The worst was taking a 90 percent loss while vested in a technology mutual fund. Who could have predicted that a well-run fund could lose? It was managed by top notch, Harvard educated managers. That one hurt a lot. Real money saved over years and lost in mere months.

The security of your investments is becoming more and more important these days. Investors want to be able to anticipate decent returns in the stock market, but the market takes them on a roller coaster ride that would be the envy of any amusement park. One day it's a 200 point rise and setting a new record high on the Dow, then the next a 300 point tumble that takes six weeks to shake off.

If you're like me, you have taken that ride more than once over the years. It's happened in a big way twice in the past decade alone!

The series of highs and lows can leave you with a feeling of hopelessness. How can you know if a company is cooking the books? How can you predict if there will be another terrorist attack that will cripple our Country for months? Who has a crystal ball that can reveal when the next financial market meltdown will wash over us? Whenever these cycles hit personal fortunes are wiped out in a blink of an eye.

You may be thinking, "So what else can I invest in?"

The answer is to invest in real estate...but maybe not in the way the first comes to mind.

Real estate is an asset that you see and touch, is insured, and produces monthly income. Historically it is one of the safest investments available and there are several ways to get started. Here's a few:

1) The "Speculator" Approach - you could become a real estate "speculator" and buy properties with the hope that they will go up in value and allow you to reap windfall profits when you sell. Of course, this type of approach has a large amount of risk which has left large numbers of speculators who were consumed with "Flipping Frenzy" over the last few years in a very tough place when the market turned and did not favor their investment approach.

2) The Landlord Approach - on a more traditional level, you could buy a home, duplex, or small apartment building and rent the property out. Over time as you collect rent your tenants will pay off your mortgage. This does take some time, work, and experience. This approach is rather safe and can result in a good return in both the short and long term. The downside is that there can be a large amount of time required to make this work.

Now what if you find yourself in large group of over 200 Million Americans who want the benefits of real estate investing but don't have the spare time or hard-nosed demeanor needed to be a successful landlord? Well lucky for you there is a third approach which is not well-known.

3) The Passive Method - this style of investing is known as making "Private Mortgage Loans". Private Mortgage Loans, when set up properly, can provide your portfolio with a great return in any real estate market. Up, down, flat...it doesn't really matter.

The investment model is simple. You directly loan money, at a very low loan-to-value, against a piece of real estate. The borrower is typically a tried-and-true veteran landlord that has a portfolio of equity-rich properties and also is familiar with the ins-and-outs of finding tenants and managing rental property.

In return for loaning the landlord the funds you earn a return in the form of interest payments either monthly, quarterly, or on a custom basis as set up between yourself and your borrower.

To provide you with the safety you want, your investment is secured by a first mortgage. As long as you follow common-sense lending practices then you can enjoy a level of confidence in your investments that the stock market cannot provide.

Private Mortgage Lending is a vehicle that can help you quickly recover from harsh stock market losses. Using this approach you can realize returns greater than 10% and never get called to fix a leaky pipe. Unfortunately, most investors aren't even aware this opportunity exists.

After reading this article, you are no longer one of the uninformed. You should drop everything you are doing and do some research to find out who is in need of a Private Mortgage. Find a landlord at your local real estate investor association, hit a round of golf together, and see if it makes sense to do business together. Then take action and make your first investment. Start small if it makes you feel better, but get started.

We're all busy and if you put off 'till tomorrow what should be done today, you know that you'll find yourself looking at your investment statements a year from now and wonder why your net worth is simply not growing at the rate you need it to in order to meet your financial goals.