You should be investing your money. It’s as simple as that. Instead of wasting your cash on coffee and itunes you should be buying stocks, bonds, and other securities. You might think it’s easier said than done, but it actually is pretty easy to do. Once you get the willpower to start saving your money and have money to invest, you can start researching the best investment for you.
Most likely, if you are not investing yet, you probably don’t know much about investing. Lucky for you, you don’t need an MBA in Finance or even have to know what an MBA is to start investing. If stocks give you headaches and bonds are nothing more than the $50 savings bonds from your Grandma to you, you do have another choice.
Stocks, bonds, and other investments will be much more successful if you do your research, but if you don’t have the time or skill to do this, you should invest in mutual funds. A mutual fund is when a whole bunch of people pool their money together and a professional money manager invest it into hundreds of stocks and bonds. Basically, you give your money to someone else and they invest it for you.
Sound expensive? It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. There are load funds that charge lots of fees, but you can get no-load fees that charge nothing, hence the name ‘no-load’. Just because they don’t charge fees doesn’t mean they are bad investments either. With mutual funds that charge a commission, you lose a percentage of your earnings where as with no-load funds, you get all of your return. So even if the loaded fund has a higher return, you might still be making less with it.
Stock investing can be risky. If you only have a small amount of money to invest, you are likely to end up only investing in a couple stocks which will greatly increase the risk of your investments. If you only have $1,000 to invest, you can diversify your portfolio automatically by investing in a mutual fund. Diversifying your stock will decrease risk because if one stock goes down, it’s likely another stock will go up and at least offset it. Basically, you are reducing the risk that your entire portfolio will decrease in value.
Investing in mutual funds is perfect for the ordinary person who doesn’t know much about investing and only has a little bit of money to start investing. Even if you don’t have $1,000 right now, Sharebuilder will let you invest $100 a month in an automatic investment plan until you reach the $1,000 minimum. Start investing right now!