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In my opinion, college students can be great at making investments. The biggest reason for it is that students are constantly learning and are never afraid of making mistakes. While getting a college education, you should also be getting an education in building wealth. For beginning with your investment journey, you do not need to have tons of money, you only need to know how to actually do it.
Following are the simple tips that can help you start investing as a student:
Save more:
At a young age, only a few people make good savings but it is something that can set you high above your peers. Create a budget and keep track of every penny that you spend. As students usually have irregular income, always set aside some of the income in the form of an emergency fund and then split the rest between expenses and investment.
Get your savings automated:
As a student, if you get a regular income then set up an automated money transfer to your savings account. You can also ask your employer to split your direct deposit between checking and saving account. Also, you can use apps to help you save more money automatically and in this way, you will not be required to remember an active work every month.
Get started with stocks:
When you are first starting to invest, starting with stocks will help you understand it better because it is discussed wildly during your educational years. Stocks come with high volatility but offer stronger returns. Being a student, there are no chances of you being retiring soon, therefore, simply park your money and ride out the occasional stock market correction.
Consider house hacking:
This can be your first real estate investment and a way to live for free. With the small amount of saving, you can invest in buying a small multifamily property. You can move in one of the units yourself while renting the rest to others. The rent of your tenants will cover the mortgage while you get to live for free.
Invest in crowd-funding:
If buying a property seems daunting to you then you can invest in crowdfunding websites. The crowd-funding websites provide loans for other real estate investors and you provide funding for those loans.
Peer-to-peer lending websites:
If you are not interested in crowd-funding websites then there is an alternative to it i.e. peer-to-peer lending. It is similar except you make unsecured personal loans as compared to the real estate ones.
Invest in your own project:
You can try out any of the side hustles, to begin with earning more. More income will lead to more saving and more investment. As a student, you will be able to grow it over time and by the time you complete your education, it will be converted into a full-time business.
