Investing experts always say the sooner you start investing the better off you’ll be. If you want to start investing while you’re in college, you are at least starting off early. How can you be sure that you’re starting off right?
Investing in college is a challenge because college students tend to have little money to spare. However, you can put yourself on the path to better investments by following a few simple tips. You want to pay off loans, start as early as you can, protect your investments, and diversify your investments.
Pay Off Loans
If you’re in college, chances are you have a few student loans. To get yourself to a point where you can really start to invest, you have to get rid of your debt. Start with the high-interest debt, and work your way from there. Paying off the high-interest debt early will allow you to start investing more sooner. It also ensures that you don’t end up paying nearly as much.
Start Early
If you are planning on starting early, it means you may not have a lot of money to invest. That’s okay. Even if you just put away $20 a month when you start off, that’s something. Starting early gives you a base, and then you can increase what you’re saving and investing as you get more financially secure. The reason it is so important to start early is because it gives your money more time to mature.
Protect Investments
No matter how much money you invest and subsequently make, if it’s not properly protected it doesn’t matter. What can you do to protect your investments? You can start by talking to an Atlanta insurance agency. The agency will be able to help you figure out what insurance will best protect your assets. Protecting all of your assets, such as your home, vehicle, health, and other possessions, will help you free up more money to invest. When you don’t have to pay up front for your car to get fixed, it can give you more of a chance to invest in your future.
Diversify
Finally, it is important that you diversify your investments. You may not be putting a lot in, but if you put all of that money in one place you are risking more. When you diversify you want to include different types of a variety of investment tools, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and the like. It also means that you will be investing in different sectors of the market. Say for a second that you put your money in the same stock every single month. If that stock were to crash, you would lose all of your money. Now, when you diversify it, you are less likely to lose such a portion of your money.
Talk to an Expert
Investing can be a tricky thing to get started with, and you need to know what you’re doing. You should read a lot of books about investments, but you should also talk to someone who has an expertise on the subject. Getting help when you first start off will help increase your chances of making smart investments.
Robert Farrington is America’s Millennial Money Expert® and America’s Student Loan Debt Expert™, and the founder of The College Investor, a personal finance site dedicated to helping millennials escape student loan debt to start investing and building wealth for the future. You can learn more about him here and here.
He regularly writes about investing, student loan debt, and general personal finance topics geared towards anyone wanting to earn more, get out of debt, and start building wealth for the future.
He has been quoted in major publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Fox, ABC, NBC, and more. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes.
Leave a Reply