“Investing is risky and I don’t want to lose all of my money”!
This is what most people will say and this mindset makes it impossible for them to retire at a young age!
Investing is a huge challenge-emotionally and intellectually.
Due to inflation, money loses its value over time. For example, in 1980, a cup of coffee costs 30 cents. But in 2022, the same cup of coffee costs $1. That is the effect of inflation!
Say, you have got a thousand dollars in your hand right now, and you decide to keep it safe in your locker for the next few years. In 10 years’ time, the same amount is not going to be worth 1000 dollars anymore. This is because the price of everything would have increased!
So, the value of your money will have fallen.
Most savings accounts in the world offer less than a 1% savings rate, which means you are actually losing money over time.
And that is where investments come in!
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What is an investment?
Basically, you can earn money from your money. This is how rich people stay rich. They invest money and make money off their money.
Essentially, you are putting something upfront to reap the rewards of it later.
Example of how people invest their money:
Purchasing a house is the oldest form of investment. We all are familiar with it!
Buy a house and rent it out to people. Every year you will be able to earn thousands of dollars in rental income.
Moreover, the value of the house itself would probably rise over time. House prices tend to get doubled every 10 years. So, if you have purchased your house for $100,000, you will be able to sell it off for $200,000 after 10 years.
But, the problem is that buying a house is a complicated process as you need to have a large sum of money.
Luckily, there are ways to invest without having a large amount of money and without having to put much effort into it as well.
And that brings us on to investing in shares and cryptocurrency.
What are shares?
When you buy a share, you are buying part ownership of the company that you have got a share in.
A company decides to issue a dividend as a way of returning some of its profit back to the people who have invested in the company. And therefore you make money through dividends.
That begs the next question, which is:
How the heck should I start investing?!
No more excuses to delay building wealth. It is now time to learn how to make your money work for you.
Here are some beginner-friendly platforms for people who want to start investing.
1. Invest in dividend stocks:
Firstly, what is a dividend?
It’s a payment that a company is going to give you for owning that company stock.
M1 Finance is a great platform for beginners. It is a traditional brokerage model with the Robo-advisor aspect, meaning you can still choose your own investments except that they automate it.
In M1 Finance, you are doing portfolio-based investing. They give you a weighted portfolio.
You just need $100 to start investing with M1 Finance.
They also offer a debit card which earns about 1% cash back on all purchases.
2. Acorns:
Acorns round up the spare change from everyday purchases to the nearest dollar and move the difference from a checking account into an Acorns investment account. That money is automatically invested into a diversified portfolio.
Acorns make it easier to invest on a regular basis with tools like round-ups and recurring deposits.
Acorns portfolios are made up of several exchange-traded funds (ETFs), that include a diverse mix of investments with the goal of providing a smoother and stable ride for your portfolio.
Each Acorns portfolio is made up of six different ETFs ( an ETF is a collection of stocks or bonds ).
This helps you to set aside cash for retirement automatically.
3. Invest in Stocks With Public.com
Public.com is a commission-free stock trading app that aims to make trading accessible to everyone by letting you invest in small slices of major companies. It is available on both Android and iOS devices.
They excel at slicing stocks into tiny bits so that anyone can afford to own any public company.
There are zero fees or commissions to buy or sell stocks on the app. There are no monthly account maintenance fees.
You can start with as little as $1.
The company offers thousands of stocks and ETFs that you can own.
The company’s mission is to make investing accessible to everyone. There is also no minimum investment required to open a Public account.
Public gives you access to thousands of individual stocks and ETFs across the entire US stock market.
Start investing with Public.com.
4. Coinsmart:
Coinsmart is one of the best crypto trading platforms for beginners.
You will be able to buy and sell digital currencies including bitcoin, Litecoin, Cardano, Stellar etc.
When you create an account, you will get verified instantly. Hence, you can start buying and selling cryptocurrencies within a few minutes!
It has a rating of 4.2 on Trustpilot.
PRO TIP: Track your spending and net worth with Personal Capital for FREE. It is the best platform for tracking your investments.
5. Invest in Real Estate With RealtyMogul
RealtyMogul is an online platform for investing in real estate.
It is one of the oldest ways to invest our money. One can never go wrong with a real estate investment.
The current technology has made the process more simple and platforms like RealtyMogul allow you to invest without managing a property!
They have options for both accredited investors and non-accredited investors. Realty Mogul offers investments and portfolios of real estate through non-traded REITs.
6. Coinbase:
Coinbase is perfect for you if you are totally new to cryptocurrency and want to get your foot in the door.
It is a great platform where people can buy and sell digital currency and store it securely.
With over 73 million verified users, Coinbase is one of the biggest cryptocurrency companies around. It supports several payment methods including credit card, debit card and wire transfer.
The user experience is pretty smooth on both the mobile app and the website. The buying process is extremely easy and quick.
7. SoFi:
SoFi is an all-in-one personal finance solution for people looking to streamline their finances. There are no management fees.
