Save while you can
While you are young and have few expenses, save and invest whenever and whatever you can. This money has the most potential to grow and compound over time, especially in a retirement account. The best time to start investing and saving was yesterday, so there is always today to start.
Fidelity
In my opinion, Fidelity is hands down the best brokerage (a place where you buy and sell investments). Their app and website are easy to use and give you all the information you need to make informed decisions as well as quickly accomplishing what you want. Their customer support is amazing and will help you out with any questions you have about your account or Fidelity’s products (just not specific financial advice, because that’s a whole legal thing).
General Tips
Always reinvest dividends and distributions. Most investments will give you a little money periodically, somewhat like interest. There are settings in your brokerage to reinvest that money back into the fund, furthering your growth over time. Unless you are a multi-millionaire, these dividends are usually small amounts, so there is no real loss of income happening.
Another tip is to always “Dollar Cost Average”, which means to regularly invest. The market will have its ups and downs, but if you invest on a schedule, you can reduce your risk and maximize your returns. If you have a large chunk of cash that you want to invest a lump sum investment is likely going to be your best bet.
Robo-Advisor
Robo-Advisors are the easiest way to invest money, where you set a strategy (Least to most aggressive) and deposit money. The computers take care of the rest, investing in specific funds and indices based on your strategy. Fidelity’s offering is the Fidelity Go account which is free for balances under $25,000 and .35% a year above that. This is a pretty good deal as you should be making 10%+ a year, so it pays for itself. When you make a withdrawal, it sells specific assets automatically to get you your cash.
The Bogle method (recommended)
Named after John Bogle, one of the pioneers of ETFs (a stock that holds other stocks), this is a simple method for strong long term gains. Ideally you would want 70% in the entire US market, and 30% in the international market, which excludes the US.
What does this look like? It depends if you want to invest in a standard brokerage/stock account or a retirement account, as ETFs are generally better for taxes in non-retirement accounts.
Here is a video from the man himself explaining the method. As you accumulate wealth throughout your life from income and investments, more money can be shifted to bond ETFs which have a predictable return, somewhat like an interest rate. This is for later in life though, so if you are just starting out you should ignore bonds for now as they are usually lower return than stocks.
| Type | Allocation | Stock Account (ETF) | Retirement Account (Mutual Fund) |
|---|---|---|---|
| US Stock Market | 70% | VTI | FSKAX |
| International (Ex-US) Market | 30% | VXUS | FSGG |
Pay Your Taxes
Your taxes will become a little harder now that you have investments, but a good platform like FreeTaxUSA, CashApp taxes will direct you on what forms you need. In reality, its just finding the box and filling in numbers from a big PDF your brokerage gives you. Getting fined by the IRS is not conducive to your long term finances, believe it or not.
DO NOT USE TURBOTAX, H&R BLOCK, OR TAXACT. They spend MILLIONS lobbying for more complicated taxes and have sneaky costs and fees for filing even when they advertise it as “free.” I recommend FreeTaxUSA which is free federal and $15 per state. They support free filing for state as well if you meet the IRS Free File eligibility criteria (which the big 3 above pulled out of because they want to charge you).
TL;DR
- Use Fidelity
- If you really don’t want to even slightly think about investing, use a Fidelity Go account with the most aggressive strategy
- If you want solid long term gains, use the Bogle method using the charts above. I promise its easy.
- Pay your taxes and reinvest your dividends
Disclaimer
Of course this is not financial advice, just for education. If you need a professional, go see one. I am not liable for your choices and decisions. This is a crappy blog that no one reads, not an investment institution or advisor.