs will be more expensive as they are old.
And take another one for your family and yourself, which will be cheaper as your probability of hospitalization is very low.
I posted a blog on health insurance where I covered many things like:
What is the right age to buy health insurance?
Why shouldn’t it be combined with your parents’ health insurance?
And what are the things to keep in mind while buying it?
Read this detailed blog post I’ve written on health insurance:
Health Insurance Made Simple
3. Emergency Fund
God forbid if something happens to your income but for a short term—maybe you are laid off, or you want to take a break or go on a sabbatical—then you must have running expenses for at least 6 months, ideally 12 months.
So whatever your monthly expenses are (for your needs, not your wants), like EMI, rent, food, electricity bills, fees, etc., multiply that by 6 for your minimum emergency fund, and by 12 for your ideal emergency fund.
I have posted a blog on the Emergency Fund where I covered everything you need to know. You can check it out here:
Emergency Fund Guide
Do not start investing until you have term insurance, health insurance, and an emergency fund.
So first, get these 3 things in order. After that, let’s start our investing journey.
6 Best Investment Options in July 2025
1. Fixed Deposit (FDs)
First of all, we will talk about my best friend—Fixed Deposit.
Fixed deposits are such a great friend that I keep bashing them every day because I am always super angry with them.
A fixed deposit is great if you want to lose your money risk-free—if you want your money to grow every year by the same percentage, but inflation reduces the value of that money, then a fixed deposit is for you.
Investing in FDs will give you around 6% yearly returns, which means your money will double in 12 years.
So, if you want to increase your money 16 times and your money is invested in FDs, it will take you 48 years!
But in 48 years, inflation—meaning how fast the value of things increases—will destroy your money.
So while a fixed deposit seems great, it should only be used if you want to just park your money or your emergency fund there, because the emergency fund should be protected.
Where you want to grow your money, you have to continuously beat inflation.
2. Gold
Everybody likes sleeping! No, not that—
Actual gold, the gold that Bappi Lahiri wears! And we often consider gold as an investment.
But there are 2–3 problems with gold.
Jewellery is not an investment. Nice try! It’s not.
Investment is in the form of investment—not in the form of jewellery.
Jewellery has making charges, problems of purity, conversion charges, and various other issues, and that’s why it does not directly make your money grow.
So if you want to invest in gold—which will give you around 8–9% yearly returns, meaning your money will double in around 8–9 years—
then you should buy digital gold, which is available on a lot of platforms.
You can buy Gold ETF or Gold Mutual Fund. For this, you can read our article:Gold ETF vs Gold Mutual Fund
Here, I explain why you should invest in gold and how to invest.
3. Real Estate
We love real estate so much. We keep buying houses, shops, ATMs, offices, and so on.
But a big problem with real estate is that it needs a lot of money, right? ₹50 lakhs, ₹1 crore, or more.
And if you buy for small amounts, then the rental yield will also not be that much.
So it doesn’t add up to a lot.
A great way to think about real estate is REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust).
These real estate companies convert the rental income of their properties into a trust, and you can buy and sell that in the stock market.
So if you open your brokerage account—say, in Zerodha (I prefer Zerodha; it is India’s number one brokerage company)—you can buy and sell REITs there.
It works exactly like a company’s stock, but the difference is that instead of buying a company, you are betting on the rental income of real estate projects.
There are 4 Real Estate Investment Trusts in India as of now—
3 in commercial REITs and 1 in retail malls REIT, which was launched in 2023.
It’s a great way to say: “I believe in retail real estate more, so I will buy its REIT,” or “I believe more in commercial or office space.”
REITs are a wonderful way to double your money in real estate and enjoy the growth.
4. Corporate Bonds
Corporate bonds are interesting—actually anywhere between 9–12% yearly returns.
Sometimes even more, but there are also risks. So I will tell you how they work.
Corporate bonds are bonds of companies that want to take a loan.
They can either take a loan from a bank, or they can go to retail investors like us and raise money.
That becomes like a loan you give to a company. The company deploys that money in a project, and then pays off the interest along with the principal.
If you are looking for regular income, then corporate bonds are a great way—because in a short period of 1–4 years, they generate income through your investment.
A great platform to buy corporate bonds from is Wintwealth.
Wintwealth allows you to buy corporate bonds.
Disclaimer: I am an investor in Wintwealth, so I could speak with a biased opinion, but I buy my corporate bonds from Wintwealth only.
Please do your own research and buy from wherever you want. My preference and recommendation would be Wintwealth.
The big risk in corporate bonds is—God forbid—if something happens to the company, all the money is lost.
This is unlike stocks. Stocks never go down to zero value; their value can decrease but not vanish.
In this case, the value could go to zero, which is called default risk.
That’s why there’s a rating system for corporate bonds.
The best rating is AAA.
This means the rating agency believes the company’s fundamentals are great, the money is being used wisely, the money is backed by collateral, and even if something goes wrong, the collateral can be sold to recover funds.
My suggestion: Always buy AAA-rated corporate bonds.
It would also mean that the rate of interest would be slightly less because you are taking lesser risk.
But you should still get about 9–10%, meaning your money will double in around 7 years, and that is a great way to start investing in 2025.
