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With interest rates in the doldrums it's no time to be stuffing your cash into saving accounts. During times of recession it's hard to make money, you've got to get creative, play the long game, in some cases the very, very long game.

We've undertaken a thorough investigation as to where you should put your money now, ahead of the curve, before everyone else jumps on the bandwagon, to make the most money later.

Sadly, so forward thinking are we, that you won't be around to see the fruition of some of your investments, in some cases, neither will your children, in some cases, neither might mankind.

But think about the yield. Think about the power. Some of our proposed investments will leave you the richest most powerful person in all the world! Muuhahaha. Is that an evil laugh? You decide.

Find out what you should be ploughing your money into - after the break.



Water

The ethics on his one, are at best, sketchy. But as medicine gets better and poorer countries become richer, the global population is set to grow exponentially over the next forty years, projected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050.

And as that population becomes increasingly urbanised man's water-usage will sky-rocket. With the average Britain using 155 litres per person per day, if we carry that number over, in a single day in 2050 mankind will use 14,105,376,200,000 litres of water, roughly a quarter of the water in the channel.

Fresh water will be scarce - wars will be fought over water. Control the water. Control the world. And what better time to start? When water is free(ish). It's a difficult thing to store though, water. It's pretty heavy, and what with it being a liquid in our annoyingly moderate British climate, it's even harder to store.

If only there was a way you could keep your water in the sea? Okay we admit their are some practical issues to sort out, but the idea is there.

Pros: You could potentially see the fruition of your investment. You could stand to make billions.
Cons: Might technically make you evil.

North Pole

There's a new gold rush afoot - but not the shiny sort, the black sort, that you run your car on. The "cold rush" is a bitter battle being fought for control of the oil under the the north pole as it melts.

In 2007 the cheeky Russians planted a flag on the seabed under the north pole and said "baggsie ours", and the rest of the world went, "erm...no."

Denmark is the current front-runner to obtain the majority of oiling rights as Greenland, which belongs to them, is closest to the pole. Though as the oil is the last great untapped resource on the planet competition still remains fierce.

The US claim it's their's partly because Robert Peary, an American, was the first person to reach the pole, though many say his claim is fraudulent - 113 miles from the pole he sent all of his party back to base, and continued with just one companion. Peary claimed to have covered the remaining distance in an improbable five days, returning all the way back to base in a mere 16 days.

The first man to have really reached the pole was a Yorkshireman, of course, Sir Wally Herbert. So maybe we've got a decent shout too? Failing that, build a small village under the polar ice cap and surreptitiously go about becoming a country, then, if the proximity rule holds out - you're in.

Pros: Once you obtain the rights to the oil you could sit on it, and wait till oil becomes obsolete thus saving our planet from harmful hydrocarbon poison.
Cons: You might become a target for political assassination.

Africa

No not vinyl singles of the classic Toto hit. The continent. Mostly Ethiopia in fact. A 35-mile rift in the desert there will soon, relatively speaking, turn into a fabulous new sea. A fabulous new sea ripe for a fabulous new holiday resort.

Your initial outlay would have to be pretty substantial, you'd be installing a whole infrastructure out there - electricity, sewage other rudimentary services, as well as your mega-plush resort.

The only worry is that your holiday resort would lie on a volatile area of tectonic action. One morning you could wake up and find your shiny resort on top of a volcano.

Equally the sea isn't going to form for another million years or so, by which time mankind might well be holidaying in far-away galaxies. Or not exist at all.

Pros: You know for sure you'll be the first there.
Cons: You won't be around to see the results. You'd be relying on generation after generation of your family not to sell up.

Mars

Asylum icon, author of "A Brief History Of Time," world's most intelligent man, and star of The Simpsons, Stephen Hawkings, has said recently that "man will have a colony on the moon in twenty years and on Mars in forty years".

You hear, "space colony," we hear "real-estate". We're not sure who exactly you'd go to to buy property on Mars. We think, standard exploration rules apply ie... get there first, plant a flag, it's yours. Providing there aren't any unfriendly locals.

So, to get the monopoly on Mars property, we need to get to Mars first, which is 97 million miles away, and the furthest man has managed to get away from Earth so far is about 245,779 miles. So that's only 395 times further than man has ever travelled into space.

NASA has spent roughly $412 billion on space exploration since 1958, and they've only go to the moon, and whether they even did that is disputed. So once again your initial outlay is going to have to be substantial, coupled with the difficulty of attracting the world's best minds to work for you, it's certainly an ambitious project.

Pros: The kudos of being king of Mars.
Cons: The pressure of having the future of mankind in your hands.