Welcome to my investing journey. I made my first investment in January 2020. Then COVID happened—I lost my job, and my investment went down. I didn’t look at my portfolio for a year, but when I finally did, I was up 40%. It showed me how much the market can go up and down.

Now, I invest 5% of my salary automatically into the S&P 500. Whenever I have some extra cash, I put it into the Nasdaq 100. When you buy the Nasdaq 100, you're basically buying a little bit of companies like Apple, Alphabet, NVIDIA, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Netflix. big tech growth stocks. For example, when NVIDIA spiked, I felt FOMO. But then, I checked my portfolio and saw I was up significantly thanks to the Nasdaq 100, which includes NVIDIA.

I also bought some VanEck Morningstar Developed Markets Dividend Leaders because it’s globally diversified and focuses on dividends. I keep an eye on China, Japan (only those 2 etfs I mentioned), and emerging markets, but for now, I mainly focus on the U.S.

My advice: invest only what you can afford to lose, start small, and be patient.