Not Your Father's Investing
Our parents had to invest the hard way.
They had to have "a guy" who they called to invest for them. They guy also got to keep a lot of their money in fees. And the company the guy worked for got to make some money every time they wanted to buy or sell a stock.
They had a lot of hurdles to wealth.
Thankfully, all those barriers are gone.
We don’t need a guy, or a company, or a fee.
But we still talk ourselves out of it. “It’s too late for me to start investing.” or "I don't have enough money to invest anyways."
Right now, you can go to Fidelity's website or Schwab's or Public's and open an investing account for free.
You can buy a company's stock or a fraction of the stock for free without any additional charges.
You can even buy a basket of the country's largest and most profitable companies for free.
The barrier to entry is gone.
What Are You Waiting For?
I'm someone who gets very excited about things that are working for me. So excited that I usually tell everyone I know about it.
As I've talked to my friends and family about investing, I've found so many people don't even know you can invest outside of their company's retirement plan.
I wanted to write this in case you are one of those people. No judgement. I was right there with you a few years ago.
I thought investing and the stock market was only for rich people.
Today, us poor folk have no excuse. You can get started right now and become one of those “rich” people.
I’ll even get you started with the exact steps you need.
- Open a brokerage account (Go to Fidelity, Schwab, Public, etc.)
- Follow the prompts to connect your bank account
- Transfer the money to buy investments
Pro tip: you can set up automative transfers from your bank account so you can invest on autopilot.
Okay, What To Buy?
A few of my friends have taken me up on the offer to help them start their investing journey.
It usually takes a few days to sync a bank account to a new brokerage account.
Since there is a lag in the money transfer process, we can only get so far in one evening. Once the bank is connected, my friends have to go and make the first purchases on their own.
I usually see them again in a few days. Sometimes a month or so goes by.
When I check in on the progress, they usually respond by saying the accounts are connected… but they haven’t bought a single stock. (Whomp whomp)