If you are looking for new investment opportunities or options, check out our recommended investing options available to you.
The Best Online Brokers for Beginners
Next, we are proud to present our top five overall online brokers for 2023:
Best Investing Apps for Beginners
Next, we are proud to present our top five overall best investing apps:
My Millennial Guide ratings are determined by our editorial team. The scoring formulas take into account multiple data points for each financial product and service
Best Stock Broker Promotions
There are several companies out there that will give you free money for signing up when you invest in stocks or are currently offering stock broker promotions:
Top Offer
Top Offer
Top Offer
| Broker | Bonus | Terms | Expiration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acorns | Free $5 Bonus | Sign up and download the app | None |
| Acorns | $75 Bonus | Open Acorns Checking Account, set up Direct Deposit, receive 2 $250+ Deposits | None |
| Ally Invest | $0 Minimum Deposit and No Monthly Fees | $0 trades, $0.50 per contract | None |
| Betterment | Up to 12 Months Managed Free | $500K+ Deposit | None |
| Charles Schwab | Up To $500 | $1k+ Deposit | None |
| Charles Schwab | 500 Commission-Free Trades | $100k+ Deposit | None |
| ChoiceTrade | $5 base rate plus $0.15 per contact | No Minimum initial deposit | None |
| Cobra Trading | Free Platform Demo | Request a Free Platform Demo | None |
| Coinbase | $5 in Bitcoin for signing up and $28 in altcoins learnings | $25 Deposit | None |
| E*Trade | $0 Commissions for online stock, ETF, & options trades | N/A | None |
| Fidelity | $100 Bonus | $25 monthly deposit for 6 months | None |
| Firstrade | Free Stock Referral | Open an account using a referral link | None |
| Firstrade | $200 Transfer fee rebates | Account Transfer of $2,500 or more | None |
| Fundrise | Free Service Sign Up | $500 Minimum | None |
| Future Advisor | Free Service Sign Up | Many services are free to use. Premium service management fee is 0.50% | None |
| Gatsby | $0 Commissions | $10 Deposit | None |
| Groundfloor | $20 Toward First Investment | $10 Deposit | None |
| Just2Trade | $2.50 Per Trade | N/A | None |
| Lightspeed Trading | $10,000 Cash Back | $25K Minimum | None |
| Public | $20 + Up to $500 | Fund w/ $10 for 30 days | None |
| M1 Finance | Up to $3,125 | $10K+ Deposit | None |
| M1 Finance | Up to $2,500 | $100K+ Deposit | None |
| Merrill Edge | Up to $1,000 | $200K+ Deposit | None |
| Merrill Edge | Up to $600 | $200K+ Deposit | None |
| MooMoo | Up to $3,350 | $100 Deposit | None |
| Navy Federal Credit Union | $50 IRA Bonuses | $50 Minimum Deposit | None |
| Personal Capital | $20 Referral bonus | Use the referral invitation link | None |
| Robinhood | Free Share of Stock for New Users (Up to $225) | No Minimum | None |
| SigFig | Up To 10,000 Managed Free | $2,000 Opening Deposit | None |
| SogoTrade | 100 Free Trades & $100 Transfer Fee Reimbursement | $500+ Deposit for free trades. Transfer $10K+ for $100 Reimbursement. | None |
| SoFi Invest | $50 bonus | $1,000 Deposit | None |
| TD Ameritrade | $0 Commissions | N/A | None |
| TD Ameritrade IRA | $0 Commissions | N/A | None |
| TradeStation Crypto | $10 BTC | No Minimum | None |
| TradeUP | Free Stocks & $50 Bonus | $3,000 Deposit and Referral | None |
| UNest | Matching Bonus with $25 initial deposit ($25 bonus) | $25 Deposit | None |
| Wealthfront | $5,000 Managed Free | Use the referral invitation link | None |
| Webull | Up to $1,600 | $100 Deposit | None |
| Yieldstreet | $50-$500 Bonus | $1K-$10K Deposit | None Listed |
| Zacks Trade | Low Margin Rates | $2,000 Deposit | None |
Investing Vs. Saving: Which Should You Do, When, And How?
Let’s face it. Interest rates on standard savings account are basically zero (less than 1%), so with inflation at 2% the value of your money declines in real terms which means you are actually losing money over the long term by leaving it in your personal savings account.
While it is important to make sure that you have access to cash when needed to pay for unforeseen expenses, you probably don’t want to leave more than 3-6 months of living expenses in your personal savings account at one time. That means that you need to find a way to invest your newly acquired savings.
Hooray for investing!
Life coach, author and investing guru Tony Robbins has stated that the 3 most important investing steps everyone should take are:
- Make use of compounding interest as early as possible
- Diversify your investments
- Automate your investments
When Should You Start Investing?
It’s a common misconception that when people hear about investing they believe that they need “wealth” in order to invest when actually the opposite is true. You don’t need millions of dollars or even tens of thousands of dollars in order to begin investing for your future.
The best time to start investing is when you are just starting out with modest savings. The reason for this is the magic of compound interest. Compound interest is when you earn money on a deposit (a percentage that varies depending on the type of account), and then you earn more interest on that interest from the initial deposit, and then this process keeps continuing for 10, 20 or 30 years until your money has greatly increased in value!
Example of Compound Interest: You invest $1,000 as an initial deposit into an account that pays a 6% interest rate (slightly lower than the average of the stock market), and then you deposit $300/month (About 10% of $50k/year salary). After 10 years you would have $50k, then $141k after 20 years and $307k after 30 years. And this is even without increasing your savings relative to your rising salary!
The best part is that you can start doing this right now with investment options available to the average person.
“SO YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT THERE IS AN ACCOUNT OUT THERE THAT WILL ALLOW ME TO GROW MY MONEY THAT MUCH?”
And my answer to this question is YES.
And the best part is that you don’t have to buy expensive blue-chip stocks (Apple, Amazon, Google, etc.), a life insurance policy or an expensive rental property to generate this extra income.
All you have to do is deposit your extra savings each month and be patient as time is your best friend.
When you only small deposits from your savings each month, over a 10, 20 or 30 year period you can grow your savings into multiple six figures.
How Do I Invest?
The best way to do this is to get into the stock or bond market early in your life and keep your money there over the long term. Some people might think that there are secrets to timing the stock market, or they are worried about recessions or market downturns, but the single most important factor to growing your savings is getting into the market early and keeping your money there over the long term.
A great way this can be done by the average investor is through index funds. An index fund is designed to track a specific group of investments, often stock or bond markets as a whole, and therefore is less dependent on an individual company, which decreases your risk and diversifies your money. So if the U.S. stock market overall experiences 7% growth per year over a 10 year period, then it is likely that an index fund tracking the U.S. stock market would experience the same growth.
Note: Index funds are a specific type of mutual fund, and all mutual funds are NOT the same. More to come on this topic.
What Investment Brokers To Use?
If you are interested in buying index funds, Fidelity or Vanguard is a great option as they have extremely low fees (About 0.05% of profits). Or if you are interested in service which will manage the buying and selling of index funds for you and automate the process, Wealthsimple and Acorns are both great options that only charge low fees. All you do is set up an account, choose your risk tolerance and deposit your funds. Their service will automate the rest!
Recap of Best Online Brokers and Apps
Investing shouldn’t be expensive or complicated as it’s so important to start early in order to maximize the value of compound interest. There are plenty of useful investing guides right here on My Millennial Guide, free to use, and dive more into the topic of how to start investing in the stock market.
Hopefully, you have learned a bit about investing and have gained the confidence to get out there and begin investing for yourself!