When it comes to investing, this apple fell far from the family tree.

I became a Wall Street investment adviser, otherwise known as a stockbroker, in 1981 and have been an avid stock investor ever since.

My parents, on the other hand, didn't own a single share of stock until their late 50s, and only then because my mother inherited a utility stock from her aunt.

You can't blame them. My parents were survivors of the Great Depression, a time in history when stocks fell nearly 90% and some bank depositors lost it all. So it's natural they'd be more Treasury bills than stock investors. To them, the stock market was more a casino than a place for your life savings. It also helped that in their day, they didn't really need Wall Street, since they could easily earn 8% or more in risk-free T-bills or CDs.

These days, with savings rates hovering near zero, many of us have been practically forced into stocks. But even for true believers like myself, we can't put all our eggs into a volatile basket. So it's important to be aware of other potential investments. And there are a ton of them: by my count, more than 20. Not all great ideas, of course, but it pays to be aware of your options.

And that's what this week's "Money!" podcast is about: investments that don't involve stocks. So if you're like me and are reaching the upper boundaries of what you'll comfortably keep in stocks, or you're like my parents and want nothing to do with them in the first place, this is your podcast.

As usual, my co-host will be financial journalist Miranda Marquit. Listening in and sometimes contributing is producer and novice investor Aaron Freeman.

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