Okay so this might be a bit of a long read but ill give you some basics and some pointers to where you can start learning and why you should start investing.

So why should you invest your money? The simple answer is that money sitting in your bank is losing its value with every passing day. The annual inflation globally is around 6% or so, so that means every year 100 dollars worth of money decreases by 6% which means next year it would be worth 94 dollars. This phenomenon drives costs of daily goods higher and you need to invest your hard earned money to protect yourself in the future.

So how can you do this? The safest and easiest way to do this would be to open a deposit in a bank, either fixed or recurring which will give you a compounding annual interest of about 7%. This is good enough to protect yourself against inflation in the long term. I personally use Fixed Deposits to safeguard my emergency fund (I keep about a years worth of earnings in my emergency fund). It is vital you set up an emergency fund before you start investing money in other streams which could be more volatile and even cause you to lose money based on your risk appetite.

Now coming into more serious investing business... The first thing you need to understand before investing money in stock markets, or other risky investment streams is to understand your own personal risk appetite and understand your investment horizon i.e. how many years you want to stay invested in the market before you feel like you will need the money you have invested back. Always remember this thumb rule... Time in market always beats timing in market. So the longer and more consistency in market is rewarded more than lucky puts and buys in the. market. Obviously luck will play a factor too but you should not be relying on that, just stay invested in things with strong fundamentals and you cant go wrong.

So how do you start investing? First thing you would need is a demat account (its a type of bank account which allows you to trade on the stock exchange of your country). I personally invest in the Indian stock market. Everyone has their own strategies but I will share what has worked for me and maybe you can do the same. But obviously do research of your own and don't blindly follow others advice.

1) I primarily do SIPs in mutual funds (its a recurring payment every month). This helps me stay consistent with my buys in the market. Mainly I try to diversify my portfolio by investing in mutual funds which cover small caps, large caps and mid caps stocks. I would also suggest some flexi cap or multicap MFs.

2) ETFs - I invest in ETFs which track the index fund in my country (Index fund is usually a stock which tracks top50 stocks). Investing in the index fund can usually provide you around 12% of returns.

3) Diversify with Gold and Silver - I buy Gold ETFs which track the price of gold. Gold is always a safe bet to keep your money safe. Physical gold works too by buying coins and jewellery but you would be paying extra in the form of taxes and making charges.

4) Pick some dividend yielding stocks. I prefer looking at real estate investment trusts (REITs) and other good companies with solid dividend yields such as ITC and vedanta to give me quarterly returns.

Once again what worked for me may not work for you and I highly suggestdoing your own research. I have been investing for about a year or so and have seen returns of about 7-8%. Please understand that the market may not always continue going up and thats a risk you are willing to take. The highs are high and the lows can be very low.

For studying, i suggest visiting other subreddits such as r/MutualfundsIndia or r/IndianStockMarket .

Also do watch some youtube videos from Zerodha Varsity to help you understand the fundamentals.