Make Investment Goals
Once you’ve made the decision to start investing, it’s hard to decide what to do next.
Why are you investing?
Are you saving up for something?
Do you just want to give it a try?
Whatever the reason may be, before you do anything, you need to set some goals. By setting a goal, you will have something to strive for and will be less likely to give up.
You may have decided that you want to save up for college, a car, or something like that. Investing may or may not be a good idea to help you save towards those goals.
First of all, you need to make sure you know what you’re doing. You have to study up on how your investment choice works, such as stocks, bonds, or mutual funds, and you’ve done all the right research on whichever companies you are investing in.
Next, you need to have time. If you’re planning on buying a car within the next year, any amount of money you make before then probably won’t be much. In fact, you could lose some. In this case, you’re better off putting it in a savings account or money market fund.
You’ll also need some money, of course. Sure, you’ll be saving and adding to investments in that time, but you’ll need more than $20 to get anywhere. That will only give you a few cents.
If you think you have enough time, money, and knowledge, then go ahead. If you don’t, put your money in a high interest savings account such as ING Direct.
When setting any investment goal, you really can’t say, “I want to double my money by next year.” Base your goal on how much you think you can save such as, “I want to save $20 every month and have over $240 by the end of the year. The “over” being what you make off of your investments.
If you buy a bond, you will know how much you are going to make, but if it’s the stock market, it could be a risky guess.
If you’ve decided you just want to try out investing, which may be most of you, the best way to go is just to continue to save and invest a set amount. If you can only manage a little here and there, that’ fine.
Try to leave all this money in investments. Later on, you may decide to use it for something important such as a college, a house, or even retirement.
