Start buy eliminating or reducing your unnecessary expenses.  Stop wasting money on junk food and eat out less often.  Don’t waste money on clothes you’ll never wear and always track your money so that you aren’t wasting it.

Also, look at what money you borrow.  If you need to borrow, borrow smart.  You could get a low interest credit card, log book loan, or any other loan that you may need.  Pay it on time and try to pay it off as soon as possible in order to minimize how much you end up spending.

When you are able to save regularly, you will be able to invest regularly, and that is very important.  If you can invest your money on a regular basis, at least monthly, you can get stocks at a good price and make more money.  After all, that is what you want to do, right?

Finally, if you’ve saved all you can and can save no more but you want to invest more, you might want to get another source of income.  You can get a second part time job or you can start your own business on the side.  All you have to do is find a way to make more money and do it faithfully.

One thing I say over and over again on this site and with other people about the best thing is that it you need to practice. Any investment you do this technically practice, but while you are learning how to invest in any before you have enough money to start investing, you need to take advantage of the time you have to practice stock investing.

Fortunately with the Internet today this has become so easy. You don’t have to make up your own spreadsheet to keep track of a mock portfolio. You could, but there are so many other easier ways.

Wall Street Survivor

Wall Street Survivor is a free fantasy stock investing game. It is only a game in that you aren’t investing your own money and you are competing, but it is an incredible way to get the experience you need in the stock market.

With this program, you get $100,000 in fantasy money. You’re then able to buy and trade stocks with this money. You build up your own portfolio. You can even buy and sell short and do other types of investment strategies.

What do you get out of it?

You will gain the experience and knowledge necessary to successfully invest in the stock market. You will not learn how to win every time and make millions of dollars every single time. You are still investing in the stock market which is completely unpredictable. Still, it is an incredible resource to practice and learn.

Besides the educational aspect, you can also win cash prizes. This is where the game part comes in. Yes, you get experience, but while you’re at it you can win free money. It’s a win-win situation. Best of all, it’s absolutely free. You never have to pay a dime to either sign up or maintain your membership.

You can buy and sell whenever you want as often as you want. You can trade every day for a month and then stopped trading for six months, and that’s totally fine. It is up to you.

How do you win cash prizes?

First of all, there are the loyalty points. You can earn loyalty points by logging in each day, trading, being active in the forums, uploading a photo, and referring a friend. You can then cash in these loyalty points for $5 or $10 Amazon gift cards. If you are an active member, these points can add up fast.

There are monthly prizes, weekly prizes, and daily drawings. Every day they make a daily drawing. Every trade you make, you are entering into the daily drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card. They also have from $15-$200 Amazon gift card prizes in the weekly and monthly prizes for active traders. On top of that, you could win as much as $200-$300 for a trip to Mexico with a value of $2000.

Who knew you could practice investing and when so much in prizes at the same time. Sign up for Wall Street Survivor today and start learning and earning!

Have you ever wished you could learn about investing from the pros and have a very successful big time investor help you with your investments and act as a mentor?  I can only imagine that if you were to pay a hugely successful investor to mentor you, you would pay an enormous sum. Chances are you don’t have that kind of money and any money you do have you want to invest to build your own wealth.

While I can get someone to work one-on-one with you, I can show you a way to virtually work side-by-side with a top investor and my manager. You can do this with the Street.com with Jim Cramer.

Who is Jim Cramer?

Jim Cramer was an extremely successful at fund manager who has since retired and now helps other people manage their own portfolios. You can check out some of his books such as the following:

These are a great place to start and learn about investing.

Cramer also manages a charity portfolio. Through his Action Alert PLUS program, you can see what traits he makes within this portfolio before he actually makes the trade. You can learn a lot about investing in being successful with investing from Jim Cramer.

What you get when you sign up for Jim Cramer’s Action Alert Plus?

Some of the features include:

• Email alerts of every buy and sell Cramer makes before he acts
• 24/7 access to Jim’s personal charitable trust portfolio
• Weekly Roundups reviewing picks of the week and market activity
• Alerts archive
• Access to Cramer’s “25 Rules for Investing” and “10 Commandments of Trading”

these are incredible features that can mean a lot for your own portfolio. Just learning his “25 Rules for Investing” and “10 Commandments of Trading” can be a huge help with your own investing, let alone actually knowing before he makes trades what he’s going to buy and sell.

How much does this all cost?

You can try out the program as a 14 day trial absolutely free. If you like the program you can pay $59.95 a month or $399.95 the year, which is a $319.95 savings a year. If after the 14 day trial you really like this program, you should really consider going for a one-year subscription because you can save a lot of money.

Is this really worth it as it really for you?

