If you are hoping to start investing, but you don’t have much money to begin with, you don’t have to worry. There have been many people who have invested with as little as $25. You can’t sit around waiting until you get more money, because that may not happen. If you start investing with little money now, you can start compounding interest and making money from your investments. The quicker you begin investing, the less financial concerns you are going to have. The question you might have that many others have, as well, is this – how can you invest if you don’t have much money?
Crowdfunding with Real Estate
Many people don’t know this but you can start investing in real estate, even if you don’t have a lot of money. In fact, you can start this type of investment with $500.
To do this, you are going to partner with different investors in real estate. Everyone puts their money together and purchases real estate. Once you do that, you are a shared-owner in that property and you can make partial profits after that piece of real estate is sold.
There are many crowdfunding sites for real estate that you check out.
TIP! DiversyFund makes it easy to buy shares in a portfolio of fully vetted, multifamily real estate — a low-risk type of real estate. You can own a piece of the SEC-qualified Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) they manage. Historic returns vary from 11% to 18%.
Investing Your Money in Small Slices
There are so many different apps for investing that don’t charge you any fees or commissions. You can get these apps on Android or iOS. With some of these apps, you can begin your investments with as little as $1. For many of these investing apps, there isn’t a minimum amount that you have to invest. You will get to choose the amount that you want to invest in stock shares, also known as slices.
If you like a certain company and believe they will succeed, you can invest in them. This could be a technology-based firm or an environmentally-friendly company. If you don’t have a lot of money to start investing, you can use these investing apps to begin your journey into earning money on your investments, commission and fee-free.
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Getting a High-Yield Savings Account
Many people don’t realize that high-yield savings accounts are a way to invest money. Basically, you are putting money away to save, while earning more money in the process. You don’t have to start with a lot of money. If you have leftover change from your gas budget, you can add that $5 into your high-yield savings account. That will be $260 in 1 year. While this may not be a lot, it is more than nothing at all. In addition, this will help you not to spend that extra money since you have it tucked away into this savings account.
There are many places that allow you to open a high-yield savings account. Some of the best options for these savings accounts will offer up to 1.8% interest rates. If you don’t have a high-yield saving account yet, open one today.
Utilizing a Robo-Advisor
If you have never tried to use a robo-advisor for managing your investments before, this might be the way to go. There are many services that will offer robo-advisor services. Through this type of service, you can invest your money into different bonds and stocks. The computer-based software will handle everything for you.
If you are going to use a robo-advisor, you can start your investments with as little as $100. If you don’t want to have large fees and you want to have better access to the money you earn, this is a great option.
TIP! M1 Finance is an excellent robo-advising service, a great way to start investing. They offer commission-free trades on 6,000 stocks & funds, free checking accounts and charge no investment management fees. You can invest, borrow and spend your money in one account. For UK readers, we recommend Wealthsimple as the leading robo advisor.
Investing Your Money Using Acorns
Acorns is one of the many platforms that you can use for your investments. It allows you to use the extra change from rounded-up purchases to invest. So, for any purchase that you make, it will be rounded up to the nearest dollar, and the change that was rounded up will be invested.
If this is a way that you would like to invest money, all you have to do is put your debit or credit card onto your Acorns account. Once you have $5 saved, you can invest it into ETFs or Exchange-Traded Funds using the algorithm on Acorns.
There are multiple ways that you can invest – either aggressively or conservatively – if you want, you can even round your purchases up to the closest $10 mark. This will allow you to grow your funds more quickly.
Investing in Mutual Funds
Did you know that you can invest in mutual funds with a little amount of start-up money? This type of fund is an investment account that allows you to spread around your money throughout various bonds and stocks.
One of the cons of investing in most mutual funds is that you may need a large amount of money to begin – generally between $500 to $5,000. If you are just beginning your investment journey, this might be too much to start off with. However, there are websites that allow you to start up with very little funds.
Getting Certificates of Deposit
This is a very well-known way to invest money. Certificates of Deposit or CDS are a safe, easy way to have a better idea of the amount of money that you will have at any given time.
