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1. You must decide on your investing objective. Capital appreciation or preservation. Are you more concerned with making your investments grow or are you more concerned with just keeping your investments safe from losses. Because the more appreciation you desire, the higher the risks you must take on.
2. There are several methods for investing. You can pick individual stocks, buy mutual funds or ETFs, even real estate. Since you seem to be an utter newb at this, I'd suggest not trying to pick stocks, because the odds are stacked against noobs. I don't like mutual funds personally because...first, they'r managed by somebody you'll probably never meet ...second, that person is betting your money, so is more likely to take risks you would never take...third, each one of their trades incurs a commission, capital tax, and fees which are all paid for by you...fourth, inevitably, most mutual funds under perform the market...which means if you'd be better off by just buying the entire Dow Jones (30 stocks) than buying a mutual fund. This logically leads me to suggest investing in ETFs which are like mutual funds but are not managed by some hot shot manager, and don't incur the management fees and broker commissions. ETFs enable you to buy an entire segment of the market, giving you automatic diversification, without all the nonsense of management fees, etc. Also, they'r perfect for newbs. One suggestion is an ETF called the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, which invests in...you guessed it, the entire market. Ticker symbol is VTI...
3. Once you decide on an ETF, simply put in money every month...you won't get rich quick, but as you said, the more time you have, the bigger the window for your money to grow.
FINAL: Select a brokerage, like Ameritrade, Scotttrade, Tradeking, Zecco, etc. You must open a brokerage account, or IRA (retirement only). It's just like opening up a checking or savings account. You can do it online. Once you'v got your brokerage account opened and got some money in there, you can then buy and sell stocks, mutual funds, ETFs to your hearts desire. Keep in mind brokerage fees, commissions, etc.
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Additionally, you should know the difference between investing and speculation. Trading and investing. When you invest, you hold your stock for years, even decades. When you'r trading, you'r usually speculating, and hold stock for very short periods of time. 3/4 traders fail. Which is why you won't see many retirees or employees trading with their retirements, 401k's, or IRA's. A noob like you should shy away from trading. It's a dog eat dog world, and only the wolves survive. I highly suggest just putting a certain amount of money into an ETF you like, specifically the market ones.
Check these ones out...
http://www.vanguard.com/jumppage/etfs/index.html
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