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Disclosure: Nothing in this book contains financial advice. It is for entertainment purposes only. Enjoy. Table of Contents: • Introduction • Chapter 1 – Two Ideas That Will Change How You Look at Money Forever • Chapter 2 – You’re Making Money, Now What Are You Gonna Do With It? • Chapter 3 – How Rich Do You Wanna Be, Anyway? • Chapter 4 – There’s Always Tomorrow to Start Investing, or is There? • Chapter 5 – What is The Stock Market and Why Should You Care? • Chapter 6 – What Companies Are Worth Investing in? • Chapter 7 – Which App or Website Should I Trade With? • Chapter 8 – Spread the Wealth: Why Diversifying is The Only Way to Go • Chapter 9 – Save The Excitement for Parties, Choose Boring When It Comes to Investment Funds • Chapter 10 – Watch out for Get-Rich-Quick Schemes • Chapter 11 – Why Being A Broke College Student Makes is the Perfect Time to Invest • Chapter 12 – Apps Aren’t Just for Food & Music: They Can Help You Get Rich • Conclusion Introduction Have you ever seen an older person working at the grocery store looking miserable, exhausted, and sad as they bag groceries with their arthritis-ridden fingers? I’ve seen it firsthand. I've worked with them firsthand. It sucks. They don't want to work. But they don't have a choice. They never learned to manage their money and, as a result, will never be able to retire. It doesn't have to be that way for us, in any case. We've got the internet, and we've got our phones. With these tools, we can seamlessly invest in thousands of different companies in seconds with a few taps of our thumbs. Nevertheless, many of you will read this and not take action. It's not your fault. It's the system and culture we live in. Addison Rae doing the WAP on TikTok & Suzy on Tinder are more exciting. Plus we’ve got school, work and friends to manage. Who has time to plan their financial future? Most Americans can't manage their money for shit. Despite being one of the wealthiest countries on Earth, we can't seem to get our finances together. The ongoing Coronavirus situation is evidence of this growing problem, and of course, it's also just getting hard to get ahead. Housing prices, rent prices, meat prices, gas prices… the list goes on. Everything is getting more expensive. Wages are rising, but not as rapidly as costs. It's never been more important to take care of your finances, yet few do. I will rattle off a few stats about money in America to show you what I mean. • 49% of American workers have depression and panic attacks regularly due to financial problems and stress • 49% of American workers have ZERO dollars in their retirement funds • HALF of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts • The average American household carries more than $140,000 in debt If these stats scare you...GOOD! There's hope that you'll never be like those people. There is only one formula to be financially successful: Spend less money than you make and invest what's leftover. There are hundreds of ways, websites, apps, and strategies to achieve financial success, but most Americans will never realize it. It's honestly quite simple: Spend less than you make and invest the rest. If it’s so simple, why don’t we do it? It's simple: Lack of financial education has led us to do something called living beyond our means. Most American families are doing something called "Living beyond your means." To do this means that they are living a lifestyle (vacations, cars, clothes, house, food) that requires more money per month than they earn. As a result, they not only have no money left to invest for retirement; they are deep in debt and might never get out. Please understand something: If you never invest, the only way you will EVER retire is if you live on welfare as an older person. You don't want to do that. Or maybe we'll receive universal basic income someday if Andrew Yang becomes president and gives every American a check every two weeks for sitting on their ass watching Netflix. Even if that happens, and you did all of this planning, it doesn't hurt to have more money than everyone you know. The other reason our finances are so fucked up is that we don't invest money regularly. Instead, we spend money on clothes, apps, subscriptions, eating out, shoes, expensive cars, or other things that we don't need, yet we claim we can't set aside $100 a month to invest in our financial future. But again, WHY are our finances so fucked up? It’s because most Americans were never taught the basics of personal finance. We spend our formative (important, life-changing) years learning things like photosynthesis, medieval history, and the quadratic equation, yet never learn how to invest, pay taxes, manage a budget or apply for financial aid and student loans. How messed up is that? So, why don't we learn personal finance in school? Here's my cynical side coming out. I firmly believe the U.S. government does not want us to have our finances in order. Hear me out. If every American lived below their means (spent less money than they made and saved/invested the rest), they would not benefit the U.S. economy. The economy is dependent on consumers consuming goods and services. If we're not consuming (buying clothes, new cars, subscriptions, expensive meals, etc.), we're not helping the economy. Saving and investing money is excellent for an individual, but it does not benefit the economy. Spending money brings in tax revenue for the government, creates jobs, and creates growth. Saving & investing does not do that (though investors pay taxes on their profits – we'll cover that later). If you save money, you're not creating a job, paying sales tax, or doing much to help the economy. You're helping yourself, which is GREAT. But the government doesn't want that. They want you to SPEND!!! Ask yourself this: Which of these two guys help the economy more? • Joe buys a 2010 Honda Civic in cash and plans to drive it for ten years. The cost to insure the vehicle is $50 per month. He has no monthly payment. He pays $700 in sales tax to the state to buy the car. Maintenance on the car is extremely cheap because it is a typical, low-level car. • Brad uses a loan (someone else's money) to buy a brand new $60,000 Mercedes-Benz. The cost to insure the vehicle is $300 per month. He has a monthly payment of $550. In addition, he pays $4200 in sales tax to the state to buy the car. Maintenance on the vehicle is costly because it is a foreign-made luxury vehicle. The answer is Brad! The expensive car brings in a lot of tax revenue for the state. The maintenance is expensive and brings in more tax revenue. The high insurance payment also helps fund insurance companies and creates more jobs than a lower payment, and is subject to higher taxes (which go to, you guessed it: the state.) Brad spends like crazy on his Mercedes, and because of that, the government benefits. All Brad gets is to look a little cooler while he sits in traffic. The economy depends on us spending, spending, spending. Saving money benefits you, but it doesn’t benefit the government. People might call me a conspiracy theorist, but I look at myself as a realist. If the government wanted us to learn personal finance, it would be easy to incorporate it into the curriculum and teach it to students. However, I would assume that most students would prefer learning about investing and credit cards to the quadratic equations. At least, I would! So… It’s up to YOU to learn how to manage money independently. Opening this book is a significant first step on your journey to financial success. I'm here to teach you what schools haven't taught at all or to reinforce what they've taught if you've been lucky enough to have a personal finance class. Here is my financial timeline: Age 14: I got my first job working at Burger King. Age 16: I bought my first car in cash! Age 18: I landed more than $15,000 in scholarship money before stepping foot on campus. Age 21: I graduated college early (despite going in with only three credits from an AP Euro class) with my finance degree and debt-free. I paid my student loans off by working and using my scholarships. Age 26: Here I am now, with a multi-six-figure portfolio, hoping to share my knowledge with others out there who don’t want to end up like the majority of Americans when it comes to money. I’m not trying to brag. Instead, I am trying to show you that I grew up as an ordinary kid with middle-class parents and am now (as