Bank accounts, regular investments etc. It's all about a) which country you live in and b) how soon do you think you will need the money. And to a certain extent about how much risk you are willing to take and what kind of profits are you looking at?
Yeah, your risk tolerance and timeframes are important. If you're thinking about 20-30 years or more down the road, and are able to weather the ups and downs of the stock, real estate, and commodities markets, these are always good ways overall to make money over the long haul. If you're more conservative or are thinking more short term, things like bonds and other debt instruments can give you certain fixed rates of return, usually with "guarantees" of principal to be returned at some predetermined point. And municipal bonds are generally tax-free. If you have a pretty good nestegg or are in the high income / high net worth class, you can also look at annuities and whole life insurance products as another option for perhaps some of your money. But the tradeoff is that these things tend to have higher fees.
