Originally Posted by beechbum

I guess I'll chime in. You make it sound as if you don't have any money now. It is hard to invest when you don't have anything to invest. With that being said, you need to take some part of each paycheck and invest it in your 401k (if there is a company match) or a Roth IRA (considering your income is low). Diversify. Invest consistently through good markets and bad markets. Take emotion out of your decisions and don't follow the news reports about what is the next hot stock or that you should sell all your equities and buy gold. As you get pay raises, add to your investments. Invest for the long term. Never buy a complete position at a single time. Invest over a period of time. Accept the fact that you will never buy anything at its lowest point, and you will never sell anything at it highest point.

If you can't afford to invest, you are living outside of your means. If you feel that you are living within your means, but still can't afford to invest, that is just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Hopefully soon you can afford to invest.

In todays economy, prices are low and a good time to start investing. Will the market continue to fall...probably; but who knows how much. Will it recover? Absolutly! Once again, be patient, stick with quality investments (don't speculate, or try to pick the next hot stock) and invest for the long term, not what you think is going to happen tomorrow or next month.

It helps if you set goals for what you want to accomplish with your investments. Is it retirement? If so, what do you want to do with your retirement? Figure out how much it will cost to accomplish what you want in retirement in todays dollars and then you can get an idea of how much you need to retire with. Then you can get an estimate of how much you need to set back each month. The more you can invest early, the more you will have at retirement because it will compound. Compounding is an amazing concept, and it works well. It has made a lot of people rich! Think of it this way, if you worked your Jr. and Sr. year in high school, invested $100 per week for those 2 years, you would end up a millionaire before turning 65 without ever investing another dollar. That is based on an average return of 7% per year which should be easily achieved with disciplined investing. You can find calculators online that you can determine the "cost of waiting" to start investing at different ages. It will open your eyes.

Hope this helps some.