best way to make good use of money..

Investing it in a term deposit for now - that way it makes you money while you decide what to do with it when it's free again.

Purchase a rental property - in the current market, it really is a great time to buy, and even if you can't afford the total cost of the property, the rent will pay the mortgage.

Where do your skills lie?

If you're good at painting/gardening/sewing etc then property might be the way to go.

If you're good at accounts/numbers and don;t mind risks then learnign share trading or currency trading could be good.

If you have management skills then purchasing a business might be a good idea.

If you want (relative) safety then investing in term deposits etc could be the idea.

I think that the best option is seeing where you and you DH's skills lie and making the most of them.

Good luck!

There isn't really anywhere 'safe' to make decent money investing at the moment. To make a quick few bucks buying US$ is a pretty good idea at the moment, the share market is still unstable and the returns on most other managed funds are rubbish. TD rates are pretty crap as well, I get the same rate in my savings account and the money is still available to me as and when I need it.

Sorry, none of that was much help was it!

I'd be buying pounds and euro at the moment. The exchange rate is incredible!

how does all the exchange stuff work?? how do you make money off it??

guess i need to learn alot because i know nothing about any of that but it sounds very interesting!!!

oh neat! i think im going to try that! but il start off small to get the hang of things!

thanks heaps for all suggestions!

$2000+ isn't standard pricing for dairy heifers round here. It was the going rate during the dairy bubble but only for a couple of years. I paid $600-$725 for VIC 2yo heifers this year - hence why calves are $50. Personally I don't see the market picking up again in a hurry.
With the foreign exchange rate stuff, you also have to take into account the interest rates for the 2 currencies etc. If you have to hold the foreign currency for say 3 months, but the interest on the foreign currency account is substantially lower than the interest you'd have earnt on NZ dollars, that eats into your profit. Also there is usually a commission on each transaction (ie. NZD to FX and then again on FX to NZD) - this can also eat your profits up. You can still make money out of it, but there is quite a bit to learn! There are formulae etc. that will help you figure this all out If its something that interests you, it could be quite fun. In order to know what currencies to invest in, and when to sell ones you have, you need to keep up to date with all kinds of things going on in the world that affect exchange rates - government policy, interest rates etc. There is a lot to keep up with so you need to be interested in it or it will get tedious and boring pretty quickly - and then you'll start making uninformed investments (and not much profit!).