You are able to buy CDS at certain rates. This way you will know the exact amount that your CD will earn by the time it matures. The bank will take the money you put into the CD and lend it to others.
The downside of investing with Certificates of Deposit is that you don’t have as high of a return as you would with different investment types. However, on the positive side, there aren’t high risks with CDs.
TIP! Certificates of deposit secure high-interest rates when you agree to leave your money untouched until the CD matures. You can choose your CD’s length, longer terms typically generate more interest. CIT Bank’s CDs range from 6 months to 5 years.
Lending via Peer to Peer
How does this work? Say that you have $1,000. You can lend that money to other people. While this is risky, because you don’t know if that person will hold up their end of the deal, if they do, you will get a larger amount back. If you don’t want to lend out $1,000 to one person, you can choose to lend smaller amounts to multiple people.
Many people will lend their money to family members and friends. However, that can create a lot of tension and you likely won’t get any more than what you lend out in the first place.
There are many websites that allow you to do peer to peer lending. Just find one that seems like it will work for you and try it out.
TIP! LendingClub is the leading peer-to-peer lending platform that has been around for more than 10 years. You can diversify your overall investment portfolio with consumer credit exposure, and spread risk across multiple borrower loans. Plus, you get paid every month.
Securities with the U.S. Treasury
These securities, also known as savings bonds, don’t allow you high returns. However, they can be a good option for those who are just starting out on their investment journey. They do allow you to earn interest, even if it isn’t a lot.
You can get these securities from the U.S. Treasury Direct. This is an online bond savings portal. There are bonds that have fixed- rates with periods of maturity from 1-month to 30 years. You can get bonds starting with a minimum of $100.
If you wanted, you can have these securities take money right from your paycheck.
Retirement Plans with Your Employer
Even if you don’t have a lot of money to invest, you can check into retirement plans from your employer, also known as a 401k. There are different amounts that you can choose. If you only want to have $5 taken out of each paycheck to go into your retirement account, you can do that. This is better than nothing.
There are numerous employers that will have matching programs. They will put a percentage of the amount that you deposit into your retirement account.
Every year when you get a pay raise, if you would like to, you can change the percentage of your paycheck that you put into the retirement account.
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Precious Metals
You can choose to invest in precious metals such as gold or another type of metal. These have fairly decent payoffs. The idea behind this type of investment is that precious metals will continue having value because they are tangible, physical products.
The downside of doing this is that you won’t have dividends. You have the precious metal that you store away. Someday, in the future, you will hopefully sell the metals for a higher amount than the price you paid for them. It might be helpful to know that gold prices have risen more than 300% in the last 30 years.
This does hold some risk because you are hoping that the price you make from selling these precious metals is more than you paid for them. However, if you think this might be a great way for you to invest your money, there are many places that allow you to buy precious metals.
Options for Buying Stock
There are numerous stock options. This is different from buying stocks. Those are contracts that allow you to buy and sell a certain stock. You are able to buy puts or calls. The puts have a fall projection, while the calls have a projection to rise in their price.
When it comes to your stock options, things can become complicated. They are higher risk than many other investment options, as well. The good thing is that you are able to start investing in stock with a small start-up cost and you can potentially get a huge return.
Basically, it depends on what risk-reward you want to get into.
Commodities
There are many types of commodities that you can invest in. Some of these include agricultural products (livestock or crops), renewable energy, natural gas, oil, etc. When you choose to invest in commodities, you are hoping for good supply and demand of the commodity that you invested in.
You will purchase a future contract. If the product’s market price goes higher than what the futures contract is, you will be making money on your investment.
Make Small Investments and Start Earning Today
As you can tell from the information here today, you can start investing with little start-up money right away. Even if you can’t start with a lot of money, there are many ways you can start investing with as little as $5 to $100.
Yes, some investments are riskier than others. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t invest into something.
Investments can help you in the future in case of an emergency or for better financial security in your future, as well.
