1) Pick a brokerage.
A broker-what??
A brokerage is just a fancy term for a store where you can buy investments from the stock market. Most of them (if not all) are online these days.
With brokerages, you have TONS of options… which can be a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing because you’ve got choices… and it’s a bad thing because the choices can overwhelm you into not making a single decision.
Like when we go stand in the beverage aisle and see that there are 60 different brands of sparkling water, each with 6 different flavors and combinations. I mean HOW DOES ONE CHOOSE.
Welp, let me help you out with that.
Vanguard and Fidelity
My two favorite places to buy investment are Vanguard and Fidelity (not sponsored), and here’s why.
- Vanguard and Fidelity both offer low-cost investment options with little to no fees.
- Fidelity allows you to invest with as little as a dollar.
- Vanguard is the OG when it comes to index fund investing, and they have some of the oldest index funds in the game.
- Fidelity has some fee free index funds– the only brokerage I know of that does this.
Both Fidelity and Vanguard are pretty consistently rated as the top brokerages for low-cost investing by a variety of publications including:
Bankrate
US News
NerdWallet
Investopedia
I personally think they’re the best, and I lean towards Fidelity because Fidelity has no minimums to start investing, which can make investing more accessible for folks.
But here’s the thing…
I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
There are a lot of great brokerages out there if you’d like to explore beyond Fidelity or Vanguard.
Seriously.
There’s Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade, Ally, Sofi, etc.
The key things to look at when shopping for a brokerage are
- Low-fees for the investments you’d like to purchase
- No minimums
- No account fees/trading fees/etc
These days, it’s pretty easy to find a brokerage that meets those needs.