Updated October 7, 2019

How to Start Investing

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You can start investing with little money. Here's how beginners can get into stocks and real estate for the first time.

First, let's review some of the most popular investing options.

Ways to Invest

You'll have many options when you choose to begin investing. But unlike depositing your money in high-yield savings account or CD, you will also face risk. Here are some choices if you want to invest.

How much money do I need to start investing? You can start investing with ANY amount of money. But some types of investing carries risk. Remember this rule of thumb: never invest money you can't afford to lose.

It doesn't hurt to start small. Check out our guide for the best ways to invest $100.

Invest in Stocks

When you purchase a stock, you're actually buying a small piece of a company (called a share). That means your fortunes become linked to that company's performance over time.

If their stock prices rise, your return on investment increases. Of course, the same is true in reverse. When the company's stock falls--or the market itself takes a downturn—your investment takes a hit.

We'll delve into investing in stocks a little later so keep reading.

Some investors like to focus on penny stocks, which are low-priced (usually less than $5 a share) but very high-risk.

Penny stocks tend not to appear on major exchanges and the companies aren't always as strict or accurate in their reporting. As such, it's important to tread carefully when considering this type of investment.

Invest in Mutual Funds

While stocks offer you a stake, or share, in one company, mutual funds are a collection of several stocks, bonds and other types of investments.

This more diverse investment offering is managed by a professional fund manager who works to increase the value of that fund (and therefore of your investment). Funds vary greatly based on their offerings, sectors of emphasis, level of risk and other factors.

Low-cost brokerage firms like Vanguard can help you find the right mutual funds for you.

How can I start investing in the stock market? You've got a couple options once you're ready to begin. You can:

  • Use a Robo-Advisor to assist you.
  • Open a brokerage account and begin on your own.

We cover both options so you can find the right for you below.

Invest in Real Estate

Have you ever invested in real estate?

This type of investing can be quite profitable—but expensive—when starting out. Of course, there are ways to invest that don't involve buying property. You can:

  • Put money in a Real estate investment trust or REIT. These are companies that own properties like office buildings, shopping malls or even parking garages.

  • Consider peer-to-peer real estate companies like RealtyMogul. Similar to crowdfunding lending sites (Prosper, Lending Club), RealtyMogul allows you and other investors to fund real-estate deals.

Invest in Cryptocurrency

Arguably the riskiest way to invest, cryptyocurrencies are digital or virtual assets that many believe will become mainstream in the future.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Etherium have seen tremendous spikes in value—and just as steep declines over the last few years. Some experts fear the technology behind crypto is too new and unproven to be reliable while others are concerned with a lack of regulation.

That hasn't stopped many investors from buying in, especially during the price peaks of 2017.

How can I start investing with a little money? It depends how you want to invest. You can open a high interest savings account or CD for almost ANY amount of money, depending on the bank.

If you're hoping for a bigger return on your investment, consider Ally Invest or TD Ameritrade—neither has an account minimum. Keep scrolling for more information.

Knowing your investment options is a great start. But you also need to consider whether you're read to invest. Read on to make sure you're ready to invest.

How to Start Investing in Stocks

1. Start Saving

Good investing begins with smart saving. Make sure you're spending less money than you make.

If that's been a challenge so far, you can try "paying yourself first" by auto-depositing your savings directly into a savings account. That way, you don't see the extra money in your checking account, where you're more likely to spend it.

One great place to put your cash is in an online savings account. These can offer higher rates than traditional bank accounts.

Check out the best online savings accounts for some options. You might also want to put your money into a CD account.

Feel like you're only able to save small amounts at a time? That's okay--everyone starts somewhere. Here are two strategies to consider:

  • Start an emergency fund, which can be held in your online savings account or CD account.

    Emergency funds cover, well, emergencies. They allow you to quickly withdraw cash for unexpected expenses so you don't risk saddling yourself with credit card debt.

    Why do I need an emergency fund? Because life happens. You might lose your job or fall ill or suddenly have to spring for expensive car repairs.

    If you're living paycheck to paycheck, expenses like these can have HUGE consequences for your way of life. An emergency (or rainy day) fund can protect you, even if it requires a little sacrifice to start.

    Financial advisors recommend having 6-12 months of living expenses in your emergency fund, but you can start with just $500. This means you won't have to sell any of your possessions or investments when an unexpected expense comes up.

  • Set up an auto-savings tool like Acorns or Digit.

    Digit automates savings by monitoring spending and income patterns to set aside small amounts of money that won't be missed. Digit's goal is to help users achieve long-term financial health.