cringe as it sounds to say) in the top 1% of income and assets for my age group. While I worked very hard, I can truthfully say that what it took was a simple formula: Spend less money than I make and invest the rest. I know not everyone reading this was fortunate to grow up even middle-class, but you are capable of achieving wealth no matter how poor your family was. If they aren't sure how to help you, I am. If they think it's impossible, I'm here saying; I BELIEVE IN YOU. The stock market is the top tool for building wealth in America. Regardless of whether you're ahead of or behind me, I want to share what I've learned because I hate seeing people struggle. People in the United States, supposedly the greatest country on Earth and one of the wealthiest ones, are having panic attacks, depression, and significant health issues due to financial problems. Financial stress is exceptionally high and will only grow as more jobs are lost to automation. Don’t be like them. Remember, it’s this simple: Spend less than you make and invest the rest. You'll be standing on a mountain of money someday, and you'll have this book to thank for it. Whether you’re 14 or 24, you won’t regret this read. Chapter 1: Two Ideas That Will Change How You Look at Money Forever There’s a famous saying that goes something like this. "Stop working for your money; make your money work for YOU!" But what does that mean? How does money work for you? Let me explain. Working for your money: When you work a job, you are trading your time for money. Whether you’re a wall street banker or a prostitute on the corner, every person who has a job is doing the same thing: Trading their time for money. They give up a portion of their time (usually 8 hours per day) and get a paycheck (money) in return for it. Pretty simple. Everyone needs a job at some point. A job means you are working for your money. But what happens when you stop putting in your time? If you don’t clock in at the grocery store for your shift? If you quit your job at the bank? What happens? Your income disappears. Chipotle isn’t going to pay you for wrapping burritos if you didn’t show up and wrap any burritos, right? Working is merely trading time for money. If you don’t put any time in, you don’t get any money back. When you work at a job, you are working for your money. If you stop working, you stop getting paid. Everyone has to do this at the start of their careers, but if you’re wise with your money (spend less than you make & invest the rest), you won't have to spend 40-60 years doing it. To avoid an entire career of working for your money, you have to simultaneously work a job (or own a business) while investing that money and letting it work for you. How Can I Make My Money Work for Me? Investing is the best way to make your money work for you. When you put money into an investment, it starts to work for you. Whether you're napping, working, or hiking Mount Everest, that money is always working. It's working while you're not. Beautiful, right? The real beauty is how simple it is. Let's say you save up $500 and invest it into the stock market. That investment will grow into more money year after year but won't require any time from you. Yes, you had to work for that initial $500, but once it's invested, you can sit back and watch it keep working and bring in real income for you. Investments work for you. Why is this important? The goal of everyone in this country is to retire someday. Whether you work in a coal mine or on Wall Street or coach the San Antonio Spurs, everyone wants to one day retire and STOP working. This means their income from their job will stop coming because they stopped working. If they have no money saved up, they will have $0 coming in per month. Sidebar: Forget about Social Security money for the time being – it's not enough to live on or get by without other forms of income. Plus, this is retirement we're talking about: You're supposed to have fun, NOT just get by! You don't want to be struggling – you want to live your best life and travel the world or take your grandkids to Disney. That’s why you need to invest. Save up money, invest it in the stock market and let it work for you. Not only will it grow over time, but it will also work around the clock for you so that you can someday stop working and retire. Listen to me now: You will only retire someday IF you invest in the stock market. There is no other way. But, on the other hand, if you don't invest, you will work until you die or your kids take care of you. Have you ever been to the grocery store and seen an older person bagging groceries and looking tired, exhausted, and miserable? I have. I have worked with them and talked to them. They are some of the saddest people I've ever encountered. The reason they're still working, despite being old as fuck and often crippled, is because they have to. Why? Three reasons. 1. They never invested. 2. They didn’t invest enough. 3. They made poor investment choices. Each reason means that they now must work FOR their money. They must trade their time in exchange for a paycheck. Either way, they’ll be working until the day they die, and it's terrible to see. The only thing worse is to be that person. So, invest in the stock market while you're young, and you'll be amazed that you'll be able to retire while you're still young enough to play basketball with your kids without breaking a hip. Invest, and let your money work for you so that you don’t have to spend your whole life working. Remember, early retirement IS possible. It just takes a bit of sacrifice. But fuck, I know it will be worth it! Imagine being 36 and retired. That shit sounds crazy, but it IS possible. I’ll show you how. Just keep reading. Financial success equation: The most straightforward formula to achieve financial success (which will allow you to retire early) is as follows: Spend less than you make and invest the rest. Please keep telling this to yourself over and over. Say it 1,000 times if you have to. It is the most straightforward equation globally, but most of us don't follow it. We're too busy spending money on dumb shit that we fuck ourselves over in the long run. Buying air pods for $180 right now might seem incredible, but if you put that money in a basic stock and let it sit until you retire, it would be worth almost $7,000. That's cooler than AirPods, my friend. Spend < Earn. Invest what's leftover into stocks. Or, look at it this way: Income – expenses = x X should NEVER be negative (unless you’re in college) X should always be invested There are MILLIONS of finance and investment strategies, but every single one boils down to this one equation. The only way to be financially successful and retire is to spend less than you earn and invest the rest. It doesn’t matter if you make $50,000 a year or $5 million a year. But, if you don't follow it, you will NEVER have money to save/invest, and you will NEVER retire. Some of the highest-paid athletes & celebrities (Mike Tyson, Allen Iverson, Antoine Walker, Michael Jackson, Nicholas Cage, and more) have earned hundreds of millions of dollars but still went completely broke or declared bankruptcy. Despite having millions of dollars, they spent it ALL and left nothing to invest. It blows my mind that someone can make millions of dollars and still end up broke, but it's unfortunately quite common in entertainment and sports. These people perfected their craft but never learned how to save and invest. They did not follow my equation: Spend less than you make and invest the rest. You do not need to make $1 million a year to become a millionaire. You don’t even need to make $100,000 a year. All you have to do is… SPEND LESS THAN YOU EARN AND INVEST THE REST. Investing $5,000 per year from 25 to 65 will turn into more than well-over $1.3 million (pre-tax) at a relatively cautious 8% return. You don't need to make $100k or $1 million a year to do this. You could earn $60,000 a year and do this. Heck, you could probably do this on much less. Please understand… Earning much money does not make you wealthy; it makes you temporarily rich. It’s not until you start investing some of it into stocks and secure your financial future that you become wealthy. I think many of you reading this believe you need to make $100,000 or more a year to be wealthy. That's genuinely not the case. Many doctors, lawyers, professors, and more highly paid professionals to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year