Essential investment knowledge for beginners. I cover how ETFs work, compound interest, expense ratios, asset allocation, and how to start investing with a small budget.
🧮 Interactive Calculator $100 a month at 10% for 30 years becomes $226,049. You put in $36,000. The market adds $190,049. That’s not a typo — it’s compound interest doing exactly what it does when you give it time and consistency. This compound interest calculator monthly lets you plug in your own numbers and see … Read more
An index fund and an ETF can hold the exact same 500 stocks, charge nearly the same fee, and deliver nearly identical returns. VOO and VFIAX both track the S&P 500 — one costs 0.03%, the other 0.04%. Performance over the past decade? Within 0.01% of each other annually. So the index fund vs ETF … Read more
A 0.03% expense ratio and a 1.00% annual fee sound almost identical. The difference is less than a single percentage point. Most investors glance at it and move on. That’s a $49,000 mistake. On a single $10,000 investment left untouched for 30 years, the fund charging 1.00% costs you $49,000 more than the one charging … Read more
You opened a brokerage account. Maybe you even funded it. Now you’re staring at a search bar with 3,000+ ETFs and no idea where to start. This is where most new investors stall. Not because investing is hard — but because the options are overwhelming. So here’s the shortcut: you don’t need 3,000 ETFs. You … Read more
Here’s a number most “how to start investing” guides won’t lead with: $100 per month, invested consistently for 30 years, has historically grown to over $226,000 — based on the S&P 500’s long-term average return. Your total out-of-pocket? Just $36,000. That $190,000 gap is compound growth doing the heavy lifting. And the barrier to entry … Read more
An ETF holds dozens, sometimes thousands, of stocks inside a single ticker. You buy one share, you own a slice of the entire basket. But “what is an ETF” is one of those questions where the simple answer doesn’t go far enough. Understanding what an ETF is — and isn’t — requires looking at how … Read more