    The intent is to provide a service that fits into the everyday busy lives of people so they can achieve financial health with minimal effort. Imagine putting small enough amounts into your retirement account that they wouldn't be missed; they will add up , though, over time.

    Alexander S. Lowry, Executive Director, Master of Science in Financial Analysis at Gordon College

    Acorns takes your spare change and automatically invests it in a portfolio. If you make a purchase of $4.69 at 7-Eleven, Acorns rounds your purchase up to $5 and puts the extra 31 cents into a low-cost portfolio. You'll hardly notice the difference, and it's a great way to establish an account.

2. Start or Improve Your 401(k)

Does your employer offer a 401(k) plan as a benefit? If so, do they "match" any of your investments?

You might be able to find this on the company's internal website, or just ask Human Resources about it. If your employer does offer a 401(k) with a match, you should take advantage by "maximizing your match". Here's how it works:

  • You contribute a certain percentage of every paycheck to your employer's 401(k) plan; and
  • Your employer "matches" some portion of every $1 you contribute to your 401(k).
  • This means you're contributing your own $$ to your future, and your employer is giving you extra free money too.

Typical match rates are around 3-6% of employee paychecks. This is like getting a 3-6% raise.
Your priority should be to maximize this match.

Say your employer will match 50 cents of every dollar you contribute, up to 12% of your paycheck. This means the maximum they'll contribute is 6%. BUT you have to actually contribute the full 12% to "maximize your match."

If you only contribute 5% of your paycheck, you'll only get 2.5% from your employer. Don't short-change yourself.

Keep in mind that there are maximums to how much you can contribute to a 401(k) plan each year (the IRS limits how much you can contribute annually).

For 2018, you can contribute up to $18,500 per year (in addition to anything your employer contributes). For people over age 50, you can add an extra $6,000 per year to that limit.

Every employer is different, and not all of them offer 401(k) plans so make friends with your HR/Benefits department. They can help you take advantage of your benefits. Most 401(k) plans also offer free retirement advice to employees, so you should use it if you can.

If your company doesn't offer a 401(k) plan, don't fret. Read about other types of retirement accounts here.

3. Consider Hiring a Robo-Advisor

One great service for both beginners and experienced investors is robo-advisement. A robo-advisor is a computer algorithm that selects and manages your investments for you.

When you set up an account, they'll ask you a few basic questions about your level of comfort with risk. For instance, consider if you want short term or long-term investments. Then they do the investing for you. Robo-advisors pick your initial investments and manage your portfolio as a whole, too.

This is a super-easy way to get started investing, since you can make your money work for you before you've had time to learn about investments. To start now, read our full robo advisor comparison list.

4. Avoid High Fees

One of the biggest mistakes an investor can make is to overpay for fees. Yes, financial services cost money, but they can really eat into your returns.

Index funds, or baskets of investments that simply track an index, are a great way to keep your expenses low. This is because you don't need to pay a portfolio manager to pick investments.

Let's take an example:

  • Emily invests $10,000 in a low-cost index fund. She searches for the cheapest one, as measured by the expense ratio. This is the percentage of your assets that mutual funds and ETFs charge you each year.

    Emily's fund tracks an index, so it doesn't cost her as much. Her fund's expense ratio is only 0.10%, or one-tenth of one percent.

  • Bill invests $10,000 in an actively-managed fund that invests in the same types of investments as Emily's index fund.

    But he thinks his portfolio manager can outperform the market by picking the right investments, better than what Emily's index fund does automatically. He is willing to pay 1% of his own assets every year for this service.

After 10 years, who comes out ahead? Well, history shows that about 75% of the time, Emily does. Why?

Because even if both funds made the same returns, Emily's fund charged her 1/10th the amount in fees as Bill's fund did. Emily pocketed an extra 0.9% per year. Over 10 years, that amounts to an extra $1,733, or over 17% of the amount they both invested.

See how powerful it can be to keep your fees low? Even renowned investor Warren Buffett cares about the topic.

He made a famous bet that over the course of 10 years, a simple, cheap index fund would outperform a group of the most prestigious hedge funds. He didn't just win, his simple index fund crushed the hedge funds. A big reason is because hedge funds are so expensive relative to simple, cheap mutual funds.

The moral of this story? Pay attention to expense ratios, which all funds are required to show.

5. Open a Low-Minimum Brokerage Account

It's a myth that you need lots of money to open an account. It's also a myth that you have to know everything about the stock market in order to get started investing.

Lots of low-cost, low-minimum brokerage accounts exist these days, some of which offer robo-advisement too. We've reviewed several in depth below, and all of them have low or even $0 minimums to open accounts:

If you are considering opening a brokerage account, you must check out these promotions.