who experience financial stress because they do not live below their means. They buy expensive cars, houses, vacations, and before they know it, they've spent everything they've earned AND more! I lived near an expensive gated neighborhood, and I remember going over to the houses to hang out with my friends when I was very young. The homes were beautiful, but there was hardly any furniture, and the cupboards were often empty. These people were so obsessed with buying THE MOST EXPENSIVE house they could get their hands on that they didn't leave room in their budget for enough furniture or food. That's what happens when you're obsessed with image. You might achieve a cool or lavish (fancy, luxurious) appearance and impress a few people, but you very well might feel financial stress and anxiety to have that. So it's not worth it! Follow my equation and always live on less money than you earn and invest the excess amount into the stock market. That's all it takes to achieve financial peace in the short term and millionaire status over the medium term. Remember – You are capable of financial freedom. You are capable of early retirement. Spend less than you make and invest the rest, and you'll likely achieve both. Isn’t it Too Soon to Worry About Getting Old and Retiring? Why should you care about something so far off in the future? Well, other than just wanting to be a financially responsible member of society, there's the hard truth we cannot ignore: Human lifespans continue to increase by approximately three years every generation, which means you will likely grow old. The time is coming, so the question isn’t so much, “Why should I care?” but “Will I be prepared?” Chapter 2: You’re Making Money, Now What are You Gonna Do With It? According to Google, personal finance is defined as, "the management of money and financial decisions for a person or family including budgeting, investments, retirement planning, and investments." Simply put, personal finance is what you do with the money you earn. It doesn’t matter if you’re 14 years old and makes $100 a week running the cash register at Burger King like I used to, or a mega-millionaire who spends money living on a yacht and investing in the stock market. Both of these people earn money and have to decide what they will do with it. Whether you're 14 or 44, the most critical piece of financial advice I can give to you is to live below your means. Your means is the amount of money you can afford to spend over a given time. If you live below your means, it means you’re spending less money than you make in a month. If you’re living above your means, it means that you’re spending more than you make in a month. This happens when consumers (what you are when you buy something) get credit cards and loans and start spending money they don’t have. NEVER spend money that you don’t have EXCEPT when paying for college or purchasing a home. Both of those are INVESTMENTS, so it’s a great financial move (as long as you get a good degree). The majority of Americans live above their means. They spend all of the money they make and then some more. It’s hard to see on the outside, but it makes sense when you think about it. Drive through a nice neighborhood sometime. You'll see a lot of beautiful houses and fancy cars and think, "Wow, it must be nice to be rich. I bet their lives are better/happier than mine." But take a second and start to think about things. A lot of these people are actually in extreme debt to have these nice possessions and pay for all of their other luxuries and needs. They might have a beautiful house, but it might cost so much that it leaves no money left over for savings or investments. Worse, they might be spending money that they DON'T have by using credit cards to pay for things and put themselves in the negative. I'll always urge people to consider this point: The people who look the richest on the outside often are not truly the richest. Example: I love the show Parks and Recreation. It’s hysterical (maybe, dare I say it, better than The Office). Two characters that are incredibly different when it comes to money are Tom Haverford and Ron Swanson. Tom Haverford has expensive clothes, eats fancy food, and spends lavishly outside. We later find out he's tremendously in debt and bankrupts multiple companies. On the other hand, Ron Swanson might not appear wealthy because he spends frugally. He spent less than $20 on clothes over the past five years and lives in a small cabin in the woods. We find out later on that he is incredibly wealthy. The point is that people who look rich on the outside often make us jealous, but they're incredibly in debt or stressed out about money. True wealth looks more like Ron Swanson – humble, quiet, and not lavish at all. Many people in this country have attained millionaire status who live in modest 2-bedroom homes and don't take more than one vacation a year if they take one at all. They live below their means. They might not have a flashy house or a Mercedes, but they sleep well knowing that they are financially secure and successful. If they lose their job tomorrow, they are still a millionaire. However, if the doctor who spends ALL of his money on his house and car payments loses his job tomorrow, he is not wealthy. He is now broke and will declare bankruptcy if he cannot find another job. If you’re spending all of your monthly income (or more!), you will never retire. It’s that simple. Sure, you might get a social security check, but that won’t be enough to live on. To retire, YOU MUST INVEST. To INVEST, which this book is all about, you MUST live below your means. You cannot spend all of your money each month going out to eat and partying at bars with your friends and expect to invest. You can't use credit cards to pay for vacations to the beach and expect to have money to invest. Most of the time, spend money on your NEEDS, not your WANTS. Of course, you have to reward yourself once in a while, or you'll go crazy, but financial sacrifice is a good thing that will help you achieve early retirement. And some might say, well, as long as I earn much money, I'll be okay. Sure, you might be able to get a high-paying job someday, but what often happens is that people who start earning more money start spending more money. Have you ever gotten a chunk of money that you didn't expect? Chances are you have, and chances are, you spent it on something instead of saving it. That's what most of us do when we get raises at work. We start making more money, so we start spending it. The intelligent thing to do would be to keep our cost of living low and invest that extra money into the stock market to retire early eventually. Bottom line: Let me repeat this: HALF of Americans don't have a penny in their retirement savings accounts. If that scares you, GOOD. It should, and I'm hopeful that you'll read this book and start taking action toward a better financial future. It's easy to read, but acting is more complex. So, whether you're in middle school or middle age, the goal of investing is to be financially secure and eventually retire. To retire, you have to INVEST. If you spend all of your money each month trying to look cool or keep up with your peers when it comes to cool cars, bars, and clothes, you'll be living at your means and never have money left over to invest. If you remember nothing else from this book, remember that most Americans live above their means, and that’s why they’re stressed out and having panic attacks over MONEY. Most Americans live above their means to impress people that don’t matter and end up in a world of debt and stress. Forget that! I'd rather drive a beat-up car for a few years and end up with $50,000 in the stock market by the time I’m 30 than be the guy who has a dope car but leases it and doesn’t even own shit or have a $1 in the market by the time he’s 30. I drive a nice car, sure. But I bought it with cash, and not the kind I won by playing the lottery or getting an inheritance from a rich uncle. Remember, I said I grew up middle-class. I worked at tough jobs like fast food and grocery stores, saved and invested, and was able to enjoy the pride in handing over that hard-earned money to drive off in my very first car…without a loan! I have nice clothes, and people like my outfits, but I never spend more than $7 on a tee-shirt. I don’t go out to eat more than once per week, despite making more than many of my peers combined. I don't go to nightclubs – a movie and pizza with my girl or friends is just as fun these days and costs a fraction of a night out. Why do I live below my means? If I'm making much money, shouldn't I be having FUN? Well, to start. I think I've got my values in order while many don't. I see many people that go broke trying to look rich. That means spending your McDonald's paycheck on a Gucci Belt, to put it candidly. There are many variations of this, and you probably know someone that's really into their image and what others think. This is just a recipe for financial stress. For me, I've done an excellent job of gaining security in myself and who I am, and I don't feel the need to impress others with expensive shit. And because of that, along with some other financial principles, it has made it a lot easier for me to get ahead of my peers and improve my economic well-being. So my money is working for me, and at some point in a few years, I might be able to stop working altogether. Sure, I’ll still be writing or doing something for fun, but the point is that I won’t NEED to make money – my stocks do that for me and will continue to do so in the future as they grow. So I'll be wealthy, but more importantly, I'll have total freedom. Let me be clear: You are capable of becoming wealthy even if you are DIRT POOR right now. You are capable of retiring early. These will not happen overnight, but they are possible over time with diligence and intelligent money management. While it might be tempting to listen to YouTube gurus who claim they have a patented formula and can have you so rich you’ll be driving a Lambo by next year, remember the adage; Slow and steady wins the race. YouTube gurus will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising these expensive-ass courses that act like you can be wealthy by age 20. The reality is that you’re not going to be rich by the time you’re 20. Think about it. Why on Earth are they selling courses and mentorships and giving away their “secrets” for $1000? If I had the secret of getting rich quick by selling shit online, I'd keep it to myself and keep the competition low. And even if they’re giving it away for free, they stand to gain something. If you don’t believe me, look up the term “pump and dump” on Google. You’ll see what I mean. There is no way to get rich quickly. Patience is paramount. I’ve had to learn this less the hard way, and so do most successful people. But you absolutely can become wealthy over the next decade or two by simply living below your means and investing in the top tool for building wealth in America… It’s called the stock market, baby. Getting rich over 15 years isn't as exciting as 15 weeks, but it is much more realistic and almost guaranteed to happen if you simply live below your means and invest wisely. So ask any significant investor out there – DO NOT listen to anyone who says they can make you rich in a year or less or one that tries to show off expensive cars and make it seem as though that is attainable by simply following a few steps. Instead, do things slowly, do things right, live below your means, and in time, get that expensive car without putting yourself in crippling debt. Read on to learn how to make your first steps into investing. Sidebar: Social Security is not a viable retirement plan. Experts say social security funds will run out within 15 years. They'll keep raising the age you start to qualify for social security in the coming years. In the future, you might not be able to touch social security checks until your late 70's. I don't know about you, but I better not be working when I'm fucking 75. Invest now! Chapter 3: How Wealthy Do You Wanna Be, Anyway? Before I start explaining budgets, investing, and taxes to you, it's essential that you understand what financial success looks like to you. It's different for everyone. For some, financial success won’t be achieved until they’re spending their days on their yacht in the Bahamas with models and a multi-million-dollar stock portfolio. To others, it just has to have enough money to pay your bills and not stress out. Since it's different for everyone, there isn't one perfect definition of success. I'll define it for myself, however. Financial success means having enough money after I pay my bills to invest a large amount of my income into stocks and eventually retire early. Additionally, I want never to feel stressed about money. As long as I achieve early retirement and limit financial stress, I will succeed financially. I used to think I wanted to live like Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, but as I’ve gotten older, my priorities have changed and so too have my goals. Think about what is important to you in life and what you want your finances to be like. Do you want to be like me and retire early? If you are reading this book, I sure hope so! To achieve financial success, we must create an economic path with goals to hit. A financial path is a list of different goals you need to hit to get you where you want to go. For example, if your goal is $1 million by the time you're 40, you can set monthly and yearly plans and track your progress towards that number pretty quickly. If your goal is to spend less than you make every month and invest at least $500, that's pretty easy to track, too. A financial goal is a specific step along your financial path. For example, it could be to get your first job, pay off your student loans, or invest a certain percentage of your income each month. Since most of you are in middle school, high school, or college/recent grads, here's a wise goal to start you off: Graduate college on time or early with a degree in a competitive field that pays an average or above-average salary. But, of course, you can also skip college and go to a trade school and start working sooner if you'd like. Either works just fine as long as you make good money and invest some of it. No matter which way you choose, focus on getting a high-paying job, even if it’s not your dream job. Why? Because if you’re smart with your money and invest it, you can retire early and leave it behind and focus on doing WHATEVER YOU WANT all day long until the day you die while your peers will be stuck with their shit jobs much longer. If you want to retire early, it's imperative that you pick a job field that pays above-average wages & salaries. No matter what financial success looks like to you, I guarantee that it will be 100x harder to find it if you pick a major with shitty job prospects (not many jobs available) and low salaries. Majors with shitty job prospects include art, photography, film, theater, philosophy, psychology, and many more. There are barely any jobs available, and the ones available pay shitty wages. A lot of them are unpaid internships that are essentially unpaid labor positions. I went to school with people who studied music, dance, and photography in college. They all share two things in common – massive student loan debt and a job as a bartender. There’s nothing wrong with a bartending job, but you don’t need a $100,000 degree to become one. So, don’t pick a fun major like music or dance and spend $100,000 if its most common job prospect is mixing drinks. Instead of majoring in your passions, pursue a major leading to a career field with high job prospects that are in demand and pay well and then follow your passions at night and on the weekends. These jobs include fields like welding or plumbing (no college degree needed) or business management, healthcare administration, nursing, computer science, and many others (degree required). All of these fields pay well and are in HIGH demand. They might not be what you dreamed about – but they’ll allow you to achieve financial freedom a lot sooner and get you to those dreams in good shape! Get a high-paying job in whatever field seems most interesting to you and live below your means. If you're passionate about something that doesn't have many jobs like writing or photography, pursue that on the side and then do it full-time if you want, once you retire early. For example, if you love to write fiction stories, you don't need a degree to do that. Get a job as a teacher or nurse and then write stories on the side for fun, just like Stephen King (author of It and MANY other best-selling novels) did. Maybe one of your stories will get picked up and turned into the next great movie! Even if it doesn’t, at least you’re still making good money at your day job and investing a lot