Hi! My name is Jess Smart Smiley and I work as an illustrator and graphic designer.
I’ve created 18 books for young readers (including picture books, a #1 bestselling comics activity book, a hidden object book, chapter books, and graphic novels), and I have helped thousands of children, teens, and adults in creating their first comics.
Words and pictures are my passions—but I’m entirely new to the idea of doing anything other than spending or saving my money.
I’ve decided that it’s time I started investing.
Investing With Zero Experience
I’ve thought about investing in the past, but I’ve always been intimidated by the idea–mostly because I don’t know much about it and because it’s always seemed like an elite sort of gamble where one has to give up lots of money at the risk of losing it all.
Enter micro-investing.
I’m not into gambling and money has never excited me, but I have a growing family, I’m stuck in bed with a consistent influx of medical bills (maybe more on this later? Everyone loves a good medical mystery), and I freelance without any kind of retirement plan. It really doesn’t leave much to the future—and that needs to change now.
While I still don’t know much about investing of any kind, I’ve been hearing more and more about companies and apps that offer something called micro investments for less than $100 (and, in some cases, even less than $10!). Tim Ferriss has talked about micro-investing on his podcast for years. Gary Vaynerchuk and Mark Cuban have been pretty vocal about investing. Evan Jan Lewan made big news about investing. (Joke. He was a polka band leader who started a crazy Ponzi scheme.)
https://www.moviemaker.com/wp-content/uploads/polishFilmFest-1.jpg
I feel absolutely gutted that I haven’t done more to invest in my family’s financial future and that I have only meager savings in place for the years to come. With the cost of micro-investing being so low and with so many apps and resources available to make investing easy, it’s time to try micro-investing for myself.
Goal
I’m going to dedicate a series of posts on this blog to share my experience with micro-investing in real time, as it happens, in the hopes that someone can learn with me. (Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a post!)
Although I’ve been stuck in bed with debilitating pain for the last 14 months, I don’t want to put a lot of time into investing (at least not while getting tarted). I want to keep things simple, so I don’t get burned out thinking about money, and so I can stay curious over a longer period of time.
I’ll take the first step and you can help keep me accountable. Deal?
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Micro Investing (Robin Hood App Basics) $1 Investments with Fractional Shares
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