Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Small investing for spending money?
First thing to know about investing is that you make money by taking risks. That means the possibility of losing money as well as making it.  There are low risk investments that pretty much always pay out but they don't earn much. Making $200 a month on $10,000 is about 26% per year.  That's vastly more than you are going to earn on low risk assets. If you want that kind of return, you can invest in a diversified portfolio of equities through an equity index fund.  Some years you may make 26% or more.  Other years you may make nothing or lose that much or more.  On average you may earn maybe 7%-10% hopefully. Overall, investing is a game of making money over long horizons.  It's very useful for putting away your $10k now and having hopefully more than that when it comes time to buy a house or retire or something some years into the future.  You have to accept that you might also end up with less than $10K in the end, but you are more likely to make money than to use it. What you describe doesn't seem like a possible situation.  In developed markets, you can't reliably expect anything close to the return you desire from assets that are unlikely to lose you money.  It might be time to re-evaluate your financial goals.  Do you want spending money now, or do you want to invest for use down the road?