of it (if you take my advice). Some people might say, “Life is about more than money.” And it is. Life is about doing whatever you want when you want. But you need money to have that freedom. The people who say "Life is about more than money" often have very little freedom of their own, so they get upset with others for having goals that don't seem possible to them. Ignore them! The kid who spent $100,000 on a photography degree will spend most of his days working behind a bar. The kid who got a business degree can retire super early in his thirties and spend the rest of his life taking pictures wherever and wherever the fuck he wants. No boss, no limits to vacation time, just early retirement, money of your own, and all the time in the world. Anyone who justifies a bullshit degree by saying, "Life's about more than just money" is only saying it because they don't and won't ever have any or because they didn't read this book. But you did, so pick your career choice wisely. I'll be sharing a book about navigating college and the career world by Fall 2019. Chapter 4: There’s Always Tomorrow to Start Investing, or is There? Invest NOW! Whether you can afford to put away $5 a week or $500 a month, it doesn't matter. What matters is that the sooner you start investing, the more money you will end up with. Check out this chart below to see how investing while you're young pays off. This chart assumes an 8% annual return, which is highly doable and perhaps even conservative. You can see that even though Bill invested WAY LESS than the others, he ended up with more money by the same age because he started earlier. This is because his profits from each year were reinvested over more years, earning him more cash than the others. This is called compound interest and is the key to financial success in the stock market. Think of compound interest this way: You invest $100 in Facebook stock. The $100 is your base amount and is called your principal investment. Over the next year, it grows at 10% to $110. Boom. You made a $10 profit. Cool, right? Then, over the next year, your investment grows another 10%. Only this time, your principal (starting amount) is $110. So, now you're earning money from not just your starting $100, but your $10 profit, too. Your principal and your previous $10 gain are now making you money. That $110 principal makes 10%, and that's $11. In other words, your profits are now making gains, too. Compound interest is the concept of reinvesting all of your profits, year over year, allowing your money to multiply. Here’s another great way to see the value of compound interest (reinvesting your profits). Would you rather have $10,000 a day for 30 days or 1 penny that is doubled every day for 30 days? $10,000 a day sounds like a lot. A penny seems like a little, but what's important to note is that the $10,000 per day stays the same, while the penny is DOUBLING every day. Day # 1 2 3 4 5 10 15 20 25 30 $10,000 a 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 $300,000 day 1 penny 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.08 0.16 5.12 163.84 5242.88 167,772.16 $5,368,709.12 doubled every day Holy shit, right? That penny turned into $5 million! Much more than the $300,000 from the 10k per day. The lesson demonstrated here is that earning interest (reinvesting what profits you just earned) will allow your investments to multiply. While you won't find any stocks that will double every day, hopefully, you see that investing and taking advantage of reinvesting profits will lead you to significant growth in the stock market over the years. Another lesson here is that even if you start SMALL, you can turn your money into something that will one day be HUGE. So, be like BILL, and invest while you’re young. You might think you can’t afford it, but nothing is more valuable than your financial future. If you had to come up with $5,000 a year in your late 20’s for surgery – you could do it. So, you can do this, too. It’s just a matter of how bad you want it. Chapter 5: What is the Stock Market, and Why Should You Care? The stock market might seem complicated, but it doesn't have to be. But, first, you should understand a few critical things about the stock market. What does it mean to buy stock in a company? Buying stock in a company means you’re able to effectively buy a tiny, tiny piece of ownership in that business. For $50, you can own a small piece (or a few pieces) of Ford or Coca-Cola. Pretty cool, right? All of these tiny pieces of the company are called shares, and if you put them all together, they will equal the entire company's value. If you multiply the total number of shares x the price per share, you will get the entire company's value. This value of all the company's shares is called the market cap. To purchase a share, you have to pay a specific price for it. Every stock has a different price, and it moves up and down throughout the day and week. This is called the share price. When you buy a share of a company (even if you just buy one share of Coca-Cola), you are now considered a shareholder. When the share price goes up, shareholders have made a gain or profit. When it goes down, shareholders have experienced a loss. From this point forward, when you're talking about buying stock in a company, think about shares. When you purchase, the first thing you'll want to see is how much money it costs per share (per piece of stock). If you have $100 and want to invest ALL of it in Coca-Cola, and Coca-Cola is $100 per share, then you can buy one share. Owning one share of Coca-Cola for $100 is just as valuable as ten shares of Ford for $10 per share. Either way, you have invested $100. IMPORTANT: A company's stock price is primarily meaningless compared to another company's stock price. If Amazon's stock price is $1600 per share and Apple's stock price is $175 per share, you might think Amazon is the more significant or better company. That is not the case. Apple is the more prominent company. It recently hit a $3 trillion market cap, meaning the company is worth that much money altogether. Pretty insane. But anyway… Amazon's stock price of $1600 is almost ten times bigger than Apple's share price, yet Apple is the larger company in terms of what the company is worth. This worth is called it’s market cap. A company’s stock price should only be compared to itself over time. If Amazon was $1500 last year and is up to $1700 this year, that’s great. If it’s fallen to $1300 this year, that means it has performed poorly. One reason that stocks go up and down is their earnings. Earnings, simply put, are the profits a company makes. If Coca-Cola had earnings of $500 million for the year, that essentially means they had a $500 million profit. A far more valuable metric is Earnings per Share, which is often shortened to EPS. Earnings per Share is the total earnings divided by the number of shares. Again, it's pretty simple to formulate. EPS is released four times per year on what is known as a quarterly basis. Every quarter, analysts from Wall Street, the most extensive stock trading center globally, put out estimates for what each company will post for EPS and other metrics. If the company does better than the estimates, the stock price will often go up. If they do worse, they often go down. Doing better than estimates is known as a beat, while doing worse is known as a miss. Going back to our Amazon vs. Apple comparison, If you want to find out which stock has more value, you can look at its multiple. A multiple is a way of looking at the profits the company is making and comparing that profit to the company's total value. Here's how a multiple is calculated. Stock XYZ share price: $10 Stock XYZ earnings per share: $2 Stock XYZ multiple: $10/$2 = 5 The higher the multiple, the higher the value of a company relative to its profit. Multiples aren't worth much thought, in my opinion, as they don't usually indicate whether or not a stock will perform well. For example, some companies like Amazon have high stock prices despite losing money for most of their existence. They still perform highly. These are growth stocks, and they will always have a bit more risk but significantly more reward opportunities because they are growing so fast. These are the kind of stocks that I urge young investors to consider. So load up on stocks like Facebook, Amazon, and Spotify, and watch yourself retire before 40. When is the right time to buy a stock? Every investor knows