This guide to investing for beginners outlines strategies and how to plan your investment approach.
There are several ways to get into investing for beginners – traditional ways and some not so traditional. There has never been an easier and more simple time to get into investing than right now. Gone are the days where you only have a very limited number of investment opportunities, and to even get into any of them, you needed an expert’s help in investing for beginners.
If you are new to investing, there are a few things to keep in mind before taking the big leap. This post will hopefully give you some insight into investing for beginners and a few helpful tips to not only get you into the investment game, but also ensure you thrive in it.
Guide to investing for beginners: strategies
Have a Plan
The first thing you need to wait out in investing for beginners is your plan. This will involve deciding how much you will be investing, how long you will leave your investment untouched, and what you are trying to achieve with this investment.
If you are wanting to invest to eventually buy a car in a year’s time, you wouldn’t do the same things as someone looking to have a nest egg when they retire in 30 or 40 years. Decide if this is a long-term or a short-term thing, because different types of investments are suited better to one or the other.
Keep it Simple
The one investing mistake that some people make is that they think they have to have a finger in every pie, and if they don’t they will fail, or you need to be watching the stock market day in and day out, buying and selling constantly.
This isn’t necessary in investing for beginners, there is no need to be this involved. While having a diversified portfolio is important, we’ll discuss that in a bit, it is also important to not be overwhelmed, and rather put all your effort into a few investments, instead of multiple investments that change almost every day.
Guide to investing for beginners: Auto-Invest
While playing the stock market may seem like a fun idea in investing for beginners, it takes time and some serious knowledge and skill. However, there is a way to skip all this hassle, and just have your money automatically invested into good stocks.
Auto-investing is exactly that, you decide how much you want to invest, and when you want it to leave your account, and a brokerage will do the rest. Not only does this mean you don’t actually have to check the stock market, your money is being put into the best stocks with you having to do zero work to make it happen.
Guide to investing for beginners: Diversify
A diverse investment portfolio in investing for beginners is, simply put, having different types of investments. It is a really bad idea to put all your money into crypto, or all your money into a company’s stock, not only does this limit your opportunities and future opportunities, there is the risk of you losing everything.
As mentioned already, you don’t have to have your finger in every pie, just have your finger in more than one. Own some stock, some crypto’s, bonds, if you have the money, maybe a property or two.
We’ll talk about risk next but this diversification minimizes the chance of you losing everything. You have a safety net, and this safety net in turn also allows you to take some chances, maybe you have a good feeling about a particular stock or cryptocurrency. If it succeeds, amazing, if it doesn’t, well, even though that isn’t great, it isn’t the end of the world.
Risk
Risk is one of the most important factors to consider when investing, and it really comes down to just one question, how much money are you willing to lose on any one investment?. That is what you have to consider when investing.
What that basically means is, if it all comes crashing down and that one investment you’ve been apart facials and you lose everything, do you have a backup plan in place? Have you diversified enough? The term “don’t put all your eggs in one baslet” is so apt when it comes to investing.
Don’t forget though, there is always risk, even the “safest” opportunities have risk attached to them. What you need to do is just be aware of it, and everytime you put money in, you just keep asking yourself if you are okay if you lose it all tomorrow.
Keep Cash in Hand
While there are so many ways to invest and make money nowadays, the old school method of just having money available still reigns supreme. As mentioned a couple of times already, you don’t know if or when your investments will crash, you don’t know if you’re going to wake up one day and have lost everything.
Ensure that only a portion of your money is tied up in investments. It is very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to get your money out in an emergency. Therefore it is vital to still have money available in hand, or even just sitting in your savings account.
Stay Proactive
While it would be easier to just invest your money, leave it, and check back on it when you want to withdraw, this isn’t the best idea. You want to keep an eye on your money, you want to see if your investments are doing well, or are they performing badly and you need to move them on to something else.
Staying proactive also ensures you don’t miss out on any opportunities, this is vital in the world of crypto, considering the markets move so much on an almost hourly basis, being able to spot potential is important to success. Either way, just check in weekly or a couple of times a month to see where your investments are and how they are doing.
While investing may seem a bit scary at first, if you just understand the basics, do your research, and actually understand what you are doing, it becomes far more simple. Keep these tips in mind when you start investing, and you will be well on your way to succeeding.
