If you are in your twenties, then woohoo. Cheers! You are being backed by TIME.

The most important thing right now is to develop a discipline around investing. Since you are just starting out in your career, I’m thinking there’s not a lot of income right away, but it also means you probably (most likely) don’t have a lot of responsibilities or liabilities either.

So what can you do to ensure that you get started on your investment journey?

One thing I know that holds people back (irrespective of age) is the fact that there are venturing into the unknown. I can understand the fear, and I have suggested in a previous blog that you find an accountability partner. But if that’s something you are not comfortable with, then maybe you can change your perspective a little. Start by reading a little more (hint hint, like my website or if you’re more of a visual learner, then my Instagram… or just reach out to me!) about this and understanding compounding.

A lot of people say this and I believe it as well, invest in yourself. For sure. But be mindful about the difference and the similarities between an investment and an expense. You could think that you’re investing in yourself by taking a course on Coursera, and simply buy the course and forget about it. This gets you nothing. You may even listen to one or two classes but after a while, you just get bored and stop attending the classes all together. Hey. I’ve been there, I’m basically describing myself.

On the other hand, I went on a vacation to meet my sister, and what I thought was an expense, turned out to be an investment. I learned so much about myself in that trip, and tried a whole bunch of new things like cliff jumping, river rafting, whale watching – things I never thought I would do. But the experiences added so much colour to my vacation. It gave me the time to think about the important things in my life and really come up with strategies to grow and improve. It was quite unexpected in the beginning, but the moment I realised I was on this path, I spared no expense.

The key is to realise this early, and admit and accept that this is an investment and that was an expense. There is absolutely NO POINT in lying yourself about either. Don’t tell yourself that splurging one night was an investment when it wasn’t. No one else is keeping count, only you are. And you are doing this to get to know yourself better. There is also nothing wrong with spending a little more one night, but we need to be AWARE of it.

So yeah, invest in yourself for sure. But know the difference.

Apart from gaining the experiences you need in order to grow and become better, the main objective of this post is to get you started on investing in the market.

The reason I brought up the ‘invest in yourself’ segue was because it is often used as an excuse to not invest in the market. They are not tied together. You can better yourself and invest in the market at the same time.

Firstly, think about a number that you will be okay with letting go every month. What is that number? It can be a small number, don’t worry about how big/small this is. Its only an exercise we are doing right now. Is it 500 bucks? It could even be 100 bucks. Okay cool. So that’s the amount you’re going with.

Get your overthinking brain to relax a little, you are only starting out, you’re not some teenage mutant ninja who’s raked up millions. It’s okay that it’s small, that means the risk is also little, but the upside will be good, I promise.

So what is the upside. It’s like this, when you start a routine or you start learning a new thing, you don’t start at an intermediate or advance level. You start where everyone starts. At the very beginning. The only way to go from there is upwards. You will see results, and you will get more interested in investing in yourself as you keep going.

What does investing in the market look like for someone in their twenties? Start with index funds! Go research about what that is. OR come hang out here more often where I will dive a little deeper into what that is and the different avenues you can explore in order to invest your money.