the saying, “Buy low, sell high." They mean that you should be buying stocks when they are cheap (low) and then selling them when they’ve gone up (high). That way, you make a profit. Example: Buy Amazon at a low price ($1300) and sell when it's at a high price ($1500). In this case, you'd make a $200 profit per share. This is good advice! Unfortunately, many stock traders do the opposite. They get excited when they see XYZ stock getting high, so they buy it at a peak and hope it'll go even higher. Then, it starts to go down, and they panic, so they sell it out of fear. Eventually, it goes back up, and the process repeats itself. They buy high and sell low, never getting ahead. Amazon example: Amazon stock is on a 15% run and has gone all the way from $1300 to $1600. Investors get excited and dive in. Shortly after, it fell back down to $1300, and investors panicked, worried that it might drop even lower. They sell for a loss. Then, a few weeks later, the stock is back up to $1500. Within a year, it might be at $1800. I often see this and have experienced it myself in my early trading days. Investors who try to ride the waves and then jump off at the top will struggle to find success. Instead of worrying about if a stock is high or low right now and trying to determine the perfect time to buy it, I urge people to consider a different question: Will it be high or low in 5 - 10 years? That’s the way most investors who are successful are thinking. They aren’t buying and selling new stocks every day. Instead, they're investing in good companies that have a bright future like Facebook, Amazon, Spotify, and Apple. Everyone knows they should do this, but few do. First, you must understand that buying low or high doesn't matter if you're a good investor. A good investor is betting on ten years from now, NOT 10 minutes from now. Example: If I told you Facebook would be worth $1000 a share in 10 years, would you care whether or not you bought it right now at $150 or $200? You wouldn’t care. You’ll just be glad you got it before it was $1000 a share! Chapter 6: What Companies are Worth Investing in? I’m a firm believer in this quote from Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world and perhaps the greatest investor of all time. He once told a group of investors, “If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes.” He means to only invest in companies you think will be very successful in 10 years when he says this. DO NOT try to get rich overnight by buying stocks you've never heard of and hope they go up 50% in the next week. I know some of you will try, and I guarantee none of you will succeed in the long run. You might get lucky on a few hot weed or technology stocks, but eventually, that luck runs out. I've seen people lose thousands of dollars in minutes because they’re essentially GAMBLING on stocks they’ve never even heard of. Don’t do that. Pick stocks that you see a BRIGHT future in, that you believe to have good leaders, and that you KNOW you will still be using ten years from now. For example, I think Mark Zuckerberg (despite his privacy flaws and awkward personality) is one of the most brilliant business leaders of our time. He is ruthless – he kicked his own best friend out of the company, threatened to wipe out Snapchat, and was a billionaire at 22. He has an excellent vision – He bought Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion. It is now worth more than $200 billion just seven years later. He will stop at nothing – He copied Snapchat's stories, and now Instagram Stories has waaaaay more users than Snapchat does on its entire app! In short, I believe in Zuck wholeheartedly, even if I wouldn't want to be friends with the guy. So, I think investing in him is wise, which is why I tell everyone I know that buying Facebook shares is the most brilliant move you can make right now. You're not just investing in Facebook.com; you're investing in all of the businesses it owns and will buy in the future. It currently owns WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus, and more. It's buying companies at record speed. AND its advertising business is growing more quickly than Google's. So, it's a good buy in my eyes, but do your research before you decide. Another great company I invest in is Spotify. I don't care if it's down a bit in 2018/9. I care about where it will be in 10 years. Spotify is the best music streaming platform. I currently pay $9.99 a month for premium Spotify, and I'd gladly pay double (as would most people). Unfortunately, it's killing the game. It has hundreds of millions of users who aren't paying but will be soon. Just wait until the complete death of radio music in the coming years. Other great companies I love are Amazon and Apple. I see myself using both of these companies 10, 20, and even 30 years from now, so I think they're an excellent investment. Chapter 7: Which App or Website Should I Trade With, and What is a Broker? When I was your age, I had to pay $7 to buy a stock position and $7 to sell a stock position. If I was investing $100, you can see this would eat into my profits big time. You guys have the luxury and benefit that most trading platforms no longer charge fees to buy and sell stocks. Robinhood was the first platform to offer free stock trading, but many others have followed. My favorite is TD Ameritrade, and I also recently started using Ally self-directed investing. In addition, Chase Bank and many other large banks have free stock trading offerings. Chase Bank's is called You Invest, and the benefit is that the money is already in your account; all you've got to do is fill out an application saying that you want to start buying stocks through You Invest. All of these platforms & sites are known as brokers. Brokers are the sites/apps that facilitate investors buying and selling (exchanging) shares. So if someone says, "Who's your stockbroker?" you can answer them with whatever site/app you decide to trade with. Mine would be Ally, TD, and Robinhood. Under 18: If you’re under 18, you must get your parent’s consent before you can officially invest. This is called a custodial account. It doesn't matter if they understand the stock market or not; all you need is their signature and a bit of their time once in a while. They will likely be happy to hear that you want to start investing, so good for you. Maybe they’ll even give you some starter cash! Over 18: If you're over 18, you're good to go and can buy stocks on your own without your parents. Good stuff! Use whichever you like, but I find TD to be the best. Whom you trade with really isn't that important; it's what you're trading that you want to be focused on. Check them both out. It’s free to make an account on each, and they both even offer free practice trading accounts. Use Yahoo or Google Finance in combination with Robinhood or TD. Or, you can use WeBull as well. It’s similar to RobinHood but has more trading hours. In all honesty, Robinhood is the most user-friendly, but WeBull has the best offerings, in my opinion. So, use the former (Yahoo/Google) to do your research and then go and buy stocks (for FREE) with your broker. You might be wondering, “How do they make money then?” They have premium plans and other ways of making money. First, they allow free stock trading without limits to get millions of users, making their money on premium plans and other methods. Sidebar: Robinhood does not allow short-selling, which is essentially the opposite of what I want you guys to do. It involves borrowing and selling stocks, and when they go down, you make money. The problem is that this is highly risky and can cause some idiotic investors to end up bankrupt because they owe their trading website so much money. A stock can only lose 100% of its value. It can’t go negative. But a stock can make 200%, 300%, or any percent. So, if you short a stock and it goes up 200%, you lost all of your money and now owe your trading website the same amount. In other words, I would never personally short a risky stock because you could lose your fucking pants. For example, people shorted Tesla when it was at $800. Then, it went to $2000. If they held that entire run, they'd not only lose their total original investment. They'd end up owing the brokerage (TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, etc.) money. If you followed the GameStop (GME) stock saga, you saw hedge funds go bankrupt in a matter of weeks because they were short on