How Best to Save!

Whatever your income, you should pay yourself first. And by that I don't mean go buy a new purse or a pair of sneakers as soon as you get paid. What I mean is that you should put away at least $25 each pay period into an investment account. It doesn't matter how much you make or how large your bills or credit is, PAY YOURSELF FIRST.

Investing $25 per week for 20 years at an 8% return would yield $64,000. I don't know about you, but that sounds like pretty good spending money to have in my golden years, not to mention my 401K, Pension and/or Social Security.

I started investing $25 per month 3 years ago for my Godson and it is just at $1,000. His portfolio is up 27%, which means I only invested $787 and the rest is the stock market at work. Some months I did not invest anything and the value of his portfolio has reached as much as $1,400. But the market goes up and the market goes down! The good news is that over the long run the Market is constantly on an uptrend (see chart below).



So how do you get started......go to one of the following websites and sign up for a free brokerage account:

Etrade.com
Sharebuilder.com
Charles Schwab.com
TDAmeritrade.com

Next, talk to your employer about having $25 transferred into your brokerage account each pay period. This should not be a problem if you already have direct deposit. If this doesn't work for you, then you can do the following:

1) Transfer money directly from your checking account into your brokerage account.
2) Send a check into your brokerage account.
3) If you have online banking, setup electronic disbursements to your brokerage account (this is my method of choice).

Once you have setup your account and began depositing money, you'll need to determine where to invest it. You should start by thinking of companies that you are familiar with based upon your work industry or where you spend the most of your disposable income. For instance, if you like to buy shoes then you might be interested in investing in companies like Sketchers (SKX) or Steve Madden (SHOO), or whichever sells your favorite brand. If you are not sure where to invest, market indices like the Dow Jones (DJX), S&P (SPX) or Nasdaq 100 (QQQQ) might be your next choice. These investments will help you to diversify your equity position across the many companies contained in the index, not to mention that over the long term they are constantly moving upwards. When investing in the aforementioned, all you'll need is the price of at least one share of stock along with the cost of the trade.

Another alternative investment is mutual funds. These instruments usually cover a range of stocks and can be purchased with a minimum of $250, $500, $1,000 or more. I do not invest in them because they are covered by my 401K plan. But of course, the choice is yours in terms of where you want to put your hard earned dollars. The most important thing is that you put money away and that you feel comfortable with where it's invested.

You can learn all you'll need from your brokerage house via the web. For more insightful commentary on investing and possibly direction on which stocks to invest in, go to Motley Fool at Fool.com

College is for Everyone, invest in YOU!

As a Florida High School Graduate, I started off going to a small community college because my family could not send me away to Tuskegee University. I worked menial jobs to pay tuition for a year before I decided to transfer to Temple University.

I was determined to get to a 4-year University and nothing would get in my way, not even being young, black and broke. I continued working through my first 2 semesters at Temple and began to receive financial aid after becoming a resident of the state. This opened up Pell Grants and other Goverment funded aid such as subsidized and unsubsidized loans. The important thing to note here is that none of this aid is available without completing a Federal and State application for student aid (see the link below). Make it your first priority after completing the college application.

http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

Private aid is available through various corporations and not-for-profit organizations. This money is usually free as long as you somehow qualify for it. Here are just a few examples of the qualifiers:

1) You are a Native American Indian
2) Your Mother or Father is a Veteran of the Armed Forces
3) You are of Vietnamese descent

Be prepared to complete an application and write an essay about whatever the provider requests. Don't be afraid here, your effort is well worth the free money. To find out more on these programs go to http://www.fastweb.com/

I should note one thing before moving on, you do not have to pay anyone to find you free money for college. So beware of people offering to find you money for a charge.

What I find most disturbing about why African Americans do not attend college is that they do not believe they can afford it. The truth of the matter is that the money is there if you want to work for it. By that I mean either you will be doing research to find aid, completing applications, writing essays and perhaps working hard after you complete college to pay off loans you took. That's right, you can borrow moeny for college just as quickly as your parents, and sometimes they are not as nearly as motivated as you about sending you off to school.

All that you will do to make that tuition payment will be paid for multiple times over when you get the gratification of receiving your Degree, start a career earning real money and making your place at the economic table, not to mention that you have likely stretched your mind to new and different places that you could not imagine before attending college. You will be a better person and make smarter life decisions when all is said and done. I have personally experienced all of these things on the path to obtaining my Masters Degree from Pace University and would not trade any of it for the world! I am from the same town, streets or ghetto as the next Black American. If I can get this far so can you!

What is Sharebuilder?

ShareBuilder is an online brokerage designed to make investing easy, affordable and accessible for both beginning and experienced investors. We take a long-term approach and seek to help investors build wealth over time.

With the ShareBuilder Plan, you can invest regularly through automatic investments, allowing you to buy partial shares of stocks and accumulate your investments over time. To complement your investing strategies, you can use Real-time Trades to buy and sell stocks immediately during market hours.

Start investing now at www.sharebuilder.com