I can’t say for sure that this is something that’s perfect for you and that it is something that will 100% increase your return on investment and explode portfolio. The only way you can find out for sure or even find out if it can help you at all, is by giving it a try. That is the beauty of the 14 day trial. It is absolutely free and there is the risk you, so give it a try!

FREE JIM CRAMER – 14-day trial to Action Alerts PLUS, & his latest bestseller FREE. Click here

First, Save some Money

Before you invest anything anywhere and start stock buying, you have to have money to invest.  I’m sure you already know this.  While you don’t need to have $10,000 to start investing, you should have as much as you can get your hands on.  It is possible to invest with $5 to start, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  The only way you can do this is through buying stocks with an online broker and you’d have to pay a commission that is equal to or greater than your investment.  You don’t want your expenses to be more than 2% of your investment.

Start out by putting everything you can save in a high interest online savings account.  This way you can at least earn a little interest on your money while you save.  Try to save a little bit of money out of each paycheck.  For example, you could save $5 a week or $100 a week, depending on what you can afford.  Keep in mind that the more you save, the more you’ll be able to invest, and the more money you’ll make over time.

Second, Find a Mutual Fund to Invest in

Why am I recommending mutual funds?  Because that is how you truly make stock buying easy.  You don’t have to research stocks to buy them, you don’t have to keep track of your stocks, and you don’t even have to pay any fees if you choose no load funds.  It is a no-brainer how easy it is to use mutual funds, and they have many great benenfits.

If you are looking for a mutual fund to invest in I recommend buying stocks with Sharebuilder.  You can buy individual stocks with them or you can buy mutual funds, and they have great selection to choose from with different varying risks.  They offer very low fees and a wide selection of services.

Third, Start Stock Buying

Once you have enough money to start investing, some require a minimum amount such as $1,000, you can just start investing.  Choose your fund and invest as much money as often as you can.  You don’t have to worry about buying individual stocks because the fund manager does this for you.  It’s just that simple.

Now you can take all the money you were saving to invest each week, ie. $5 a week, $100 a week, etc. and invest it in the mutual fund.  If you want to get more involved in your stock choosing, you can start studying and learning all about investing in stocks, and then when you’re ready, put the money into stocks of your choice.

There’s no reason to put off investing because mutual funds make it so simple.  You can work your way up to more complicated stock buying and researching your own investments.  The best thing you can do now is start saving and investing!

How do you know if a company’s stock will increase in value?

You can never know for sure if a stock will go up in value.  It could go way up, way down, or not move at all.  The stock market is unpredictable, but you can at least make an educated guess about what it might do in the future.

There are basically two main types of stocks that increase in value: growth stocks and value stocks.  A value stock is a stock that is believed to be undervalued.  Individuals will invest in value stocks in hopes that the value will go up to where it should be, therefore earning them a profit.  Here we will be focusing on growth stocks.

Some companies grow faster than others.  Companies that are new usually grow the fastest but also have the potential to disappear the fastest.  They are called ‘growth stocks’ because they are growing quickly.  Their sales are growing larger and larger each year.  They are acquiring new companies and segments continuously.  Their management is constantly looking for ways to grow and improve the company.

Growth stocks are appealing because they show a stronger future.  This causes more people to buy which in turn causes an increase in stock price due to supply and demand.  This is why you should buy growth stocks, especially in the beginning.  They have a potential to continue increasing in value over time.

You won’t be able to find growth stocks easily, but with enough research and persistence, you can at least make good educated guesses and profit from them.

A dividend is what a corporation pays stockholders out of their net income.  This is optional and is not required of a corporation.  For example, if a company made a $2,000,000 net income it may decide to pay a dividend to its shareholders.  If they have 500,000 shareholders and they pay a 50 cent dividend, they will pay a total of $250,000 out of the $2,000,000 net income.

Dividends are most often paid on a quarterly basis.  They do not pay the same dividend every quarter.  It depends on how much net income they have and whether or not they have done any stock splits.  If they did a 2 for 1 stock split, the dividend will likely be half as much.

Most often companies that regularly pay dividends will always pay dividends because if they don’t, it’s a sign of a weakening company and therefore a likely decrease in the value of the stock.  Although, this isn’t a rule, it’s just common.

Dividends are another way to make money on the stocks you purchase.  You can sell the stock for capital gains, or you can hold onto it for a little while and collect dividends.  Often individuals who are close to or in retirement invest heavily in companies that pay high dividends but have low growth because they show stability and will hopefully continue to pay dividends on a regular basis.

Especially if you are young, you shouldn’t look only at the average dividend rate of a company to decide if it’s a company you should invest in.  Look at the overall company and see the dividends paid as an increase in the return on that stock investment.