Anyone Can Invest - Right?
Absolutely anyone can invest - even without money.
Invest in yourself - that’s what I’ve heard countless life coaches and money gurus mention.
It’s true, you should. However, for the purposes of keeping this post focused on building wealth, we’ll set that topic aside for now.
When we are young, we don’t focus on investing as a means of building wealth over time - it seems extremely complex and arbitrary, with only an elite few benefiting. I don’t doubt that, it takes a shift in knowing where you are today and where you want to be. Investing involves consistency, discipline and patience it’s not for the weak.
But what makes an investor different to the average individual is their psychology around money.
Some questions I contemplated over before investing:
Do I need this money today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year?
If I don’t use this money now, what will I do with it?
What are the potential returns?
When will I really ever benefit from this investment?
Am I investing in an ethical way?
Can I continue doing this for years or just the short term?
What percentage of my salary would I need to invest to see tangible returns?
What do I actually invest in?
What platforms are available to invest with?
Researching these questions provided me with a plan of action which has been evolving over time.
Quite often, it was not knowing the answers to the above questions which restricted me. Let’s take a few examples.
Question 2: I am a pretty intentional buyer, I don’t simply buy for the sake of it, the value and convenience must outweigh what I currently use, whether it’s a small or large purchase. I remember saving a decent chunk of my paycheck from my first part-time job at Selfridges and then buying a MacBook Pro which was £1,100 at the time. I still use that laptop for certain tasks, and when you do the maths - £1,100 divided by the 7 years I have had it = £13 roughly a month.
The price of a Nandos. once a month, for seven years.
Yet, the value it has brought me is profound - investing doesn’t always apply to ‘capital appreciation’ or ‘potential monetary returns’ - it can also be translated to value received from purchasing something and the ability for it hold its value.
Question 6: Allocating smaller chunks of money in a fairly sporadic way was my technique when starting out, if I kept a larger amount in the bank, I would always be able to resort back to that should my investment plummet. Devising a plan around percentage allocation for investment (which links to question 7) was extremely helpful and has kept me consistent for longer.
Question 8 & 9: Here, you have to do your own research, each platform has it’s own benefits, own products and specific set-up. I have a couple of different platforms I use personally - Wahed Invest (ETFs) Cur8 (Sukuks and Venture Capital), AJ Bell (individual stocks), Coinbase (Crypto) these are the four main platforms I use. It took awhile to figure what was best for me, but once you get there, you will (A) be more knowledgeable by figuring out which is best for you (B) be able to pass on the knowledge to those around you to encourage them to invest.
Managing to even get to a point I’m at today took a lot of discipline, knowledge-seeking and drive. I’ve had numerous conversations with colleagues, friends, family members about investing. It’s not rocket-science.
At-least long-term investing isn’t.
Collate your responses for the above questions and start your investing journey!
