What is an "investment"?
An investment is the process of taking your individual capital, usually money in the case we're thinking about here, and doing something with it. An investment is made in the hope that it'll grow in the future to provide for some future goal. Many times an investment can be just buying a piece of real estate, or a stock or bond. An investment can be made in any different type of asset with the expectation that it's going to grow over time to provide you with more money than when you started.