Okay.
So one of my favorite past times in the past year has been investing.
I know. I made a video about investing in 2016 on this channel,
and I can't believe I haven't talked about it since then.
I bet none of you guys watched that video.
So I thought I would kind of redo that video and then add,
just new knowledge and experience about investing in stocks and crypto.
Just learning to grow your money and being financially savvy.
Let's start with the basics.
I want to recap why you should consider investing
how you can start investing
when is a good time to start investing.
So, why? Obviously for me, I think it's really fun.
The fact that you can grow money with money.
There's a magical thing called compound interest.
Basically compound interest is the ability to earn interest
on interest, on interest, on interest
to the point where like the growth is really exponential.
And it's a beautiful thing because the younger you are the better it is to start.
I wish I started investing when I was like 18.
I really wish I knew more about it earlier.
I started when I was I think 25 or 26,
but basic idea is the more time you have,
the more you allow your interest to grow exponentially.
So time is really on your side. If you are young,
I don't want to scare any of you guys.
It's never too late to start investing.
The best time to start is now, if you can.
So let's move on to when you should start investing.
Like I mentioned, it's great to start as soon as you can,
because you want to reap the benefits of time
so that you allow your interest to grow.
But I understand not everyone can start early.
Like I definitely couldn't have started earlier, even if I wanted to,
because I didn't have the funds,
but a good way to know when you're ready to start investing is
once you've built up an emergency savings fund of about
three to six months worth of expenses.
So if you spend about like $2,000 a month,
just on your regular life expenses, shopping, groceries, whatever,
then you would save like 2000 times,
three or 2000 times six in your bank account.
I understand that everyone has different circumstances
and obviously we're going through a pandemic still.
So times are tough. I get that.
But I think I'm making this video for those of you who can invest
and would like to learn how to, even if you're not ready right now,
it's good to know what this is, how it works, that it exists.
Because you want to take advantage of it.
The reality is, if you're living in the US because of the pandemic,
the government is pumping money into the system,
so inflation is going to happen.
Your dollar value is decreasing as we speak, sadly.
I wish I learned this concept sooner,
but like you leaving your money in the bank,
your money is going to devalue over time.
That money just sits there. It doesn't really grow.
Maybe it grows like a tiny, tiny bit, but like not really right.
Investing is a way to not only grow your money,
but to just protect yourself from inflation. Because think about it.
If you let your money in the bank,
it just becomes less and less valuable over time.
Versus if you put it in some investments,
regardless of how risky or safe they are,
it's going to have a better chance to grow. And it's just better for you.
You know, I'm all about being financially savvy, having financial freedom.
So I'm here to share that with you guys.
So now that you know why you should invest
and a little bit about when is a good time to start investing,
let's talk about the how.
And this is the part that, you know,
I've learned a lot along the way.
I started investing about five years ago, it's actually four and a half years.
I started after I got my first big paycheck from my YouTube career in 2016.
And I also did a podcast interview with Sugar Mamma
who taught me about investing and how to get into it.
And I was like, okay, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to learn how.
I say this because it's not like anyone taught me how to invest in stocks.
Like my parents didn't teach me this.
I kind of figured it out people were doing this.
And I was like, okay, you know what? I think I'm ready to get into it.
And I had to just like learn on my own.
And of course I have to preface this whole video. I am not an expert.
I'm just sharing what I've learned and my personal experience.
So really do your own research. Take this with a grain of salt.
First of all, let's talk about platforms. There are so many platforms out there.
My personal favorite is Robinhood. I'm not sponsored in this video.
I use Robinhood. I use TD Ameritrade.
My portfolio is kind of split between those two,
but Robinhood is my favorite platform. It's great for beginners.
I recommend that one. When I was just starting.
And if you watch my 2016 video, I started with robo advisors.
Basically it is a robot that does the investment for you.
All you do is put in the money
and it naturally like aggregates and spreads it out for you.
I did that because I didn't trust myself with picking
my own stocks in the beginning.
But over time I learned that it didn't perform as well as the own stocks that
I picked after experience. I just prefer to pick my own stocks now,
but the platform I use for robo advising is called Betterment.
And I still use that, but only for my retirement fund.
So all my stocks are between at Robinhood and TD Ameritrade.
I'll link everything down below.
If you are a beginner, the simplest and relatively safe thing to invest in,
in terms of like the stock market,
are called index funds and specifically the index funds for the
S&P 500, meaning the top 500 companies in the US.
