How much money should you invest in the stock market depends on how much money you can afford to toss out the window and still be able to live the way you are accustomed to living now.

The rule of thumb is you should have six months of living expenses saved up for an emergency and this scenario disqualifies most individuals. Therefore, you might  ask what are some other alternatives?  I have listed some tips that you might consider if you have accepted the fact that nothing is guaranteed in the stock market, it consists of nothing but risk.

You will need to open an account with an online stock broker, I use Ameritrade and have been very happy with their service. However, you have a multitude  of brokers to chose from so that is up to you. Most online accounts require that you have a minimum of $2,000.00 to open an account before you can begin trading. All the paperwork for opening up an account is very simple and easy to understand.

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Now that you have that out of the way your next step is to select the stock you would like to purchase.  Perhaps, you haven’t a clue of what to buy and don’t know how to get started. If this applies to you,  I would suggest you start  with a company that you do business with on a daily basis such as; McDonald’s,  Walmart, Target and Lowes. These are companies that you are familiar with and for the most part we all hope they are companies that are going to be around for years to come. Therefore, making our first investment somewhat safe but still realizing we are taking risk.

My next suggestion would be  to take your $2,000.00 dollars that you opened your account with  and divide it three ways and allocate  $600.00 each for the three stocks that you wish to purchase.  With this amount of money you are going to be purchasing only a few shares but that is fine because you are doing something that you have never done before and you need to learn how to crawl before you walk.

Now that you have purchased your stocks,  plan on holding them for several years and as time goes by they should increase in value. However,  from time to time when you have some extra money you might want to purchase more shares of  the stocks you are holding in your portfolio or purchase other companies.

Buying stocks can be very rewarding and can certainly help you reach your financial goals. Just remember, you are investing and you can’t  invest with scared money. It must be money that you can afford to toss out the window.