Within the app, you are able to choose whether you want to build a portfolio yourself or use their automated investing solution.
The first step in automated investment is choosing your risk tolerance. You have the option to choose from – Conservation, moderate and aggressive. The aggressive investment will put more of your money in the stock market.
Once you set up your risk tolerance, choose how much and how frequently you want to invest.
You can even set up your investing based on your goals.
Whether you want to save for retirement or towards a large purchase like buying a home, Sofi invest will suggest the right portfolio for your needs.
The company is perfect for those who don’t have the time to research every stock or fund or are new to investing and want to get started.
Automated investing with SoFi invest is a quick and easy way to get into the game.
Related post: Passive income ideas that will make money while you sleep
Other ways to invest: Start a business from scratch
There are many small investment business ideas that you can start sitting in the comfort of your home. Starting a business from scratch seems very risky and a lot of hard work is required upfront. All these businesses require a little amount of investment, but trust me, the investment is worth it in any of these. People are earning millions from this business. Seriously, you can handle your business and everything from your home. You can start these as a side hustle. Once you start making money, you can finally say goodbye to your full-time job!
Depending on what business you chose and how much marketing you do, you can make a 6 figure income from these business ideas.
Small investment business ideas that you can start
Here are some of the small investment business ideas that you can start right now.
1. Dropshipping:
Dropshipping is the act of selling other people’s products in your store and you get a commission in return for selling the items. You can set up your own store on Shopify for $29 per month. You also have a 14 day free trial on Shopify.
Dropshipping is getting extremely popular these days due to its high return on investment and low risk. In Dropshipping, you will purchase items from a third-party supplier and then sell them in your store, which you can create on Shopify.
You need to market the products very well on social media to get a good number of sales.
Get started with Shopify(FREE for 14 days).
2. Blogging:
It is one of the best small investment business ideas. For making money from your blog, you need to see blogging as a “business”. Blogging as a hobby won’t make money. You need to start with a profitable niche in which you have knowledge. Some of the most profitable blog niches are:
- Food blogs
- Technology blogs
- Lifestyle blogs
- Amazon affiliate niche blogs
- Fashion and beauty blogs
- Personal Finance blogs
- Travel blogs
Choose a niche a start writing content on them. Make sure to choose something you love writing about and have knowledge of the topic. Because, if you don’t love the topic you are writing about, you will eventually lose interest and stop writing.
After that, purchase a domain name and hosting from Bluehost. Bluehost offers web hosting and a FREE domain (for the first year) for as low as $3.95 per month.
Write at least 15-20 high-quality articles of 800+ words. You will start seeing traffic on your page soon. Once you get a good amount of traffic, you can monetize your blog through Google Adsense and Affiliate Marketing.
Related Post: How to start a money-making blog with no experience (step-by-step guide)
3. Email Marketing:
Email Marketing is a way of digital marketing in order to promote something and make sales online.
So, Email marketing is the act of promoting and growing your business through Email. Convertkit is one of the best platforms for getting started with Email Marketing. You can get started at $29 per month on Convertkit.
How to get started?
You can start doing email marketing either with your blog or with your social media. For that, you need to collect emails from your target audience and then sell products to them.
Suppose, you want to sell a weight loss product to your audience. You have to collect the email address of all those people who wants to reduce their weight.
But, why will they give their email address to you?
For that, you need to give some attractive free offers to your audience. For example, you can provide them with a free pdf that contains some tips to reduce weight. Once, they enter their email address, you can send them the free pdf with valuable content. And, they get into your email list!
How to make money from email marketing?
You can sell your own products. Also, make money from Affiliate marketing. Some of the affiliate networks you can join are:
- Amazon associates
- Awin
- ShareASale
- Clickbank
One of the most popular email marketing tools is Convertkit, which helps to build a list by collecting emails. Convertkit cost starts at $29/month for up to 1000 subscribers. You can upgrade your plan once you reach 1000 subscribers.
Get Started with ConvertKit today.
4. Podcast:
A podcast is delivering content to your audience in the medium of audio. It is audio recorded on a specific topic or niche. You must have a niche or else it is difficult to gather an audience.
The niche can be anything like motivation, storytelling, health, fitness, beauty, etc. People can even listen to your podcast while on transport vehicles or cars.
Just like blog hosting, you also need hosting for your podcast. The best podcast hosting is Buzzsprout. You can start a podcast for free on Buzzsprout. You can upload 2 hours of content each month hosted for 90 days.
The paid plan costs $12 per month which allows you to upload content for 3hrs each month. This plan will host your content indefinitely with unlimited storage.
Start a podcast today with Buzzsprout(FREE for 90 days!)
So, these were some of the small investment business ideas that you can start today.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have read the article, it’s time to choose which one to focus on(depending on your interest).
Investing is not that complicated right?! Once you get the hang of it, you can sit back and see the dollars roll in!
If you liked this list of investing ideas, share it with your friends or family who need this. Also, let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.