5. Mutual Funds
We have often heard about mutual funds.
Mutual funds are actually a good way to enter the stock market, because through mutual funds you can capitalize on the growth opportunities of the stock market.
You don’t have to put in your own research, your brain, or your expertise—and frankly, we don’t even have that.
So we rely on someone else’s experience and expertise. That’s why: mutual funds.
In mutual funds, you buy a bucket or portfolio of stocks—that is, multiple stocks.
But mutual funds are managed by a fund manager who takes up all the responsibilities and expenses on your behalf to give you returns.
For this, they charge something called an expense ratio.
Expense ratio means: of whatever money you invest in a mutual fund, how much percentage will be used to run the fund.
Typically, this could be anywhere from 0.5% to 2%.
If you give ₹100, they will charge ₹1 to run the fund and invest ₹99.
Here’s where you should think about mutual funds.
Mutual funds can be taken for a lot of things:
- Index Mutual Funds – which track an index or portfolio of stocks.
The best-known index is the Nifty 50 index, which tracks India’s top 50 companies on the NSE.
These companies are weighted by size. For example, Reliance being large has a bigger weight, HDFC being smaller has a smaller weight.
Buying these stocks in that ratio gives you a Nifty 50 Index Mutual Fund.
These are also called:
- Large-Cap Mutual Funds – which invest in large companies
- Mid-Cap Mutual Funds – which invest in medium-sized companies
- Small-Cap Mutual Funds – which invest in smaller companies or industries
The difference lies in risk, and by risk, we mean volatility—
It doesn’t mean your money will be lost, it means your money can fluctuate rapidly.
- Large-cap companies have low volatility
- Mid-cap companies have moderate volatility
- Small-cap companies have high volatility
But over a long period—5, 10, 15 years—you will see that all three have an upward trend.
In fact, small-cap grows the most, followed by mid-cap, and then large-cap.
Why? Because risk and return are related. More risk = more return. Less risk = less return. Just like fixed deposits.
So, an ideal mix for 2025—especially if there’s a possible recession or market shake-up—would be:
- 65% of your money in the Nifty 50 index (relatively stable)
- 25% in mid-cap index fund
- 10% in small-cap index fund
I’m not naming any specific mutual funds because there’s no preference.
Usually, HDFC and SBI are the biggest ones, but it’s your choice—do your own research.
I have posted a blog on mutual funds, please check it out here.
This should be your split: 65–25–10 in large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap respectively.
6. Smallcase
There are a lot of portfolios of stocks that are not represented by mutual funds.
For example, you want to bet on middle-class India. You feel companies that make services and products for middle-class India will grow exponentially in the next 10–20 years.
Unfortunately, there’s no mutual fund (yet) that invests specifically in those companies.
But there is a Smallcase for this.
Now, what is a Smallcase?
Smallcase is basically like a mutual fund—but not exactly a mutual fund—
An independent finance professional creates a portfolio of stocks, and you can subscribe to that Smallcase.
You connect Smallcase to your brokerage account—whether it’s Zerodha, Upstox, or 5paisa.
In just 3 clicks, you replicate the entire portfolio in your own Demat account.
You buy and sell the stocks as suggested by the Smallcase, but it all happens through your own account.
This is what I find most efficient—because I have total ownership and visibility.
The best Smallcase to start with is called All Weather Investing.
It invests in equities, gold, and fixed income (debt instruments).
So, as the name suggests, “All Weather Investing”—whether the market is up or down—you are somewhat insulated.
When the stock market is up, gold stays stable.
When the market goes down, gold provides a cushion.
Debt gives regular fixed income.
So, for Smallcases:
- 65% in All Weather Investing
- 25% in sectoral Smallcases (e.g., middle-class India, rural India, pharma, infra—your choice)
- 10% in high-risk, high-return Smallcase, e.g., Momentum Strategy
Momentum strategy means: when a stock is rising, it continues rising for a while before it starts falling.
So, you ride that upward wave. The strategy picks winners and removes underperformers.
My recommendation would be: Weekend Investing for momentum.
Summary of Investment Options in 2025
To give a quick comparison of expected returns:
- Fixed Deposit: Around 6%
- Gold: Around 8–9%
- Real Estate: Around 8–9%
- Corporate Bonds: Around 9–12%
- Large-Cap Mutual Fund: Around 10–12%
- Mid-Cap Mutual Fund: Around 14–16%
- Small-Cap Mutual Fund: Around 16–20%
- All Weather Investing Smallcase: Around 10–12%
- Sectoral Smallcase: Around 12–14%
- Momentum Strategy Smallcase: Around 16–20%
To find out how many years it will take for your money to double, use the Rule of 72:
72 ÷ Rate of Return = Number of Years to Double
For example:
If you’re earning 20%, your money will double in 3.5 years.
If you’re earning 10%, your money will double in 7 years.
To reach 16x returns, you’ll know how many years you’ll need by compounding through these cycles.
Final Thoughts
Two things are vital for investing:
- Time
- Rate of return
If you’re able to track these two things, then you are on your way to start your wonderful investing journey in 2025.
I hope this was useful.
