7-Day Action Plan to Start Investing (for total beginners)
A Beginner's Guide
I’m totally shocked by how many messages I keep getting with the same question:
“I’m a total beginner, where do I even start with investing?”
Honestly, I didn’t realize just how many people were at the very beginning of their investment journey. We usually focus on more advanced strategies, but my inbox keeps getting filled up with these requests, so I decided to put together a straightforward guide to help anyone who wants to start investing for the first time.
1. Understand What Investing Actually Means
Investing is buying tiny pieces of real businesses (stocks) or baskets of businesses (ETFs/index funds). Over decades, good businesses tend to grow and become worth more. That’s it.
2. Open a Brokerage Account (Takes 10–15 Minutes)
You need a brokerage to actually buy stocks. Think of it as the store where you shop for investments.
You’ll need your government ID, date of birth, address, and bank account information to link for transfers. The process is similar to opening a bank account online.
Avoid brokerages that gamify investing. You want a solid, boring financial institution that’s been around for decades, not an app that sends you confetti animations when you make trades.
Good options include:
Fidelity
Schwab
Vanguard
Robinhood
TD Ameritrade
Interactive Brokers
The hardest part of investing is simply starting.
Open that brokerage account this week.
Fund it with an amount you’re comfortable with, even if it’s small.
3. What to Buy?
• Stocks – ownership in a company (not for total beginners).
• ETFs – baskets of stocks (safer and easier for beginners).
• Index Funds – ETFs that track major indexes like the S&P 500 (most recommended for beginners).
Stick with index funds until you have more experience.
4. Common Beginner Mistakes (Don’t Do These)
Day trading
Put too much money into one company
Expect fast results
Panic during pullbacks
5. Understand there are Going to be Cycles
Markets naturally go through cycles of:
Euphoria - Market hits new highs, people think it’ll never go down.
This is the stage where Everyone thinks they’re a genius.Panic - Market crashes, people sell everything at the worst time.
People will say things like: “I’m never investing again”.Boredom - Everything is stable, nothing much happening.
Don’t worry about these cycles. Ignore them as a beginner.
6. Think Long-Term
The market goes up, down, and sideways but historically it always trends upward over long periods.
If you invest for:
1 year: anything can happen
5 years: volatility smooths out
20+ years: historically the odds of losing money are near zero
Do nothing when index funds drop. The people who lose money are the ones who panic-sell at the bottom.
Time is your biggest edge.
7. Keep Learning But Only After You’ve Started
You don’t need to understand everything from the beginning. Start small and gradually increase your financial knowledge over time with things like:
Sector ETFs
Options (much later)
Alternative assets
But start with the basics and move up only when ready.
Your 7-Day Action Plan
Day 1: Pick one brokerage (Vanguard, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, Schwab, etc…)
Day 2–3: Open and verify your account
Day 4: Link your bank and transfer money into the brokerage
Day 5: Buy an index ETF such as SPY or VOO
Day 6–7: Set up automatic monthly investments ($50–500/month, etc...)
That’s literally it.
Welcome to the game. The earlier you start, the less you actually need to save for the future because of compounding gains.
Brillaint breakdown of the essentials. Your point about Day 5 buying VOO or SPY really nails someting most guides miss: beginners freeze up trying to pick the perfect first stock when an index fund immediately solves the diversification problem. The part about not checking everyday resonates too, since behavioral finance research shows that frequent monitoring actually increases the odds of panic sellign during normal volatility.