Ok, this one’s a big life skill that we missed out on at school. When did you ever get taught how to invest? Why are we taught how to get a job with a good salary but never how to use that money to make more money? Maybe the truth is that most teachers don’t even know how to invest themselves. The Iron Kingdom believe it’s extremely important for students to learn how to invest and make valued judgements for themselves. Granted, investing does not always have a positive outcome. But this doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t be taught how to make these judgements for themselves. And how to manage their finances correctly and efficiently. The fact that investing is not taught in schools is perhaps why it can seem so daunting to people who tend to avoid it. However, it’s evident that investing in stocks and cryptocurrency is becoming more and more popular every day as people realise how financially beneficial it can be.
Learning appropriate ways to invest and finding legitimate sites can truly be life-changing for individuals. We should be teaching our children that having different sources of income is important for financial security. The skill of investing is made up of many important life skills such as making a valued judgement, risk-taking and effectively dealing with finances. Unfortunately, schools lack teaching these skills to students and rely on the parents to do this. And unfortunately, not all parents have this knowledge and skills to pass down to their children. This leaves a huge percentage of children at a disadvantage as they have to learn it themselves. So maybe it’s time to add investing into the school curriculum, right?
Here are the top steps to investing…
Steps you should take to invest
1. Budget
Ok, so you’ve made the decision to invest – that’s great! But you need to ensure that you’re only investing what you can afford. You should invest with your disposable income and not with money that you need for important things, such as food and bills. If you’re a beginner investor with strongly recommend investing with a small amount first to get familiar with the market. There are also many demo apps available so you can practice investing with fake money first. This is a great way to see how everything works.
2. Choose a legitimate investing account
This is super important as there are a lot of scams out there. Be careful with your money and do your research first. If you know other people that invest, ask them which investing accounts they’re using. Make sure you are 100% certain that the account is legitimate before signing up and depositing money. Check the licenses and read lots of reviews.
3. Focus on the long-term
When investing you should focus on the long-term possible financial gains. Even if there’s a period where the markets drop rapidly, it’s important to not freak out and try to wait it out. This is how successful investors make their money. For example, stocks tend to have higher returns over the long term. It can be a waiting game but long term investments will be the key to big financial gains.
These are just the three top steps to investing. If you want to learn more about investing we strongly recommend The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle and One Up on Wall Street by John Rothchild and Peter Lynch. In our opinion, you should at least read one of these books before investing your money. Make sure you have all the knowledge you need to become a successful investor.