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Question

Is an average of 8% return (per year) on investments difficult to achieve for a period of say, 15 years. If so, what route should I take with my investing? Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

That is not a "lofty" goal...really quite attainable with mutual funds.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/research/fundwelcome.asp?=Funds+1
That's a page for researching funds...look into something like mid-cap " blend" or conservative or moderate allocation..or the "target date" funds.
But while you're there look at things like " safe and steady".. a little invested that way will blow away your 8% ...but " riskier" so if you can divide money into more than two funds, when you get a little ahead look into funds like those.
That's " how", the " where" is someone like Fidelity, E-trade, Vanguard.....they are companies that take your money and put it where you direct it ( on- line)...for small fees ( taken from your account at the end of the year) usually in the neighborhood of .07% to 1.5%....avoid funds that have a " front- end load" meaning you pay something lke 5+% just to " buy- in"
Check the web-sites...it's not complicated, it's a learning experience that you can certainly profit from.
Good luck.

Answer 2

That's not too difficult to achieve. Check out a magazine like Kiplingers, and see what mutual funds they recommend. For a return like that, they would probably recommend a fund that tracked the performance of a major stock market index like the Dow or Nasdaq.
Or use Yahoo Finance and do some research. The big key to investing is start early and take advantage of compounding. The other general rule is, if you have a short term investment horizon (less than 5 years) go for conservative investments, with lower but safer returns. If you have a longer horizon, like the 15 years you mention, you can afford to be a bit more aggressive in your strategy, because you can ride out some ups and downs in the stock market.

Answer 3

8% over 15 years would be about right for an S&P 500 index fund, of which I would pick Vanguard's offering. You could probably do better than that with small cap investments or international investments. Dodge and Cox International is my usual recommendation.