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Investment Guide for Beginners

Last updated 05/22/2023 by

Andrew Latham

Edited by

Investing isn’t just for the rich. With more and more investment platforms and apps available, you can invest for your future with as little or as much money as you want. And given time, even small investments can become an impressive nest egg. In this investment guide, you’ll learn how investing now can make your future life easier, and what options and resources are available to help you.

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How investing sooner can help you later

Let’s say an 18-year-old invests $300 a month for just eight years (a total of $28,800). She could retire with more than $1 million at age 58 even if she never invests another dime. If she waits till 65, the total would exceed $2 million.
That impressive return on investment assumes a 10% annual return, which is the average return for the S&P 500 over the last 90 years. In the last 30 years, the average was 12.11%. Investors typically use the S&P a benchmark for the overall stock market.

3 ways to approach investing your money

Depending on how much experience you have with investing and whether or not you want to learn, there are three approaches you can take to investing your hard-earned cash.

1. DIY

Brokerages allow you as the investor to make your own investment decisions. That includes picking what assets to invest your money in, diversifying your portfolio to reduce your risk, and continually managing that portfolio over time.If you’re new to investing, this way of doing things might be daunting. But if you have the time and desire to learn, it’s a great way to learn from experience, allowing you to improve your investing acumen over time.

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2. Financial advisors

There’s an entire industry of people who have trained and are licensed to manage other people’s money. Financial advisors spend their lives in the financial markets, which can help them make good and timely investment decisions. That said, not all financial advisors put their clients first, and many of them work on commissions rather than a flat fee. Even if you get a fee-only advisor, that fee eats into your investment returns. This option is good if someone doesn’t want to manage their own money and is fine with paying a little extra to — potentially — get a better return than they can do on their own.

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3. Robo-advisors

Relatively new onto the scene, robo-advisors do many of the same things that you or a financial advisor can do — picking your investments, diversifying your portfolio, and managing the funds as things change over time — at a fraction of what financial advisors charge. The primary problem with robo-advisors is that you have very little control over where your money is invested. You can say you want 90% of your money in stocks and the other 10% in bonds, for example, but you can’t choose the actual funds. You also can’t talk to a person about how the investment management is going. But if you’re new and aren’t concerned with those issues, a robo-advisor could be an inexpensive way to achieve your investing goals.

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Other ways to invest your money

Investing in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds is more traditional. But there are other investment options that can help you achieve your investing goals.

Other securities

There are several different types of assets you can invest in through most brokerages. Here are just a few:
  • Options: These derivatives allow you to have the option to buy or sell a stock as it goes up or down.
  • Futures: These are agreements to buy or sell assets, especially commodities, at a fixed price but to be delivered and paid for later.
  • Exchange-traded funds: These function similarly to mutual funds, which means that they invest your money in a diversified group of assets. But unlike mutual funds, you can buy and sell ETFs like a stock.

Marketplace investing sites

Instead of investing in an asset, these companies allow you to invest by lending money directly to borrowers. Marketplace platforms, also known as peer-to-peer lending, makes it easy to diversify your portfolio away from conventional financial assets that may be sensitive to market changes.

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Crowdfunding Sites

Investing in startups and real estate used to be something only wealthy investors could do. Thanks to crowdfunding platforms, you also help startups get off the ground or invest in large real estate projects and reap the benefits of their success.

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7 steps to start investing today

It’s not easy to choose the best way to invest for you. But it’s better to start somewhere than to wait years because you don’t have the time or desire to nail down your investment strategy. To help you get started, here are seven steps:

1. Decide how much you want to invest

It’d be nice to get a windfall you can place in the stock market and watch grow. But for most people, it comes down to investing a little each month. Even if you just have a few dollars to invest each month, there are options out there for you. So, take a look at your budget and decide how much you can afford to invest without cutting essential expenses.

2. Start with retirement

Investing for a time that’s still decades to come doesn’t sound exciting. But when it comes time to enjoy your golden years, your older self will thank you. If you have a 401(k) or similar retirement plan with your employer, start there. Employers often offer a contribution match, which essentially gives you an immediate 100% return on your investment. For example, say you contribute 3% of your salary and your employer matches it dollar for dollar. You’re now saving 6% of your salary while only doing half the work.

3. Decide what your other investment goals are

Once you’ve set up a good retirement savings plan, start thinking about what other investment goals you have. Having specific goals, such as buying a house or going on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, will help you stay focused and make regular monthly contributions to your savings accounts.

4. Automate your investments

If you are an employee, setting up your 401(k) is easy — your employer will automatically deduct your contributions from your paycheck. If you are self-employed or want to invest in other ways, set up an automatic contribution. More importantly, make it part of your budget. You may be tempted to try to just invest what’s leftover at the end of the month. Instead, pay yourself first by making automatic deposits in your investment accounts before you pay anybody else or spend it on stuff you don’t really need.

5. Keep it as simple as possible

When you’re just starting out, you may have dreams of hitting it big with the stock market. But right now, it’s all about getting some experience under your belt. To do that, it’s often best to invest in exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, and similar investments. That way, you can diversify your portfolio and manage risk without the hours of research and study required to do it yourself.

6. Learn as much as possible

As you get started, you can leave the management of your investments to a financial advisor or robo-advisor. But over time, the more you know about how the investment world works, the higher your chances of earning higher returns. There are countless investing books and websites out there dedicated to helping investors like you. Also, if you’re using a brokerage, you may have special access to their tools and resources that can give you practical insight as you’re managing your investments.

7. Be cost-conscious

As mentioned previously, the higher your costs of investing, the lower your effective return. Different brokerages and advisors charge different fees, so it’s important to consider several options before choosing one.

The bottom line on investing

Becoming a sophisticated investor takes years of experience and learning. But the longer you wait to start, the longer it will take to figure things out. More importantly, the longer you wait to invest, the less money you’ll have for future goals. So, even if you’re not ready to take on the firehose of information about investing, setting up a basic investment account and contributing each month can help you get started.

SuperMoney may receive compensation from some or all of the companies featured, and the order of results are influenced by advertising bids, with exception for mortgage and home lending related products. Learn more

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Andrew Latham

Andrew is the Content Director for SuperMoney, a Certified Financial Planner®, and a Certified Personal Finance Counselor. He loves to geek out on financial data and translate it into actionable insights everyone can understand. His work is often cited by major publications and institutions, such as Forbes, U.S. News, Fox Business, SFGate, Realtor, Deloitte, and Business Insider.

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