Like many people, I knew next to nothing about stocks, investing and the stock market for most of my adult life. It was easy to auto-pilot about my finances as long as I had enough cash in savings to live semi-comfortably. But as I got older, I realized that I needed to play catch up on my retirement. Simply, I’d not been putting away enough from my paycheck every year. It’s easy to do: you want to take a vacation instead of reach your IRA maximum, or a dental emergency comes up one month and suddenly you’re out $1300. Life is always presenting you with ways to get behind on money. When I turned 39, I realized I needed to learn about investing. And I’m so glad I did. Like learning anything new, I was lost completely. Investing, when you’re just starting out, can feel a lot like learning a new language. There are so many terms, so much jargon, and so many concepts that I was having flashbacks to being in high school Spanish. But I was able to find 3 sources that helped me go from absolute novice to expert in an impressive time. By learning from these 3 sites, I was able to become fluent in investing: 1) Investopedia Investopedia served as my 101 crash course in all things investing. An easy-to-read guide for newbies, it breaks down what’s what across the entire field of investing, laying out exactly what you need to know in relation to private investing, investing through your employer, evaluating risk and on and on. If you want to be thorough, this is the best place to get started. After you review their initial page, Investopedia does a great job of expanding into more diverse topics and complicated ideas of trading. I found the natural evolution of their articles to feel intuitive and, most importantly, interesting. Once you’ve read through Investopedia, it’s time to put all that theory to practice. And that’s what led me to Try2BFunded. 2) Try2BFunded span class="Apple-converted-space"> It’s a valid anxiety, and it’s what keeps most people away from the markets in general. The fear of risk is a worthy one, but it shouldn’t stop you from investing. Try2BFunded is great because it lets you learn as you go. You invest in stages: the first round lets you play with money and only when you’re competent enough as a trader are you allowed to move to the next stage. span class="Apple-converted-space"> That meant that when I made mistakes, I wasn’t completely in the hole. It also let me try different strategies and find which sectors—I like tech the most—I was most comfortable with. Once I’d established myself on Try2BFunded and made it to round 3, I found the last essential part of my investing education. 3) Score Priority To me, one of the best ways to learn is through community. Talking ideas out, hearing dissenting opinions, arguing, debating and even making some jokes. It helps keep me invested and also makes sure I don’t fall into an internet wormhole where I’m learning the same things over and over. Diversity is good. And when you’re getting hundreds of voices chiming in on different stocks, you’re learning at an accelerated rate. Score Priority —formerly known as WhoTrades—is a social media site for people that want to talk trading. No Facebook grannies, no wasted time, just people who want to talk about the best ways to make money. By combining these three resources, I found I was able to learn an entire new language of investing in record time. If you follow these steps, I’m sure the same will happen to you.