Basically, I'm dirt poor. My pay sucks and I'm practically unemployable outside of my shit-tier job. I think I want to eventually get a master's or a BA in Computer Science, but for the time being I have nothing.
From the way I see it, invoosters are the only people anyone gives a damn about and I can think of investing as a method to get some of my surplus value back in a socially acceptable way. If it wasn't obvious enough already, I am American and this country would rather collapse than see the 1% give back even a penny that they looted from the middle class. Even blue places would rather die than have more housing be built, and those lower the homelessness...I mean, the investor's value.
My first thing I want to check out is Webull but there is something about the app that feels sketchy, and I can't put my finger on it.
Okay porky, you win. If you like invoosters so much, I'll be one. Happy?
Hello! Here’s a few things to think about —
Here’s my (amateur) advice:
First of all, day trading is scammy and basically state-sanctioned gambling. The idea that you can suddenly make a ton of money by being a genius investor or whatever is a myth. Mutual funds, which contain a diverse mix of stocks, outperform hand-picked stock portfolios almost all the time (except at the highest level where investors can MAKE hand picked stocks successful because of the disgusting amount of money they’re playing with.) people who brag about making tons on GameStop or whatever either got lucky or are lying.
However, investing when young is a very, very good idea, and with inflation you’re basically losing money if you don’t do it. But this isn’t a way to increase your income—it’s a way to save for retirement / other big purchases and take advantage of interest.
I’m far from an expert, but first I’d recommend purchasing a Roth IRA. You can put in up to $6000 a year and it’s smart to max that out each year. If you have any money after that iMd put it in a mutual fund. For both IRAs and mutual funds, you can set up an account with a company like Vanguard or Fidelity and they’ll transfer the money from your bank and invest it for you.
After you’ve done that and paid off any high interest consumer debt (car/ credit card debt… I think personal finance assholes like Dave ramsey think all debt should be gone before investing but I’m pretty sure w/inflation & interest the conventional wisdom is now that it’s good to invest while still in debt ie with student loans). AFTER all that, maybe play around with buying specific stocks on an app. But treat it like gambling, because it is.
I recommend the blog Her First 100k (its politics are bad and girlbossy but it’s financial advice is sound in this capitalist hellscape). For the record, I’m a broke grad student, my salary is just above the poverty line, and I am only able to invest because my parents serve as my emergency fund for health/car emergencies. It may be that none of this advice is realistic right now, which sucks and isn’t your fault.
Oh also, you don’t have to put $6000 at a time into the Roth IRA! I think the minimum is $500? I recently put in $2000 because I can’t afford the full amount.
There's no minimum for how much you can contribute to an IRA in a given year. Certain investments offered by your custodian (bank/brokerage firm you have an IRA with) may have a minimum for mutual funds they offer. Honestly, in 2023, the only reputable brokerage firm that still has minimums on common funds is Vanguard. If the minimums are a problem, you can always move your IRA elsewhere. This wiki is great for explaining how IRAs (and other retirement accounts) work, but as with all financial websites, is full of brainworms.
Thanks for clarifying! I have vanguard, whoops
No problem. To be fair to Vanguard, most of their mutual funds have ETF equivalents with no investment minimums.