Investing in Stocks for Beginners: Learn to Invest with Stockpile

In exchange for my honest and unbiased review, I received a $25 gift card to try out Stockpile. This post contains a referral link. I am not a market professional and not responsible for gains or losses that you may experience. 

 

Starting your money journey off early and on the right foot is important. Or, if you’re like me, you are arriving late to the party. It’s fine though, whether you start straight out of college or in your 30s, the important piece is to start!

Previously I laid out the important basics you need to set up your monthly budget. One point I mentioned was savings, and part of building savings is investing your money.

 

Why should you invest in the stock market?

The great thing about investing in the stock market is the ROI (that means return on your investment). A bank savings account only generates a small percentage, but historically the stock market ROI has averaged 9.8% a year! (That lovely fact is from the Stockpile booklet, A Rookie’s Guide to Investing in the Stock Market.) So even a small initial investment yields more over time than a regular bank account.

The key here is over time, as stock prices can go up and down in the short term based on current events and situations, but do tend to increase over a length of time.

Why use Stockpile for Investments?

I love the idea of being able to start investing at any point in time, even if I don’t have a big sum to start with. Stockpile allows you to buy Fractional Shares (so a fraction of a share rather than a full share that may be out of our budget’s reach) and the dashboard is super easy to navigate. You can choose from over a thousand companies and Stockpile charges only 99¢ per trade.

Stockpile also has a great learning tool and has tons of articles to teach the basics of investing and start us off on the right foot. You can view their Quickstart Guide to learn what stocks are (fractional ownership of a company that allows you to earn a piece of their profits), how to buy shares (through a brokerage like Stockpile), and how to pick a stock (buy stock in companies you believe in and diversify across various companies if you can).

 

Stockpile is also a great gift idea for new graduates and a way to teach children about money and investing early in their financial journeys. You can gift shares of stock or send gift cards to be used to purchase fractional shares of stock.

How to buy stock with Stockpile

The first thing you need to do is create a Stockpile brokerage account – which includes setting up your financial and identifying information. Yes, this means you will need to provide your full name, address, and Social Security number. Once your account is set up, you are able to purchase stock.

I decided to purchase Google stock with the gift card, mainly because my whole life is already using it. I mean, my Android phone? Google. Email? Yep, Gmail. Google Calendar. Google Drive. I use it all. So it is a company I am already invested in, so why not actually invest in it? One share of Google stock is over $900, but I bought a fractional share of Google stock with the $25 gift card I received. It is a start. Maybe I’ll keep adding to it every month until I have a full share, then keep growing from there.

Remember, an important part of investing is to start, as soon as possible.

 

Here are some screenshots that show how easy it is to buy stock with Stockpile.  I selected my stock and came to this confirmation screen.

 

 

I clicked on “Get your stock now” and confirmed/redeemed my gift.

 

Now when the market closes, I will own a fraction of Google.

After a few weeks, I’ll update this post with a screenshot of how my Stockpile account is performing.

Will you join me in this stock-ownership journey?

Sign up for Stockpile with me!

If you sign up using my referral link, you will receive $5 of Stockpile stock in your account to get started trading right away. This special offer expires July 30th, 2017. That’s free stock for both of us!

So you really have nothing to lose, and some profits and a fun new experience to gain. Join me! Let’s start building our wealth, a fraction of stock at a time.

Join Stockpile today!