GameStop, and the stock started rallying like crazy. This is called a short squeeze, and it happens when people begin rapidly buying, and the short sellers (people betting the stock will go down) all have to get out of their positions (cover) quickly. Chapter 8: Spread the Wealth: Why Diversifying is the Only Way to Go Few practices are as crucial for being a successful investor as diversifying. Diversification means to have a variety of something. Have you ever heard the saying, "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket"? This is it. Let’s use a real-world example here to explain why diversifying is essential. Let's say you want to go to college. Would your best move be to spend all of your time studying and doing nothing else? Sure, you might have the highest grades in school, but you weren't involved in sports, clubs, social activities, volunteer work, or anything else. Colleges want to see diverse applicants. They want to see someone who spends their time in various ways while still being successful in the classroom. Here’s another example. When it comes time to apply for college, would you want to apply to just one college, or 10, if you could afford it? I’d say 10. You have better odds of being accepted into college if you apply to 10 than if you apply to just 1. The same goes for investing. You might love Facebook stock, but you can't put all of your eggs in it. It could someday disappear! That likely won't happen, but it does have a bad year here or there. Billion-dollar companies like Blockbuster and Toys R Us have shown us that they can be riding high one year and worth ZERO just a few years later. We must put our money across many stocks to have the highest chance of making money every year to be successful. If we diversify across many quality stocks (not penny stocks or stocks you’ve never heard of), it doesn't matter if one of them loses money. The others will likely make money, which will be higher than what was lost on the one or two bad ones. Here's a crazy story for you. Ask your parents about Enron or Google it. Enron was a multi-billion-dollar company that every financial analyst trusted in the country. The entire company eventually became fraudulent because they were lying and making up numbers. Some employees at Enron had put their total life savings into the company, hoping to get rich. They did NOT diversify. Because of that, they ended up seeing their investments that were once worth hundreds of thousands of dollars being sold for pennies on the dollar. They’d lost almost everything. It’s pretty sad, but it’s a great lesson in the importance of diversification. NO COMPANY IS IMMORTAL. There is no better way to diversify than to buy something called an index fund, which I’ll explain in the next chapter. The good news? It’s often a FREE and highly effective strategy in investing. The bad news? It's boring! But in the world of investments, boring is often a good thing. So read on to learn what index funds are and why you should care. Chapter 9: Save the Excitement for Parties, Choose Boring When it Comes to Index Funds An index fund is probably your best friend if you don't want to take on much risk. Index funds are groups of many stocks put together, allowing you to buy a single share. For example, an index fund might contain several large, medium, and small companies put together, and you could buy one share. Let's make up an example where I create an index fund. I'll name my index fund BYZ 500. In it, I'll put Coca-Cola, Facebook, Google, Proctor and Gamble, Bank of America, and several others. If you buy a share of BYZ 500, you're essentially buying a small piece of all of those shares in ONE. One share represents all of those companies, so it is a very diversified way of investing your money without placing it into many stocks. Index funds are crafted carefully by intelligent people with low-risk tolerance. Buying index funds is BORING but SAFE and almost a sure bet to make money. Your return won't be huge, but it will be stable over many years. I suggest everyone at least do some research on these. If you're young, have some fun and skip the boring funds. Trading stocks will teach you a lot if you want to learn how the market works, especially if you encounter some losses. Learn the hard lessons of the market and learn to RESPECT the market and your money. As you get older, I'd suggest steadily putting more into safe stocks that you know you'll be using in 10 years and also put some away into index funds. In general, as you get older, your risk tolerance will go down. Losing half of your money when you're 14 or 24 doesn't matter much because you probably don't have much to lose, and you have your entire career to make it back. But if you’re 80 and retired, losing half of your money means you might have to get a job bagging groceries because you don’t have enough in your retirement account to live on. I’ve seen it firsthand when I worked at numerous grocery stores, and it sucks to see that. So don't be 80 and still working – diversify through index funds and other tools as you get older. Sidebar: In 2008, the world was hit with an economic crisis called The Great Recession. In just a few months, the stock markets had crashed and lost almost half of their value. Many older people panicked and sold when it was down because they worried that it might go down even further. So, of course, they sold everything at a LOSS. But within a few short months of the crash, most of the stock market rebounded and came back up! Unfortunately, they missed out on the rebound (when the stock market bounced back after going down) and eventual recovery and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars as they sold for a loss. This is another reason to never sell in a panic. WAIT out the storm, and you'll never lose your money. If you hold various good stocks, they'll always come back. Chapter 10: Watch out for Get-Rich-Quick schemes As I wrote the first draft of this (back in 2019), Game of Thrones’ final season is a few weeks away. If I were to Google “Why Jon Snow Will Win Game of Thrones," I'd find hundreds or thousands of articles with evidence suggesting he will win. They're almost sure of it. If I were to Google "Why Jon Snow Will Not Win Game of Thrones," I'd find hundreds or thousands of articles with evidence suggesting that he will lose. They're almost sure of it. Despite both sides having good arguments, ultimately, no one knows who will win except the people who run the show. The same thing goes for the stock market. If you go online and search, you'll find millions of opinions, many of which are well-thought-out and seem pretty logical, about various stocks and the directions they'll head. While people are right once in a while, they're wrong just as much. No one knows which way a stock will go except for a few people. They might seem experienced or intelligent or convincing, but in truth, you are just about as likely to know if a stock will go up or down as they are. My point? Block out the noise and go with your gut. All you can do is conduct your research and trust your gut. For instance, my gut tells me that I'll still be using Spotify in 10 years. I bet my girlfriend will be, too. However, many people aren't using it yet. So guess what? If we're using it, and eventually they discover it, too, it'll keep going up. Invest in companies that you see a future in because no one knows which way a stock will go. Be wary of companies you've never heard of. If you're interested in them, do a ton of research first and try out their products yourself. While getting rich slowly isn’t super exciting, it is far more likely to be successful than your attempts will be at getting rich quickly. Someday, you’ll be happy you sacrificed and made money moves while you were young. Chapter 11: Why Being a Broke College Student is the Perfect Time to Invest I was a college student not long ago, and I remember the grind. I was often doing 18-credit semesters while working a job part-time. Then, over the summers, I'd take classes and work full- time. It's an excellent investment in your future, but it's a struggle for sure. And even worse, it's pretty expensive. If you’re like the millions of students per year that don’t have a full scholarship and have to pay extremely high tuition, you might be thinking that you should hold off investing until you graduate. Wrong. I will tell you this – there will never be a perfect time to start investing. If you