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- I made a lot of mistakes as I started investing, because I didn’t have a lot of financial education.
- However, mistakes like not investing in ETFs and getting hit by higher taxes were a good learning experience.
- My mistakes cost me money, but I’m glad I didn’t wait until I felt like I knew everything to start.
Many people in the U.S. grew up with little to no financial education. In my case, I often learned more about what not to do than what to do, and I used that as a starting point when I taught myself about finances.
I wasn’t taught financial skills like how to save, invest, budget, or balance a checkbook. Instead, throughout high school, college, and postgrad education, I studied on my own so I could learn how to break the cycle of poverty and establish a financially stable life for myself.
Once I understood the basics of budgeting and saving, I strove to understand investing. I had a rough idea of what it was and knew that it was one of the keys to building wealth. I had also learned about the importance of compound interest and understood that starting sooner was more important than being perfect. Because of this, I started investing and decided to learn by doing to see if I could figure it out.
Getting started with investing is overwhelming at first — and mistakes happen — but this is all part of the process. It’s OK to make a few along the way as well. It’s a cliché for a reason, but a mistake isn’t really a mistake if you learn from it and use that information moving forward. Along the way, I made a few mistakes, but each of them helped me become a better investor.
1. Not taking courses and workshops when I started
Although workshops and courses on investing are more abundant today than they were when I started, I could have found something to help educate me. At the time, I was only aware of the services that cost thousands of dollars, and I didn’t do research to find more affordable options.
I did end up taking some courses later on, but I would have benefited more from them right when I was starting. These days, it’s easy to find a plethora of free workshops or low-cost courses, and I recommend every new investor take at least one before starting.
2. Investing in individual stocks
While there may be a time and a place for investing in individual stocks, most people are better off investing in index funds and ETFs, which allow the investor to more easily diversify their portfolios.
Because these funds include a larger number of stocks within them (some ETFs cover the entire S&P 500, for example), focusing on these investments allows investors to perform at or above the market rate. I didn’t understand how to invest in these types of funds and jumped right in with individual stocks.
3. Selling my stocks early
Once I started investing in individual stocks, I was very excited when I saw the value start to grow. In several cases, I sold my shares as soon as they reached a pre-established threshold.
Most investing experts recommend that investors hold stocks for at least five years, however, for several reasons. Stocks are taxed at a higher rate if they are sold within the first year, as they are considered a short-term capital gain rather than a long-term capital gain.
4. Spreading my investments across more accounts than was necessary
One year, I was investing very small amounts into several accounts, which made it more difficult for me to see gains. I had been investing in a Roth IRA, but started depositing into a traditional IRA that I had rolled an old work retirement account into instead.
The traditional IRA was less funded, so I thought it would make sense to raise it to the same level as the Roth IRA. However, I should have continued trying to max out my Roth IRA before putting money into other accounts.
5. Buying mutual funds from a different brokerage
When I first learned about the importance of buying funds rather than individual stocks, I bought Fidelity mutual funds — despite not using Fidelity as a brokerage at the time. This meant that I was slammed with a $50 fee for each fund, money that I could have invested.
I had heard about “funds” and thought that mutual funds were the best investment, but I could have put the money into an ETF that invested in the same companies for $0 in fees. Thankfully, I only made this mistake once and switched to ETFs immediately afterward.
