A lot of Americans are taking a hard look at their current finances in no small part due to the financial crisis caused by the financial crisis. Whether you were prepared or not, this is one of the best times to start investing, especially if you’re feeling behind. Market bottom-outs like this one highlight the risk of investing, but they also hold a unique opportunity to get in while evergreen stocks are at artificial lows. Sure, Apple has been hit hard by this, but stocks like that have a way of rebounding to their former highs, and then some. While it may be too late to get in on boom stocks like Zoom, Netflix and beyond, it’s a good time to take investing seriously. Think of it like the old saying I’ve modified for this title. The best day to plant a tree was yesterday, the second best is today. While you might regret not having started sooner today, tomorrow you’ll be glad you started. Now the question is: how do I get started? This is a question that’s confounded investors for ages—and there’s certainly no perfect answer—but here’s what I’d recommend. 1. Find An Investment Firm You Can Rely On Consumer reports, professional investors, talking heads—all will have a different take on what’s the best investment firm for you to pocket away your money. Some choose Fidelity, some choose Charles Schwab. What services you best is specific to your needs, so I don’t want to put pressure anywhere. This is only for the money you should be putting away every month towards retirement in the form of your IRA. In essence, you should be trying to max out your IRA contributions every year—to the tune of $6,000—so you can harness the power of compound interest. 2) Learn To Earn Using Other People’s Money If you’re looking to expand your knowledge of the stock market and build a portfolio, there are two ways to go. You can dig into your savings, set aside money—both of which carries inherent risk. As we all know, sometimes you win and sometimes you strike out. Or you can trade with other people’s money. By signing up for Try2BFunded, a prop trader, I was able to get access to $100,000 of their money to trade with and take home 60% of the profits. All I had to do was prove that I was competent enough to trade wisely, then the $100,000 was open to trade with. It took about six weeks for me to prove that I was able to balance risk and build a portfolio, but then I was off running. 3) Pick A Lane Depending on who you are, where you’re from, and what you’ve worked as, you have a unique perspective on the stock market. Investing by choosing sectors that you’re comfortable and knowledgable about can be a good maneuver, especially if you’re knowing about niche sectors like biotech. Of course, you should invest broadly and where you feel confident, but why not use what you’ve got?