Growing up, I always thought investing in stocks was something for people in the big leagues. I definitely don’t have the disposable income to drop a few stacks on Apple stock, let alone hire an investment broker to look at my portfolio. The good news is that with today’s technology, you can start with an investment as little as $5 and foray into the world of stocks. In this blog post, I’ll be sharing three simple money tools that you can use to begin investing in the stock market. Spoiler alert: You may have heard of these tools in my previous post, Broke Girl’s Guide to Getting Unbroke.
Stash
I suppose I’ll start with my favorite. Stash allows users to invest whatever dollar amount they chose to invest in fractional stocks in one or a number of companies. At first, they provided an index of companies based on various topics like Defense, Health, Tech, Social Media and more. Now, they have expanded to companies like Apple, Amazon, and Netflix that have high dollar per share amounts. I personally fund my StashCash balance with a weekly scheduled a deposit, which I allocate to different parts of my portfolio. Intimidated by the many options? No need to be. I’d start with some safe bets like Delicious Dividends and Park my Cash, plus some companies with history of strong stock growth like Amazon and Amazon. Additionally, they have lots of educational content on both the stocks you’re investing and money matters in general. They also have a retirement account offering, but I don’t use that since I have something set up through my employer. Want to sign up? Feel free to use my affiliate link. Totally free for you!
Acorns
Acorns is very similar to Stash, but the unique thing about them is that they use your extra change from your every day purchases (when they are rounded up to the next dollar) to help you fund your fractional stock purchases. Another key difference is you pay $1, $2 or $3 month depending on which type of investing you wish to do. Since they are fairly similar, I have exclusively been using Stash but I have used this in the past. They do appear to have expanded their stock offerings as well, in addition to a retirement account.
Robinhood
A few years ago, I was interested in buying a very particular stock during their IPO. (Ok, it was SNAP don’t judge me.) Since Stash didn’t have the ability to buy individual stocks at the time and the big investment companies scared me, I searched for companies with minimal trading fees and small starting costs. Enter Robinhood. Robinhood offers commission-free trading without investment minimums. While my SNAP stock and I have parted ways, I recently used it for the Dropbox IPO as well. I definitely like it for particular stock purchases, but they have the option to purchase ETF (fractional) stocks as well. And if you use my affiliate link, you can get a free stock like Apple or Facebook.
With any of these tools, you’re off to a great start in the world of investing. It’s definitely what you make of it. You can start small or big, but the key is to play the long game and have fun while you learn about the wild wild world of stock trading. It’ll be fun, plus you’ll sound like a forward thinking millennial at happy hour. Have a ball!