So an index fund just aggregates like the top 500 companies.
I don't know how to explain it. I'm not a professional,
but just, it's mixed into like this one thing that you buy.
And there are multiple different ones, for example, VOO, SPY.
Those are just two examples, but do your own research,
pick your own index fund for the S&P 500. That is like a full-proof strategy.
If you're doing long-term investing.
And I mean, long term like 5 to 10 to 20 years investing that will
guarantee you will make like a consistent return.
This is a strategy that is promoted by Warren Buffett, Tony Robbins.
I mean, just like anyone in finance and investing knows that
this is like the kind of,
what's that word that I'm looking for, the dummy foolproof way to invest.
I want to clarify here that when I say investing,
I'm talking about long term investing because in the long term,
in the big picture, your money will grow. But in the short term,
I'm sure that you know, that the stock market goes up and down, up and down.
So in the short term, it is riskier. At the long term, it is safer.
Another question you might have is: how much money do you need to start investing?
You can start investing with like a hundred dollars, fifty dollars.
I don't think that there are limits on these platforms anymore.
I think you can really start with any amount, which is why I recommend
starting as soon as you can with even just like a small amount,
a small amount that you're not afraid of losing.
And just put it in there and you kind of see it change,
see it go up and down and you'll learn as you go.
There's also a strategy called Dollar Cost Averaging,
which just means buying at like timed intervals.
Meaning like either once a month,
once a week or whatever interval you choose.
And that is a strategy to kind of like average the cost of the stock that
you're buying, because it's going to go up and down, up and down.
You can't really, if you're not a professional,
it's hard to time when things are going to be down
when things are going to be up, so that's what Dollar Cost Averaging is for.
So aside from index funds,
my other recommendation for you when choosing what stocks to buy is to
buy what you believe in. Buy the brands that you use.
Buy what you believe will be the future. What's going to grow in the future?
So this is what's really fun for me because I love spotting trends
and just putting my money in it, knowing that it's going to grow.
So an example is back in 2016, I mentioned, when I started,
I put my money into a robot advisor, letting it choose the stocks for me.
I didn't really like the fact that it bought everything.
Like I couldn't choose what to not buy.
So it bought stocks like gas and oil that I don't personally believe in.
So I made another account on a platform where I got to choose the stocks
that I wanted to buy. So I bought everything that I used.
So when I was choosing what to buy, I was choosing with the mindset of,
okay, I'm a content creator.
I believe that content creating, this industry is only going to grow.
It was 2016 at the time. I was like, it's only going to grow.
So let me like buy the stocks and all the companies related to
a content creators business.
So brands like Apple, Google, Facebook, Sony, Canon, all these camera companies.
Netflix, Tesla, all these like tech,
social media related companies.
And that portfolio did a lot better than the robo advisor did.
So I was like, you know what, I'm just going to do it myself.
Like when I started the Lavendaire shop, I launched it on Shopify.
And so I bought stocks in Shopify.
And these are stocks that have grown a lot, you know, in the past few years.
And it's all about just like buying what you use and what you love
and what you believe will grow.
I can't forget to tell you that the number one rule in investing is to diversify.
Diversify your portfolio.
Meaning don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you're going to invest,
don't invest all your money into one thing.
Spread it out so that you kind of protect yourself a little bit,
because if you invest everything in one thing, if it goes down, you lose a lot.
But if you invest in multiple things that you believe in,
then even if one goes down, like everything else kind of balances it out.
So it's a little bit more safe that way.
So now let's talk about crypto
because I'm sure a lot of you have questions about it.
I am not an expert, but I've been like researching
and learning more about the space. I've been investing in the space.
And it's been really fun because it's a lot more complex and intricate than
investing in stocks because there's so many different platforms.
And you know, there's a lot going on.
Crypto to me is such an interesting space
because if you learn and read about it,
you just know like, this is the future. This is where we're headed.
No doubt about it. We're never going backwards. You know?
So it's funny because things take time.
So I think I learned about it in like 2017.
My brother's in tech.
So he told me about Bitcoin.
I casually invested in it in 2018 when there was like the first craze
and it got super mainstream, obviously,
like it came back down and I lost money, but it's okay. Whatever.
And I started investing in crypto again, end of last year.
So around December. And if you guys look at the charts,
like it's grown so much since December,
I wish I could go back in time to 2020 and invest more.
But you know what?
You can't go back in time. We can only move forwards.