If you're new to investing, you may not be sure of the actual help you need. This article from Round Table Wealth breaks down the differences between two types of investment professionals and explains how they serve everyday investors.

6. Allocate Your Investments

Asset allocation is a way to diversify your investments so that you're not too "exposed" to any one risk. For example, someone who invested everything in the U.S. stock market in 2008 probably did very poorly.

"Diversify beyond stocks and bonds," says Chris Rawley, CEO and founder of Harvest Returns, a digital platform for investing in agriculture.

People who build real wealth do so by investing in income-producing assets that appreciate in value." Direct investments in real estate, timber, and agriculture are some examples, Rawley suggests, that could possibly earn you more than equities over the long run.

Asset allocation also helps you over time as your needs change. When you are very young, you have a lot of time to recover from any market downturns, like what occurred in 2008.

But as you approach retirement, you'll start to need your investments, and you won't be have as much time to make up for it. Asset allocation helps you allocate risk over time.

This can be a very complex topic, so we recommend that beginners use robo-advisors to help them get started.

The two biggest mistakes people make when investing are:

  • Not diversifying
    It is important to buy more than 1 or 2 names. Try 5-10 from different sectors of the market. This way, if one drops precipitously you don't lose all your money.

  • Not knowing when to sell
    Before you purchase a position, decide how much you are looking to gain and how much you are willing to lose. If you decide you want a 20% gain and can stomach a 10% loss, after you purchase your security, you can also enter the following trades:

    • A GTC limit sale above the current market price to automatically exit when your desired gain is reached
    • A GTC Stop order below the current market price to automatically exit when your max loss is reached

The best investing advice I can give is to do what you are good at and what you enjoy. If you like picking single names and you've been successful in the past, you should continue in the future.

But you should also diversify. Put a portion of your investment dollars in a diversified ETF strategy and a portion in single names. This strategy will help you out perform in a bull market while helping to sustain you in a bear market.

Gabriel Pincus, President, GA Pincus Funds

7. Maintain Your Portfolio

The last step is an easy one: Set a calendar reminder to review your portfolio every 6 months. That's it.

Lots of people get upset when they see their portfolio value change every day. So don't watch it that much. It's that simple.

Unless you want to become an investment professional, you shouldn't try to chase returns. (And Step 4 illustrates that even hedge fund managers don't always know what they're doing any better than indexes.)

When your 6-month calendar reminder goes off, log into your account(s) and call the 1-800 numbers for advice. Or, just do it yourself by learning more about investing here.

Read More:

Bottom Line

If you followed the 7 simple steps in this guide, you probably invested only a total of 1-2 hours of your time for major returns in your future.

There's a lot more you can learn, but you're done with the very hardest part: Getting started.

Read More:

But Wait! Before You Invest

  1. Make a Budget
    You might be tired of hearing it, but it's true: You need a budget. This is because even if you have a lump sum to invest right now, your focus should be on investing now and regularly in the future. And how can you invest regularly if you don't know how much your regular expenses are?

    There are lots of budgeting tools to help you, so it doesn't have to be hard. The best place to start is by reviewing the last 3-6 months of your spending habits by downloading your credit card and checking account activity. You can do this on each of your bank websites, or you can sign up for an online tool like Mint.com and they can do it for you.

    Use your previous spending activity to build your budget. Categorize your purchases and determine the monthly average amount you spend on each category (for example, utilities or restaurants).

    That's it. Now you have a monthly budget. It might not be the ideal monthly budget, though, which is why you should...

  2. Trim the Fat (off your budget)
    In the process of making your budget, you probably noticed some areas to improve. That's great. Pat yourself on the back for noticing where you can trim the fat. And then do it. Set goals for how you'll reduce your spending, and remind yourself why you're doing this. You're investing because it'll help you retire earlier or save for your children's education or something else important to you, right? It can be hard to visualize those goals because they seem so far in the future, so I'll give an example here:

    Say you notice that you spend $500/month going out to eat with your spouse or friends, and you'd like to reduce that amount to $300/month. That's a savings of $200/month, and it still leaves you with the ability to regularly enjoy going out to dinner.

    If you invest that $200/month in a low-cost index fund tracking the stock market*, you can expect it to be worth $34,768 in just ten years.

    *Assuming a long-term rate of return of 8%.

    Doesn't that example make you want to trim the fat off your budget? See 10 Smart Ways to Save $1,000 a Month for more ideas.

Write to Rachael O at feedback@creditdonkey.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for our latest posts.

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