Budgeting: How to Start Investing

Note: I am not a financial adviser and therefore can not legally give you specific financial advice regarding your money. Whatever you choose to do is done of your own free will and is done without my advising. This post also contains affiliate links.

Yes, that note above was completely necessary because we’re diving into a dicey topic today. Investing. Mainly how to learn about and start investing. It’s a scary, I know. I’m right there with you. But we have to start.

Why?

Well, I was listening to the So Money Podcast and there was an ad on there for Ellevest. During the ad they mentioned that women who don’t invest are essentially throwing away $100 every day. You read that right. You basically are throwing $100 OUT THE WINDOW EVERY SINGLE DAY. I don’t know about you, but that sounds terrible to me.

After the initial shock of that statement wore off and I did a little thinking, I’ve decided that this is finally going to be the year where I stop futzing around with some of these investing tools that I have. I want to start seriously using them and learning more about them. There are so many easy ways to start investing and resources to help, it’s ridiculous that I’ve waited this long.

But I’m like some of you, and I’m starting at ground zero for this one. I don’t need a 101, I need a 100. Or maybe just a 1. But because I’m guessing some of you are like me, I thought it would be good to share this process with all of you here. Then, hopefully some of you will join me in learning about investing and on this money management journey.

So where are we going to start with learning how to invest?

Well first, we’re going to look at our tools and resources. I’ve gathered together a bunch of different tools/apps I’ve dabbled with in the past. All of these tools are focused on helping you start small with investing and slowly build your way up.

Ellevest

Ellevest is the investing platform built by women for women. Why? Well, women tend to invest differently than men. They’re more risk adverse and they just think differently. The founder, Sallie Krawcheck had all of this in mind when she created Ellevest. Ellevest is great for looking at what some of your goals are and helping you invest money for those goals. You can set it up to do automatic transfers as well. Just a note though, in the beginning, depending on what your goals are, they may suggest that you put a fairly large amount into your Ellevest account. This shocked me at first, but then I realized that it wasn’t required. But it will go a long way if you do.They also send great weekly newsletters about what’s going on in the financial world and help keep you up to date with your money.

P.S. If you would like to join Ellevest, I currently have 5 invites to give out. Each of these invitees will receive $100 once you fund your account. If you would like an invite comment below. I’ll give the invite to whoever comments below.

Acorns

Acorns is the rounding up system. You connect it to your bank and any credit cards you wish. Then it will search through your purchases to round them up. The rounded up change will be moved into your Acorns account to be invested. For example, if you spend $4.78 at Starbucks, Acorns will round up to $5 and transfer $0.22 into your Acorns account. The amounts can really add up over time. You can also choose to add on recurring investments at a set amount ($10 every two weeks).They also have offers with different companies. For instance, AirBnb will invest $200 into your Acorns account when you sign up to be a host and then host someone within a certain amount of days.

P.S. If you join through my link, you’ll get $5 to start your account with!

Stash

Stash seems to be the most straight-forward of all of the options. You tell them if you want to auto withdraw money from your bank to invest or have them smart save (they review your purchases and decide when is the best time to take out money). Then you tell them how risky you want to be. Then you make like Elsa and let it go! You can also browse other investment options and choose to add on investments or withdraw from investments.

Those are the three tools I’ve been kind of playing around with right now, but I haven’t really dived into them as much as I can.

So now that we have those three tools, how are we going to move forward from here?

Well, here’s my plan:

1. I’m going to continue to use the platforms so I can report back on which is the most user friendly.
2. Then, I’ll compare which one actually gives you the most technical information about investing and what you’re really doing.
3. I’m going to report to all of you as I go along and share what I’m learning.
4. I’ll also share if I find any new platforms to use!

So that’s my plan! I’d love to know if any of you are going to join me in learning about investing this year or if you’re already an investing genius! Also, are there any investing tools you use that I should look at? I would love to know!

I can’t wait to get started and I’m excited to have all of you join me!