After having a few summer jobs, and hopefully not spending ALL your money during the school year, you probably have some money saved and are not sure what to do with it. We’re here to help! Some quick tips before we start is that right now due to COVID-19, the stock market is not good. Investing when prices are low is good but be careful because we don’t know when the drop will end. Speaking of drops, investing is a long term game so don’t be discouraged if drops happen here and there. The first step is understanding why you shouldn’t just have your money laying in a safe around your house, or even in a simple checking account. Without getting into too complex of economic theory, the basic gist is that we live in a world with constant inflation. This means that with more money being printed and other economic factors, a dollar you have today will be worth LESS tomorrow. This is some good incentive to have your money, make you more money. Second, if you’re not using the money immediately, you might as well have your money work for you. Since investing is long term, make sure the money you are investing you will not need in to near future. If you want minimal work and absolutely no risk, a CD is a great short term option to save a little extra money. CD’s are federally backed so you are ensured not to lose your money. When you put the money in a CD, you choose the length of time and you want to put the money away, and each comes with an interest rate that you will receive during the time. Most banks have one CD they are really trying to push at a time where you can get anywhere from 8 months to 15 months at a ranging percentage back. Typical rates can fluctuate between 1.5 to 3.5%. If you put in a decent amount of money, this can really add up over time!
If you’re looking for a little bit more risk, without a long term commitment, and don’t have lots of investment knowledge, Acorns might be right for you! Acorns is an app where you can start by investing as little as $5.00. You choose the risk level that you would like to pick and Acorns does all the investing into different areas for you. So basically, your money will overall do as well as the stock market in general is doing. The good news is you don’t have to pay attention to it if you’re in it for the long haul. You put your money in, and can invest more or less, take out money when you want, but let your money grow over lots of time without doing any work. Acorns has lots of other cool features to help with different aspects of saving and investing. They also have a lot of deals with companies that give you money back or sales when your purchase through your Acorns account. Lastly, if you want to actually begin trading stocks Robinhood is another great app that is great for beginners but definitely requires paying attention to stocks more and having a basic investment background to begin. These skills could be learned pretty easily though either through the app or Youtube tutorials. Anyways, on Robinhood you actually buying stocks and they’ll help with when you should trade them. Make good investments and you’ll watch your money grow fast! Once again should always be in investing for the long haul in case some losses to happen.
Happy investing and if you have any questions about this, feel free to contact us through our social media or email!
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