Investing like a broke millennial
This is a short guide on how I started investing and made myself into a THOUSANDAIRE starting with only $500!
This article is riddled with advice on behavioral changes, it’s not really me telling you what you should buy. If you think other people know what you should buy you should read this article.
There are five investment classes that I’m super interested in: bonds, stocks, gold, cryptocurrency, and real estate. For simplicity, I’ll touch on getting started with stocks and crypto!
A bit about me before you just trust my ideas on investing like a broke millennial.
I’m a kid from Baltimore who grew up in a working-class household. I started investing in 2013 with fix amount of at least $500 a year I now have taken that value to beyond 1000% of my initial investment.
I’m not that special, please don’t trick yourself into thinking making money from your investments is super rare. You will have gains and losses but without risk you’ll make nothing.
If you’re patient and consistent you can do anything. Making money is a byproduct of consistent investment.
Changing your behavior will help you get started.
A few ideas on how to make your first investment!
- % of your paycheck rule
You must decide on an amount you can handle without the feeling of something missing. If you make $500/ biweekly start with $50 every 2 weeks. This amount adds up! After only 1 year you’ll have ~$1,800 invested or ready to invest.
LETS PLAY WITH NUMBERS! If you took $2,000 dollars to the marketplace and bought $1,000 worth of WMT, and $1,000 worth of APPL one year ago today you’d have how much?
6 shares of APPL valued and ready to sell for $1,392
14 shares of WMT valued at $1,382
That is a total of $2,784
WOAH, you made $784 dollars that’s a 139.2% increase on your money. Alls you did was let it sit in an investment account…
*Has conflicting conversation with self*
Wait don’t you do this already with your bank?
“Well yeah I do!”
Well one question, do they give you $700 a year to use your money for their business purposes?
“Hellll no”
REALIZES OH S***… FREE MONEY
The idea is simple and is a super important rule to getting yourself started, you need to change how you think about your money. JUST CHOOSE A PERCENT AND STICK TO IT!
2. Study your role models, and find inspiration in them
ONCE YOU KNOW WHO YOUR ROLE MODELS ARE FOLLOW THEM UNTIL THIS HAPPENS.
This could honsetly be anyone, not only investors. However, be sure this person is doing something you consider “successful”. If you invest into understanding those people you’ll have a pathway of failures and successes. My role models are: Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Basquiat, etc. These people are vastly different but have all failed and succeed at making investments, some purely monetary others emotional etc.
3. Finding your squad and becoming a part of the family
Okay so you have $50 a week to start with and you have an idea about who your role models are.
Now it’s time to learn about the thing you want to own a piece of. Investing is not just throwing your money into a hole and hoping someone at the bottom will throw it back with more. It’s becoming a part of a family, when you invest in a stock or bitcoin you’re buying a part of the company or team. When the family is eating good you’re eating good, when the family is hungry you’re hungry.
In 2013, I joined the apple family, every time I got a paycheck I invested 20% of it into apple stock. To buy the stocks I used Robinhood ← click for a free stock. Buying APPL in 2013 was great for me because I love using their products. So, why just consume without owning? Short answer. DON’T.
If you love Nike don’t just buy Nikes own Nike. This is a HARD rule. Whatever you’re spending your money on consistently you should own a piece of that company.
4. Detatch from your emotions and be fearless with the investments you’re confident about
You won’t always win. But when you do it will feel like this.
The above ideas got me to where I am with my investing portfolio I think they can help you too. There are some links below for free money! Check em out.
Here are some links to getting free money!
Robinhood
Stock trading app, makes it really easy to monitor, buy, and sell stocks.
Acorns
Start investing with Acorns today! Get $5 free with this link
https://acorns.com/invite/V379FD
Coinbase
The largest bitcoin trading app, you can buy ETH, BTC, BCC, and LTC with USD. This app is super easy to use and you can get started with only $10.
DISCLAIMER: I’m not your financial advisor, anything you read in this article is not guaranteed to make you rich or any profit at all. I will not take responsibility for money you lose by reading the steps that have lead me to successes and failures.
That’s pretty much it for now. Until next time.
