How to Start Investing and Making Money as a Beginner

Michael Bordonada
Published Nov 9, 2023

Personal finance is a difficult subject for many people to grasp. There are various people who struggle to understand how to build wealth and invest for the future. Even if you are a beginner, you can make money from investing.
Investing does not require a college degree or online courses. Instead, it requires that you are consistent with your investing over time. If you start early, you can build a sizable amount of wealth even with a modest income.

Getting Started Investing

Before you get started investing, you need to define what your investing goals are. There are various people who do not have success investing because they do not have anything to save towards. If you are single, your investment goals are different than if you have a large family to support.

By defining your life goals, you can start to make investment decisions to optimize your life. Do you want to travel for several months out of the year? That is possible if you build a large enough portfolio to live off of. Before worrying about what type of investment option to choose, spend time looking at what you truly want in life.


Investing in the Stock Market

One of the most common ways to get started investing is investing in the stock market. If you have a retirement plan through work, you can get started investing quickly.

Before investing in stocks, you need to analyze what your risk tolerance is. As a general rule, the younger you are, the more risk that you can afford to take on in your financial life. There are some people who are able to make great investments because they are willing to take on risky investments.

If you have a retirement option through your employer, you can simply select a fund that follows the market. This is the easiest way for beginners to get started investing. You do not have to pick any individual stocks or worry about the market going up or down during the course of the day. Instead, simply select a percentage of your pay to go into the retirement account.

Not only does this strategy make investing easy, but it is also a great way to save money on taxes. For many people, income taxes are one of their biggest expenses to deal with. Limiting your income tax burden will only help you build wealth over a long period of time. In addition, some employers will match your investment up to a certain amount.

Credit Card Points

Another great way to increase your income is to use credit card reward points. This is perfect if you own a small business and have high expenses. Many credit cards will offer users several percentage points back on everything they purchase. Although this may not seem like a huge deal, it is a great way to save money over a long period of time on major purchases.

Speculative Investments

Once you are on track with your retirement savings, you can dedicate a small portion of your overall portfolio to speculative investing. This type of investing is for people who want to make large gains and are fine with losing their initial investment. Cryptocurrency is a great example of speculative investments.

As a beginner, it is generally a good idea to stay away from speculative investments. Instead, focusing on investing as much money as possible into your retirement accounts.

Real Estate Investing

Another great way to get started investing is to invest in real estate. Real estate is an excellent way to make money off of monthly rental income and through equity growth. As a general rule, real estate is a good investment if you can hold it for a long period of time.

This is not the asset class to choose if you do not have a lot of cash on hand. If you purchase a rental property, you will need to put down twenty percent of the purchase price. Many rental properties also require repairs to be made after the tenants move out. Although owning rental property is not easy, it is a great way to increase your income and build wealth for the future.

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