Start Simple and Small

Interactive Video

[A smiling woman sitting at a cafe table looking down at the cell phone in her hand.]

[A person using the Tik Tok Shop app on their cell phone.]

Narrator: How many times have you bought something when an ad pops up on TikTok? Or how often do you DoorDash some food? [Picture appears of a person using the DoorDash app on their cell phone.] Those snap purchases can add up fast! [Cash piles up in front of the pictures.]

[Tik Tok Shop and DoorDash logos appear on screen.]

Imagine if you took some of those spontaneous purchase dollars, even $5 a day, and instead invested them in the stock market. [An animation of $5 bills coming from the Doordash and Tik Tok logos streaming into the stock market.] You could make almost $11,000 in 5 years! 

[On screen text]: $5/day = $11,000 in 5 years.

[On screen text]: $5/day for 50 years.]

Now imagine if you keep investing $5 a day for 50 years. You could have more than $800,000, just by cutting out small daily insignificant spending. [Picture of a man holding his phone appears with a thought bubble: “I’ll make dinner at home tonight.”]

[Text appears, “I want to invest but . . .” with a man with a puzzled look on his face thinking, “. . . I don’t have lots of money.”]

Do you want to try your hand at investing, but don’t have lots of money to spend or just aren’t comfortable with taking risks? [Picture changes to a woman looking confused thinking, “. . . that’s too risky.”]

[A smiling woman sitting at a cafe table looking down at the cell phone in her hand.]

Nowadays there’s a bunch of financial apps available that make it relatively easy to begin dabbling in investments. [A thought bubble appears with a search bar that says, “Search for apps and games”. Then the word “investing” is typed into the search bar.] It’s possible to start simple and small on your own.

[The pin# 2611 is entered into the lock screen of the app, Investing Today.  The app opens and displays the following message: “Multiply your savings the easy way. Start your investment with just three dollars a week! Let’s get started.” A piggy bank with three dollar bills sticking out of it is pictured below the ad.]

Once you choose an app, you set up weekly or monthly automatic transfers of funds from your bank account. You may be surprised at how this automated investing of small amounts adds up over time.

[A chart showing the status of an investment app, Investing Today. Animation: cash is moving from the bank to the Investing Today app. Then, cash piles up in front of the bank.]

These investment apps usually use fractional shares of stock, because you can pay just a few dollars a week to start an account.

[A woman checking the status of her investments on her smartphone.]

Investment apps include Acorns, Stash, Robinhood, Public, M1, WeBull, Betterment, SoFi Invest, and Stockpile, with new ones surfacing seemingly constantly.

[A woman looking at her phone with the words, “What are the fees?” in her thought bubble.]

Be aware however that investment apps generally charge fees. Like anything related to your money, do your research first and read the fine print. [A chart appears showing the status of an investment on the phone app, Investing Today. A magnifying glass appears over the phone app, studying it.]

[A man wearing ear buds, working on his computer at a coffee shop.]

Down the line, if you get more comfortable with investing and your budget allows, you can consider diversifying and looking at different types of investment options.