Home > Investing for beginners > 5 Things You Must Know Before You Start Investing

Looking back, one of the biggest investing mistakes I made was investing before I was ready.

I didn’t know enough to start investing, but I did it anyway.

So if you’re wondering how to start investing. be sure you can properly answer the following five questions before investing a penny

1.  How long is it until you need the money?

How you invest money is impacted by the time period until you need to access an investment.

• If you need the money in a year, something more safe and secure like a CD or a high interest savings account would be best.
• If you don’t need the money for 2-3 years, you could try some short term bond funds or something more creative like investing with Lending Club .
• If you don’t need the money for 5-10 years, the stock market might be the best place for the investment.

2.  What is your risk tolerance?

Understandably, this is hard to really answer.

Basically, when the stock market is going up, everyone feels like they have a high risk tolerance so they invest in the riskiest stocks (that also bring the biggest returns).

However, when the market starts to drop, or worse yet plummet, you’ll get a true look at your real investing risk temperament.

If you are the kind of a person who will sell your stocks when the market is dropping then you MUST consider alternative forms of investments or a more conservative investment plan.

Why?  You will sell only at low times.  Markets go up and markets go down.  If you’ll hold when the market is up and sell when the market is down, it will be hard to have a profitable investment.

3.  What do you plan to do with the money?

Most of us probably think all money is important, but with some funds, it is more crucial to protect that investment.  For example, if I have a few spare dollars that I’m investing just for fun, I’ll treat that money differently than my life savings when I’m 70 years old.  An investor in his or her early 20’s will have a very different investment plan than someone in her 60’s.

Don’t invest the money until you know what the money is for.  You might decide to invest it when you have credit card debt and then realize that your money is better served paying off your debt .  Think first.  Act second.

4.  Do you have a basic understanding of the investment?

One of the biggest mistakes I made when I started investing was that I did what my financial advisor told me.  Look, I understand that my financial advisor was a smart guy and he knew a lot about investing, but I wasn’t very smart because I did what he said.

Why?

I did what he said because he said it, not because it made sense to me.

I think before you invest a dollar in anything you should read at least one book on the topic.

For example, if you were considering investing in the stock market, you’d want to know about bonds, index funds, mutual funds. and even the major categories of mutual funds .

Without at least a basic knowledge, it will be hard to make informed decisions.

5.  What are the fees associated with this investment?

Before investing in something, you want to know if a person has any financial benefit for giving you a piece of advice.  Going back to my financial advisor, he suggested only front end load funds.  Those funds paid him well.  In the end, I didn’t feel like I was represented well.  It’s not his fault, it’s my own for not asking how do you get paid?  What fees are associated with this investment?

Investing is not something you want to rush into.  Once you have done the appropriate research, you should be ready to confidently proceed with your first investment.