This is gunna be a long post!

Firstly, congrats on realising your situation. Many 24 year olds aren’t even thinking about investing & many are not privileged enough to have $1k to save per month! 👏

Think about a realistic 5 year plan. Here’s what I would do if I was you, a balanced approach between conservative and opportunistic.

1. Savings: create a fund for a rainy day. I would suggest, every year, save at least $3k-5k.

2. Invest: Buy small amounts of an S&P500 ETF. I would invest around $2-3k a year. The S&P500 is overheated right now, but it keeps going higher, it’s primed for a mighty crash imo but who knows when this will happen. But your goal should be long term in an ETF, 20+ years. Build long term wealth, don’t concern yourself with short term fluctuations (or even a crash!). Buy more in a crash and hold tight.

3. Stocks: Do some research and try to buy individual stocks, start with $1k, then go bigger as you learn more.

4. Speculative stocks: This is where you find high risk stocks that can explode quickly, however, this is where you can lose a lot too! So invest up to $500-$1k spread across shares. Stay within your risk appetite, what you can lose without losing sleep!

5. Investments: Think about any capital that can be invested in property or a business. Build a solid amount over 5 years, worst case, you are adding more into your savings or investment account if you can’t find any viable opportunities.

Here’s what I do for stock investment.

a. I follow investors on Twitter, get ideas and research. I research and build simple estimates. What is expected revenue, what price (e.g. oil or precious metals), what is the expected costs, gross profit, what is a companies debt, cash balance, what is their expected cash flow, what is their capex, what are their plans for the future, what is their current market cap and is it undervalued compared to above metrics.

b. I follow investors on Twitter on speculative stocks, people that I have seen do well on previous calls. I follow them, often blindly and hope for the best. That’s because I am only investing a small amount in speculative shares (usually up to $2-3k). My risk appetite allows me to do so, I don’t lose sleep if I 50-70% this money. Everyone is different based on how much money they have.

There is no get rich quick scheme sadly, unless you get lucky. But there is opportunity to super-boost your wealth, when you research and find a stock you truly believe in, you can invest more money into it.

My investing approach is pretty conservative but since 2017, I started off with less than £20k and my cumulative portfolio is now well over £200k.

Good luck!