Another fun thing that I want to bring up here.
And some of you watching might think I'm crazy or woo, woo.
But like astrology has influenced me and inspired me
in terms of where to look at for the trends
and what to consider investing in.
So I'm not sure if you guys knew,
but like December 21, 2020 was a very special date in astrology.
It was when Saturn and Jupiter aligned in the sign of Aquarius.
Long story short, Saturn and Jupiter align every,
I don't know, 80 years. And in the past 200 years, it was aligning in earth sign.
So previously, last year Saturn was in Capricorn
and then it moved into Aquarius.
And Capricorn, is an earth sign.
The past 200 years have been in earth signs.
And now everything has started since December to go into air signs.
So earth sign means like material things, real estate,
industrialization, just physical stuff.
Our material world is all earth signs.
And that is the stuff that grew and boomed in the past 200 years. Right?
Land, real estate, capitalism, imperialism, conquering land, acquiring resources.
That is earth sign. Okay.
So now that's the Saturn and Jupiter have met in Aquarius,
an air sign for the first time in 200 years,
it's symbolizes like the trend of the next 200 years.
Everything is going to be an air signs,
meaning things that are intangible,
immaterial, things like intelligence, crypto, the internet.
Obviously we see the internet, everything,
the cloud everything's on. It's only going to keep growing.
AI, intellectual property, things of the mind, things that are intangible.
That is the future.
And I'm sure like talking about it. It makes a lot of sense.
We all know that we're headed in that direction,
but it's like the astrological signifier that we have entered this era,
which is why that, I think this boom in crypto has become more mainstream.
I don't know if you guys noticed, but like all the major banks,
Goldman Sachs, whatever they are all like talking about Bitcoin,
they're all opening up Bitcoin to their investors.
These organizations are applying to create Bitcoin ETFs,
which are like index funds.
Kind of like what I was talking about earlier.
Basically there's a lot of movement and mainstream stuff going on
in crypto to the point where it's kind of like, it is here.
It's not going away. We can't ignore it any longer.
Obviously there's still a lot to learn.
So I'm not going to give any advice on what I buy or anything.
I'll list below, the platforms that I use,
but I'm still just testing all these platforms out.
So I really can't, I don't want to say anything.
I want you guys to do your own research and do your own learning.
So anyway, the reason why I went on that astrology tangent was
just to explain that since I knew that was happening,
I chose to invest in more air sign related companies.
My last tip for when you're researching crypto,
don't just look at them as currencies,
but actually research what this platform is
and what it does, what they're aiming to do.
And also look at who's backing this platform.
So if there's a crypto platform, that's backed by really big organizations
like Coinbase or the Winklevoss twins.
Like I would trust that because I believe in, you know,
if those people believe in it, it has that much money behind it.
Like I believe in it.
Another thing like I was mentioning earlier is to
invest in the platforms that you believe in,
meaning like you actually would use and enjoy
and are excited about their concept,
because you want to believe in what you invest in.
You don't want to just like pick something and put your money there.
Like you want to, it has to make sense, right?
So an example is yesterday I was learning and researching on the new,
like decentralized video platforms.
So there's one called Livepeer. There's one called Theta.
I was actually watching like a YouTube presentation of the CTO of Lifepeer.
He was explaining how they were building a new, efficient,
cheaper platform to do video streaming.
And obviously I'm interested in video like YouTube and Twitch.
And so right now, video is very expensive to stream
because of the traditional model.
And they're building stuff that's cheaper, faster, better.
It's decentralized,
meaning it's not one company or one hub doing it.
It's a network of computers working together to make it happen,
which I think is the future. And I think is interesting.
Once I was like, oh my god, I believe in that.
I want to put my money to that.
That's my thought process behind how I decide to invest in something.
I hope this video was helpful.
If you have any questions, leave them down below.
Again, I'm just sharing my personal experience.
And this is genuinely something that I've been really passionate and excited about.
And it felt a little like off tangent to share this on my channel.
But at the same time, I'm like, you know what?
There's people that are going to be interested and curious about this.
So I'm just going to put it out there,
judge me for the astrology parts if you want, but I'm going to do me.
You, you know what?
Like my brother and Wilson were judging me the whole time in December.
I'm like, put your money in crypto air sign. We're in Aquarius.
Put your money in Aquarius things.
And they regretted it because they were like, you know what?
I should've listen to you.
So thanks so much for hanging out with me and I will see you next time.
Bye.