How to Invest with Just $50 and Escape the Paycheck-to-Paycheck Cycle In today’s competitive economy, wages struggle to keep pace with the cost of living. Every month can seem like a battle to make ends meet. The cost of housing alone can take the lion’s share of someone’s income, especially after you factor in taxes. Then you have the high utility bills, gas, groceries, insurance, and the list goes on. Inevitably, a wild card like a car repair or surprise medical bill gets thrown in. Then you find yourself not just on a tight budget but also in debt. With 80 percent of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, many people have cause to wonder why the Dow Jones Industrial Average keeps hitting record highs. Where is the money coming from to prop up this market when most Americans have little money to invest? That’s a difficult question and a long answer, but much of the market is driven by institutional investors, international money, and, of course, the uber wealthy. Questions about stock market economics aside, the question for the majority of Americans is how do they get a chance to participate in these investment market highs? The first step is to start small. If you have just $50, you can make some great investments in your future. If you make it a habit to keep investing every time you can squeeze $50 out of your budget, over time, you’ll have a nice little nest egg and leave the paycheck-to-paycheck world behind. Go crypto With Bitcoin trading at $9,709 as of 9:50 CST on 4/24/2018, it might be a great time to buy. At the end of the year, Bitcoin reached a sizzling high point of near $20,000. $50 works fine because you can purchase Bitcoin, and any other cryptocurrency, in a portion equivalent to whatever you invest. Bitcoin’s fantastic rise comes from the novelty of blockchain technology. Blockchains create a digital chain where virtual currencies are exchanged anonymously. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have become wildly popular as a store of value and a hedge against currency devaluation. Many people believe that cryptocurrency is the wave of the future. Eventually, we all may be using cryptocurrency. Perhaps even dollars will be exchanged on blockchains. Right now, that’s all speculation, so Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a speculator’s market. Crypto could turn into the next revolution in money or prove to be just another fad. What can’t be denied is that people have made huge money in cryptocurrency speculation. For example, the Winklevoss twins are famous for turning an $11 million Bitcoin investment into over a billion dollars in just a few years. $50 invested at that rate of return could give you a nice little nest egg. To get started in the crypto world, check out the Coin Base website. You can check out Bitcoin and all its counterparts, like Ethereum and Ripple. Also, check out the initial coin offerings. Some of these are offered by a small business looking to raise capital, so it could be an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the next app to take Silicon Valley by storm. If you want to take the plunge, navigate to the exchanges page. There are many cryptocurrency exchanges. You can own your share in just a few minutes. Just remember, cryptocurrency is an unregulated market. You have no recourse for losses, so don’t risk your life savings. Some people have made a fortune, but imagine how the people who bought Bitcoin at $19,000 feel now. Precious metals Where cryptocurrency is the newest form of exchange, precious metals are one of the oldest. Gold, silver, and platinum derive their value from their rarity. Unlike paper or digital money, precious metals cannot be easily multiplied. With paper money, governments continually print more and, as we all know, the result is our currency is increasingly debased. Now that banks get money from the federal reserve with the click of a mouse, inflation is more endemic to the system than ever before. Precious metals have seen an uptick in value as investors worldwide seek to diversify their holdings. They fear fiat currencies like the dollar because they have increasingly less scarcity value. Precious metals have always surged in value during times of economic uncertainty, so they are great to have if another recession rears its ugly head. JM Bullion is a great place to start. You can order a variety of coins and bars online. With a $50 budget, there are plenty of 1-ounce silver coins to choose from. Silver currently trades just above $16 per ounce. You’ll need $146 for a 1/10 ounce gold coin. If you save up and become a gold bug, there are plenty of 1 ounce gold coins and, if you really get gold fever, you can take your pick of gold bars. NADEX The NADEX exchange is a place to trade derivatives contracts. These contracts are based on a variety of markets, including gold, oil, interest rates, and even Bitcoin. Each contract specifies a price for the underlying asset and a date and time. You bet against another investor. One of you thinks the asset will be over the specified price at the specified time, one of you thinks it will be under. The amount you pay for your end of the contract is based on where the market reckons the odds. To make money on the NADEX, you need to learn derivatives trading strategies, which use spreads. Spreads involve buying multiple contracts on the same asset to take advantage of market swings and hedge your bets. NADEX provides educational tools to learn derivatives trading. You don’t need big bucks to get started. $50 is perfect for a beginner. If you like it and do well, it could become lucrative. And contact Texas Approval if you want a Texas title loan. When you get a Texas car title loan you can get your cash within 24 hours.
