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As I graduated from undergrad and moved into the work force one of the things that my dad did to help me with the transition was give me a couple thousand dollars to help with first months rent, food, etc. But it came with one stipulation, that I now really appreciate. This stipulation was that I would start a Roth IRA with that money once I was making money and stable. Luckily I had a good enough job and was living very cheap so that came pretty quickly. So, I tossed $2,000 into a long term Roth IRA with vanguard which has steadily grown over the past few years. Now of course I appreciate the money itself and the push to invest, but more recently I have come to recognize the real value I gained from that experience.
This is something I hope to do for my future kids as well and one I think could be valuable to most people as our school systems do not provide the push or information to begin involvement in investing.
In short it introduced me to investing and preparing for my future. This small introduction helped get me interested in the financial systems of our society and grow an interest in understanding and participating in these systems. As someone who strives to learn something new each day, it gave me a whole new area to begin to learn about.
Fast-forward to more recently with the pandemic and me having a bit more free time to learn and engage with the stock market. So, I start a webull account put in a little bit of money and decide to try short term trading. I made a few day trades, a few week trades, and was having fun, even actually making a bit of profit. Though, of course this does not last, I bought into a stock that was starting to go up and overnight the company issues more shares to take advantage of their higher share price so I am down substantially.
But, this was an important lesson for myself and I think can be valuable for others, especially as there are so many "influencers" touting incredible profits you can achieve with stocks or crypto. These people providing or selling tips and tricks with the little disclaimer "this is not financial advice". I would say do not believe these people they are scammers, but my philosophy is really about learning from the world around you and your mistakes. So do what you feel is right but do it carefully and learn from it.
This ties in with some of most valuable snippets or rules that I follow:
Only invest money you are willing to lose
Assume the money you put in is gone
Be cautious, try it yourself, and learn from your mistakes
Of course this may not apply to everyone, some people may want somebody to take care of investing for them. In that case there are licensed financial advisors who are regulated to protect the consumer. But if there is a thrill to doing it yourself then have fun with it and benefit from all of the things you will learn along the way.
One platform I have found quite interesting is M1 Finance where you create your own Pie of stocks which are then automatically purchased. This intrinsically supports fractional shares enabling you to hold stocks that would otherwise be far too expensive. For example, this allowed me to get some small stake in Thermofisher a scientific company that I purchase from and interact with regularly in my role as a chemist. Which closed at TMO 522.54 on 7/20/2021, the date of writing this.
This allowed me to invest and interact with companies I am interested in without a significant investment. Because of this I got to vote in the annual meetings of a few of these companies, got a couple cents in dividends, and most importantly was forced to learn more about companies and stocks. I mean my vote was in all likelihood meaningless but I learned from the process which was satisfying and valuable in the long run as my investments grow.
I would really be interested to see the Pie's of anybody else who uses M1 Finance or the Pie's of anybody who starts with M1. If you would like to share please post a link in the comments and provide some info. You should be able to create a Pie without investing on M1.
Next, I will be talking about my journey with Crypto over the past year.
Below I have provided links to the services I have mentioned in this blog. If you would like to support me by using the referral link please do but do not feel any pressure to do so I do not need or expect it. In that case use the non-referral links.
Links (Referral):
Webull referral link
M1 Finance $50 referral link
Links (Non-Referral):
Vanguard Homepage
Webull Homepage
M1 Finance Homepage
