These days, simply placing your money in a bank account doesn’t do much for you in the long-term. It used to be that consumers could rely on things like interest rates and bonuses to help their money continue to grow when they weren’t touching it. However, unless you’re willing to sit on all of your cash in an ISA, then the chances are that you’re not going to get much of a return these days.
The only way to make your money really starts working for you, is with new investment opportunities. Unfortunately, most of us assume that we simply can’t afford to invest in things like stocks and securities – because we barely have enough money left for our savings after paying our bills.
What if we told you, however, that it’s entirely possible to begin getting into the knack of investing, without being a millionaire?
If you’re keen to start getting more bang for your buck out of your monthly income, then you’re in the right place. Here are some options to get you started.
Taking out a loan to invest might not seem like the safest option – but the truth is that there aren’t really any risk-free ways to spend your money on investments anyway. Building your wealth has to start somewhere, and sometimes a personal loan can help you to take the first step towards a better future. The key to success is making sure that you check your options carefully before you get started.
Begin by looking at your investment opportunities. You need to make sure that whatever you’re going to be investing in is going to give you a return on your money that amounts to more than you’re going to pay on interest for the loan. This means doing a lot of research, and you may even need to spend some time talking to investing professionals. If you can find a loan opportunity where you pay 2% in interest, and an investment opportunity that pays 5% back in money growth, then it makes sense to take that loan.
If you’re worried about investing not just because you don’t have a lot of money, but also because you don’t know much about the stock markets, then you could try a robo advisor. These advisors were designed in the digital world to ensure that investing opportunities could be as simple and accessible as possible. You don’t need any prior experience with investing to get started and setting up is usually simpler than you think.
There are plenty of robo advisors on the market, and they don’t always come with any advisory fees to get you started either. You can start on some products with an initial payment of only a couple of hundred dollars. Once you tell your robotic advisor what your investment goals are, they will transmit that information to a team of human experts who can build a portfolio for you that delivers the right amount of balance and risk, so you get a return that you feel comfortable with. You can also use the online tools available with these services to track your performance at any time.
It might not seem like it but enrolling in the retirement plan that your employer offers is a form of investment in its own right. If you’re on a very tight budget, then the simple step of sending a few dollars a month into a retirement account could help you to make a lot more money in the long-term, this is particularly true if your employer agrees to match your contributions. You can start off with very small payments that you’re unlikely to miss, like just one percent of your wages sent into an account every month. As you get used to managing your new budget, you can gradually begin to add more and more money to your retirement strategy, until you’re really making progress towards your future.
If you get an annual pay rise, then you could choose to increase the amount you put into your retirement plan when that rise happens each year. It’s also worth noting that you’ll get the extra benefit of a tax deduction when you start implementing this routine into your regular budget. Eventually, you’ll stop noticing the drain on your wages that comes from having a retirement plan set up. Just remember to take your retirement plan with you whenever you change career.
