Imagine this: you have a million dollar house, a nice Corvette, a nice paying job working for Merrill Lynch and all because you were smart enough to save up enough money to start investing early in your life. I’m going to show you ways to save money without taking away from your everyday living so you can get started investing. It may not be much at first, but all great investors like Warren Buffet had to start somewhere. First of all, start by taking roughly 5 percent of your paycheck each week and just set it aside and put it in either a savings account or money market account at your bank. I recommend savings account for amounts under $1,000 as money market accounts would require $1,000 as a minimum. Another good way is to set aside your tax refunds if you don’t know anything to the ever greedy IRS. But what ever you do, don’t spend money on things you don’t absolutely need, that’s my method of saving. Of course in my case, it helps living with your parents ,of course not everyone does. Earlier I mentioned putting your saved money into either a savings account or a money market account for higher amounts.

A savings account is a place where you can deposit your money for long term, it usually pays interest but not very much at all. You can usually receive monthly or quarterly statements from your bank as to how much you deposited or withdrew and or how much interest was received in your account. The money market account is a little more complex however. The funds in that account are liquid which means that anytime you want to withdrawal, you can do so with out having a penalty. The rates will be higher however with a money market account compared to the savings account. Both of these accounts are insured by the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) up to $100,000. Once you have enough money to invest, here are some tips to getting started. If you don’t feel comfortable investing in securities, such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, you can always start out slow.

One recommendation for starting out is a low risk, but low return investment known as a Certificate of Deposit or CD. A CD is investment offered by banks that pays interest, an institutional CD is usually offered at $100,000 or more. Most individual CD’s start out at $100 and the maturities range from weeks to months to even a few years. The interest rates are set by competitive forces in the rate markets. These are a good solid way to start out, however the rate of return is fairly low, generally the more you have in the CD, the higher about of interest you will receive in return. Remember this is only advice for those who are learning about saving and investing, I will most likely post other articles later about how to invest in certain equities or individual online brokerage or even if you want to have someone else invest for you.