Here’s a quick question that came through the Rask Australia email channels in the past 24 hours.
Every month our team receive hundreds of money and investing questions just like this one. We try to answer them on Rask Education, on The Australian Finance Podcast, in the Rask Facebook group or via our members-only Q&A sessions — inside Rask Invest.
I have $500 to invest in ASX shares and I’m wondering if I should join your Rask Invest membership service and start investing, or if I should wait until I have a bit more? I can save between $500 and $2,000 every 3 months.
My response went something like this:
Yo [name]! It’s great to hear from you.
Thanks for being so candid with me, I sincerely appreciate that. And, hey, great work taking your first steps to become a long-term investor!
Now… what you’re about to read is a massive ramble. But bear with me because your email is the one email I’m choosing to answer this week.
…I noticed you came to Rask via our Best ETFs website (our website devoted to Australian ETFs) and you currently have a free Rask account. Great start!
HOWEVER… I noticed you have not yet enrolled in one of our free online courses. Meaning, you still have 95% of our great resources available to you for nothing. Absolutely nothing. All you have to do is commit to learning a bit more.
Here are our free online courses.
Here’s my gameplan for you to turn yourself into a great investor in just 12 months:
1. Keep going! Keep learning about investing, money, self-improvement, etc. and everything you can but…
2. Do it for FREE — don’t pay us anything until you’re absolutely ready. $500 (plus a small amount for brokerage) is enough to invest but it’s not worth paying hundreds of dollars for advice.
3. Take all of our free courses over the next 12 months. Don’t rush it. Keep saving money and increase your cash savings before you start investing. In terms of courses, here are some I’d start with:
- Beginner Shares Course plus Money & Budgeting: The Complete Guide course (take these together), then
- Rask’s ETF Investor course, then
- Rask’s FIRE course
- Valuation (intermediate-advanced level)
4. Listen to our podcasts every week. We usually publish two episodes per week — one from each podcast series.
See our podcasts:
https://www.rask.com.au/podcasts/
The first 11 episodes of The Australian Finance Podcast are best for beginners. Listen to them first.
In the Investor series (most advanced), the recent episodes with Luke Winchester, Anirban Mahanti and Peter Phan are great listening. They’re advanced though, so let me know what you think. Maybe start with Anirban’s episode first?
Take notes. The best investors I come across started by spending 15 to 30 minutes per day learning to become a better investor or business person. They took notes.
12 months from today, if you follow us and invest in yourself first, you will be extremely confident, knowledgeable and empowered. And you’ll have enough cash to start out buying 10 – 15 shares or ETFs from the beginning. That’s better than $500 in one stock or ETF (although it is good to start small).
All it takes is 15 to 30 minutes of learning per day. If I had my time again I’d take investing notes in a Google Document or diary each day so that I remembered the key lessons.
I’d also read websites like fs.blog and consume books like Thinking: Fast and Slow to master my own emotions. These are more important than accounting.
Once you have done all of that, come back to me here, [name]. I’ll give you six months of Rask Invest for free.
Cheers!
Owen Rask
