getting started with stocks/shares

Totton

CLAPTON wrote: »

presumably you have at least 100,000 to start with?

Why would you need 100k to start? I started with much less, it is quite easy to scale up as you go along. Much better advice imho is to start as early as you can.

IronWolf

Investing in individual stocks to get a 'passive' income takes a lot of work, with no guarantee of success.

Unless you have a very large lump sum and could live off the dividends from a tracker you are better off improving your job prospects. The stock market is something you need to really enjoy, it isnt an easy way to make money. It takes years of work before you actually know if youre any good or not too.

ttaylor

Some great replies, thanks so much.

I think the wording can affect peoples views on things. Words like privatization make it sound like a few private individuals take all the profits. If it's just allowing anybody to invest in companies so they improve then it doesn't sound so bad.

I am not as sure now about looking into stocks/shares, it sounds a bit of a minefield, and I definitely do not have the money being suggested that is required to make a worthwhile income.

I think my decision going forward is either:
-stick to my low end job and work as many hours as possible so I can buy a second property and gain more rental income, eventually being enough to retire early
-start again with education,[possibly selling my property to fund this and quitting my job which is going nowhere, and invest in myself and have faith that I can find a well paid job, and live a comfortable life without worrying about an income from other peoples rent money

gadgetmind

ttaylor wrote: »

I definitely do not have the money being suggested that is required to make a worthwhile income.

These were the sums required to invest in individual companies without taking on excessive exposure to one single company or sector. If you invest via collectives (unit or investment trusts, or trackers) then the monthly sums can be quite modest but you do need to work hard to keep fees low.

Regards education, selling property and ditching job both sound a bit drastic! Perhaps start by looking deep at what your main weaknesses are because these are the areas where it's easiest to make the most drastic changes.

AlwaysLearnin

Just to clarify, you don't need the above amounts to start. Gadgets £30k was to give you a reasonably diversified portfolio of individual stocks while keeping transaction costs to a reasonable proportion, and I guess Claptons £100k was to give an idea of the amount you could be looking at before any 'notable' income could be seen (4% is an oft quoted guide as to how much you can take out without depleting your pot, so £100k could give approx £4k per year).

You can however start things off with just a few hundred pounds, being careful to ensure your strategy and platform are low cost, but the message is that it will be a long road to being in a position of generating reasonable income from your investments and therefore, unless you had a reasonable lump sum now, a longer term objective.

I just wanted to make sure that you weren't completely put off the idea for ever, as investing certainly has a big place in longer term financial planning, but you need to go in with eyes wide open (via research) and realistic expectations.