If you're a teenager or a parent of a teenager, you've probably wondered
how to start investing as a teen, and that's a really good question.
In my decade of traveling the country speaking to students all over the country, we were able
to inspire 250,000 student leaders and I can tell you this. Very few teenagers
understand the power of starting at their age because we don't give them the freedom to do that.
And in this video, I'm going to give you 2 ways that you can invest if you're a teenager or if
you're a parent a teenager so that we can start raising the financial literacy of our students
so that when they grow up and continue to fill the workforce and start businesses, they understand the
investing game. This is one of the most powerful things we can do for our young people, is teach
them how to take a dollar and multiply it. The more they do that, the more people they can help
and the more they can continue to build a financially free life.
The first thing I would do is start with stocks. Now, you might say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Mike, a real
estate guy saying starting with stocks? Why in the world are you telling us to say invest in stocks
if you're a real estate guy?" Well, I love what the stock market does, specifically from an education
perspective, because when you understand why stocks fall, why they rise, what companies to pick,
what's going on inside companies that make them rise, what's going on inside companies that tend
to make them fail, how does leadership impact this, just that knowledge of loan of navigating what's
happening inside the stock market and learning how the stock market works and the economy
is at play and what happens for the economy and how does buyer perception change the economy,
understanding that as a stock market investor is a really powerful thing to teach a teenager. And yes,
they can learn it. I know a few teenagers that love to dabble in the stock market and they're
investing little amounts of money here and there, but the education is priceless of what they learn
throughout that process. This is also a good way to generate a little bit of cash on a monthly or
bi-monthly or quarterly or yearly basis and you'll generate a little bit of cash on your money and
the idea that they invested something and it grew a little bit is an amazing mind-blowing education
and experience for a student. They don't really see that. No student invests usually. I didn't. I never
invested in something and saw it grow other than the time my dad loaned me $35 to buy a lawnmower in
which I went up and down to every house on our street, asked if I could mow their lawn
and I started my first business. I had to pay that $35 back so you could say that was my first loan
and investment. But I wasn't investing in the stock market. I had no idea how the stocks worked and the
economy was at play and how all that happened. If we can open more students minds to this kind
of thinking, we can really set up a generation of students that understand finances. And financial
literacy is on decline and we need it to be on the rise and we can change that, but we want to start
normalizing teenagers learning about investment and a stock market is a great place to learn that.
So, one of the ways to do that is as a teenager, invest in a few of the stocks on the dividend
aristocrat list. These would be stocks like Coca-Cola and Target, some of these bigger stocks
that tend to have slow increasing values over time. So, it's a good place to invest your money
and see it grow over time. It's a good place to invest 5, 10, $20, $100 and just see it continue to
grow. But this is a great way to use your money as a teenager. Let's say you are mowing lawns or you
are babysitting, you do have a weekend job and you can take that money, put it in the stock market and
you can see your money grow. But you know the most powerful thing about that process? It is teaching
your brain to see money as a means to invest. Nothing can change a financial future like seeing
money as an investment tool rather than simply to cover my expenses, and that is a great way
to train our brains to think correctly from a very young age. Now, mind you, you have to be at least 18
to start investing in stocks but stick around to the end and I'll give you a way around this and
how to navigate this so you can start investing as a teenager. Before I get on to that next tip,
make sure you subscribe to the channel and join our family of other like-minded people that are
achieving financial freedom, especially if you're a teenager, this is a great place to be to understand
money, learn how real estate works and really raise your game so you go to college with a mind that is
way ahead of where your peers are. The 2nd place you can invest is in a low stock mutual
fund. A mutual fund is simply the collection of a bunch of stocks and you're investing
into the fund that invests into the stock market. One of the powerful things about this is because
you're investing into a fund that's investing in many different companies and stocks, you're
not fully dependent on 1 company to grow your money. So, you might be investing into a group of
stocks where 1 isn't doing so hot but the others are really carrying it forward, so this limits your
risk when you invest into a mutual fund like this. I encourage you to do this after you've worked in
the stock market a little bit and understand the process of the stock market. By understanding a
little bit more about how stocks work and what happens with different stocks, you can then move
this over to a mutual fund and understand the kind of fund you're investing in, what kind of stocks
they're buying, you'll have better questions before you pick a fund and you'll be able to
invest at a very high level by learning that stock market rhythm first. The same thing applies here as
it did with investing in stocks, you have to be 18 to invest in a mutual fund. But that shouldn't stop
you, it doesn't have to stop you from investing in both stocks and mutual funds. But here's the way
around this, your parents or if you are the parent of a teenager, can open up a custodial account and
gift money into that account for your teenager to use. Yes, the parent needs to be making the trades
but the teen can learn it all and tell them where they'd like that money placed. They can drive the
process and the parent can just do the clicking. So, you can open up a custodial account as a parent
or if you're a teenager, have your parents open up a custodial account, gift some money into it
and then you can start trading through them into different stocks. You still get the education, you
can still make that money and you can graduate with a vast knowledge of how money works in the
stock market and how you can continue to grow your money even while in high school. Imagine
graduating with a few thousand dollars that you made in the stock market and then understanding
just the more you invest, the more that's going to increase. And then as you get into your 20's,
you can continue to grow your portfolio of investments into your 20's and start to diversify
into real estate and some other investments that will continue to really set you up for your future.
Now, there are three good and trusted places to open up that custodial account. You can go through
E-trade, you can go through a merit trade or you can go through Charles Schwab. All three of those links
are gonna be in the description and you'll be able to click on that, open up your custodial account, or
have your parents do it, gift funds into it and you're ready to roll and you can start learning
the stock market. It's such a powerful thing to know how money works and how businesses work.
Even on college applications, a person who's been trading stocks looks really good to a collegiate
admissions board when they're admitting you into high-level institutions. This shows intuitiveness,
it shows intelligence, it shows the fact that you're a leader and you're learning new things
and pushing forward, this is a really really good differentiator. But also make sure you watch our
video how to invest in your 20's because if you're a teenager, you're approaching being in your 20's or
you may have a brother or sister in their 20's and you can share this information with them and help
them see how to really get investing in their 20's. So, make sure you watch that because as you invest
as a teenager, that's going to be the natural progression, is to set yourself up for your 20's.