The $25.00 Investor

Free money is like a birthday present As the $25.00 Investor I have budgeted some from each paycheck to invest.  This way it happens regularly allowing me to take advantage of dollar cost averaging . One thing I really like to do is when I have some extra $25.00 is to invest it as well. What if you found an extra $25.00 in your wallet that you hadn't expected to be there?  Using the Chime prepaid Visa card , this can happen to you.  By using the Chime card, I get free money in my wallet. How to get started First, get a   Chime prepaid Visa card  using this referral link (so we both get some free money). Second, setup direct deposit onto the card.  This will avoid any monthly fees. Third, make sure the round up savings is set up. Finally, spend. How it works Each time you make a purchase, Chime rounds the purchase up to the nearest dollar and puts the extra into the savings account.  For example, if you make a purchase for $2.30, the charge will be for $3.00

Investing a drop at a time As I have been having success investing $25.00 at a time, it is good to see what others have to say and if they are having success. One site I like is Investopedia for all kinds of investment and financial knowledge.  They have an article called  Is investing $25 a month worth it?  which discusses some of the things to think about when investing $25.00. First is fees and it is a huge one.  I learned this when I started investing in Stockpile which charges a fixed $.99 per transaction which is quite small when compared with many other brokers.  I really like Stockpile for its fractional shares.  It allowed me to really grow my investment over time. However, I soon realized that $.99 on $25.00 is almost 4%, which is a lot of ground to make up to just break even.  This made me change from investing $25.00 at a time to waiting and investing $100.00 so the fee would be just 1%, a much more palatable   commission. The article talks about fees of over $4

Taking the plunge My first foray into $25.00 investing was of course into the stock market.  There are several low cost brokerage companies like M1 Finance  where you can buy fractional shares of stock.  These allow you to own less than a single share of stock and often have little or no fees.  A seemingly perfect match for my goals of creating consistent income $25.00 at a time. I have always wanted to own some shares of The Walt Disney Company.   My plan was to invest my first $25.00 and buy a fractional share, buying more over time.  At the time DIS was trading at around $115.00 a share so I knew it would take several investments to finally reach a single share. I placed my order and took the plunge.  The order executed at about $112.00 dollars a share, giving me about .22 shares of DIS.  My journey had begun. And the price dropped.  I felt like someone had kicked my puppy.  Didn't these people realize that the stock was supposed to go up after I bought it? Fortuna