wait until after graduation, you'll make excuses that you should wait until your loans are paid off. If you wait until your loans are gone, you'll make excuses that you should buy pay off your car first or wait until you move out of your parents' house. The perfect time to start investing is NOW. It has never been cheaper or easier to invest small amounts of money. Just five years ago, it was virtually impossible to get started in the stock market with less than $1,000. Now, countless free apps will help, especially if you're a student. While there are many reasons to invest now, the key reason is that you should try to make your mistakes and learn your hard lessons while you’re broke. If you lose half of your $500 investment because you bought high and sold low by day-trading, that sucks. But it’s not the end of the world. You lose more than that on a weekend of partying with the boys. However, if you wait until you’re in your thirties and start playing with $10,000 and make that same mistake of losing half, you’re looking at a $5,000 loss. That’s devastating. And I’ve seen it happen to people. Make your mistakes while you are young. Then, make your mistakes while you are broke. Then, once your degree is completed and you start making more money, you can get involved as an experienced investor and limit your risks since you have so much knowledge built up from earlier. Let's look at my college years as an example. Despite knowing the risks of day trading stocks, I did so anyway, and my greed led to extreme highs and lows. One day, I made $1500 on Domino's pizza stock. I was so excited that I went out and ordered one of their pizzas for my friend and me. The next day, I sold the stock and put EVERYTHING (no diversifying for me) into Sketcher's stock. They were about to announce their earnings, and I figured I would take a gamble. The earnings disappointed, and within seconds I had lost the $1500 profit from the day before and then some. It was pretty sad. I have a lot of other stories that involve me eating junk food and staring at my laptop screen in excitement or despair. Eventually, I learned my lesson and realized I should stop buying stocks in companies I didn't believe in. So what makes Dominos or Sketchers so great? The competition is staggering. The markets are saturated. There aren't any unique value props with those products. I started investing in companies of the future. Companies that I could see myself using for decades to come. These paid off, and while there wasn't the same rush or high with these stocks, the returns have, and they have been quite nice. So, if you're in college, I urge you to start experimenting in the stock market. Start with $50. That's plenty. Your student loans are priority #1. The majority of the cash you have to spare beyond food should be spent on paying tuition or paying off loans you've taken out. If you pay off loans before the interest starts accumulating, you will automatically put yourself ahead of most college graduates in this country. Just because you have four years and a 6-month grace period before interest kicks in does not mean you should wait that long to start paying. Nevertheless, it won't hurt to take $50 a month from your beer or party fund to mess around in the stock market. Fuck around, make some mistakes, read some books and start to see what companies you think will be around for a thousand years. Then, invest in those companies, not Dominos. Sidebar: I can tell you some of the most exciting Friday nights were spent with my friend Matt in his apartment, eating pizza and playing 2K while talking about stocks and looking at their charts and graphs between games. These were cheap nights, and it felt good to be making money moves. So find a friend interested in money, or maybe even your girlfriend or boyfriend, and start on your path towards becoming wealthy. An old saying goes, "The more you think about something, the more likely it is to happen." So if you think and talk about becoming wealthy, it's more likely to happen. Not on its own, but because you'll find like-minded people and helpful information and opportunities leading you toward it. Chapter 12: Apps Aren’t Just for Food & Music: They Can Help You Get Rich If you're in high school or especially college, I understand money isn't exactly flowing like water at Niagara Falls. But, that's not an excuse to hold off on investing in the stock market. Whatever money you can find to invest, find it and invest it now. You'll appreciate that you made your mistakes while you're young and short on cash. It would suck to make your investing mistakes when dealing with tens of thousands of dollars. Let's say you have $50 a week to invest in the stock market as a college student. That's dope! That's honestly incredible for your age. So put that in the stocks or funds you like, and then look to push even harder in ways you won't sweat. One of these ways is a round-up app like Acorns or Stash. A round-up app does just what it implies: It rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and then invests the extra change in an index fund for you. For example, let's say you spend $1.50 on coffee before class. Acorns would round that transaction up to $2 and invest that extra money (50 cents) into an index fund for you. Chances are, if you can spend $1.50, you can spend $2. The extra bit will add up to hundreds of dollars over a year, and you'll be glad you did it. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” So start growing your forest today, no matter how tiny that acorn might be. The best part? Acorns are FREE if you are a student. You need a student email address, and you can pay absolutely zero fees. Once you graduate, they start charging a small fee each month. So it's up to you if you think it's worth it at that point. But in college, take advantage of the fact that it's free, secure and you won't miss that 50 cents. There are other apps aimed at investing small amounts of money for you at a time, but Acorns is the most legit one I've seen. I have friends that have used it for years, and I hate myself for not thinking of it before they did. It's secure and a great way to invest a lot of that spare change you won't even miss into your financial future. Conclusion If you’ve made it this far, congrats! You now know more about investing than 99% of people. The stock market and investing might seem like they’re complicated and just for older people, but thinking that way is why so many older adults will never be able to retire. The stock market is a powerful tool that you can use to your advantage and retire early if you listen to my advice. There are a million strategies for investing, but remember that everyone has an agenda. Anyone telling you they can make you rich in weeks or months is a liar. Even if they've done it themselves – that's called luck, and you can't teach luck. There are a ton of scams out there. I'm telling you several simple lessons and stand to gain very little from writing this book. As it stands now, I'm making quite a lot of money from my other business and my stock portfolio. Remember my one simple rule: Spend less than you earn, and invest the rest. Invest young. This is incredibly important. I learned so much in my first few years trading as a broke college kid that now, as a man with a considerable income, I am an experienced investor despite still being in my early twenties. Imagine if I had waited until I had substantial income, and then I made those same mistakes! I made my mistakes and got as much money into my stock portfolio as I could while I was a college student, and now I'm in the 1% of net worth brackets for my age. But, even if you don't land in the 1%, it doesn't matter. Just investing $50 a month right now will put you on the path toward financial freedom. All you have to do is invest and be patient. Invest in companies you believe in. Don't try to become an overnight millionaire by picking penny stocks. That's worse than gambling. Likewise, don't try to day trade unless you can afford to spend thousands on in-person training and commit your life to it. Even then, more than 90% of day traders fail to earn a profit. Be patient. Warren Buffett also said, "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient." Be the patient man, and you'll become the rich man. Be impatient, and it will never lead to anything good in the stock market or life in general. Thank you. Thank you for reading this and good luck!