I remember when I was a freshman in college and wanted to make more money but had nothing to my name. All I had was a couple of thousand dollars from my graduation party, most of which went to my girlfriend at the time (big mistake, I know) and books for school. Little did I know at the time that I could actually invest with only $100.
100 dollars sounds like nothing when it comes to investing, especially when the stock market returns an average of only 8% year-over-year. If you’re lucky, you might make $8 on the year – not exactly ideal.
I’m not here to tell you the same bullshit you’ll see everywhere else telling you to put it in a savings account that might pay you 2% at best for your money – I’m here to tell you 4 ways to invest $100 starting today to help grow your future for the better.
These are NOT Traditional Investment Methods
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it’s likely you’re going to take you $100 and turn it into $10,000 with any of these investment methods. These are intended to give you guidance for when you have more money, but allows you to either gain knowledge with little money or at least experience.
As I said, I’ve been in the same shoes you’re in before. You’re young and probably don’t have a lot of money to invest. Maybe you have more than $100, or maybe all you have is that single Benjamin for the time being.
Either way, the fact of the matter is that these 4 ways to invest $100 are not traditional and are not going to guarantee traditional results. Your risk may be higher, but if you do these right, the potential reward can be great.
Here are 4 ways to invest $100:
Use Dollar-Cost Averaging
Dollar-Cost Averaging, also known as DCA, is a way to essentially lower your risk when investing in a stock or a fund. Instead of investing a lump sum of money all at once, you are essentially picking a certain dollar amount per day, week, month, etc., to invest on a consistent basis in the same stock or fund.
Through doing so, especially when the price of the investment is declining, you are getting a better average price on that investment.
Of course, if the price of the investment is increasing, you would have been better off with that lump sum investment, but there is no way to know this for sure.
Maybe you have $100 a month to invest, or maybe you have $100 total to invest for the time being. Whatever the case may be, find a stock that you feel has potential in the long run. I’d recommend setting aside $25 a month to use to build your portfolio.
Doing this allows you to invest your initial $100 for 4 months straight, giving you more time to set aside money to keep growing your portfolio.
If you want to play around with some numbers on your own, check out this compound interest calculator.
To give you an example, investing $100 to start, and then $25 per month afterward assuming 8% growth year-over-year turns your $9,100 total contribution over a 30-year period to $38,300+.
This is a long-term investment strategy, but over the course of time, you have the potential to see very generous results.
Create a Business
Your friends and family may tell you starting a business with $100 is a surefire way to lose all of your money, and they may just be right.
However, you’d be shocked by what you can do with $100 in terms of creating your own business.
Not too long ago, I had started a podcast with one of my friends for under $100 including the website and the microphone we used, and soon enough, we were getting 3,000 listens per episode.
We were finally at the point where we were able to charge sponsors to have a spot on our podcast – and again – it was all done for under $100 to start up.
The beauty of creating a business is that you have full reign on what is possible and what you want to do. Maybe you want to find used items on Craigslist or Facebook to resell at a higher value, or maybe you want to start up a drop-shipping e-commerce store – it really doesn’t matter.
While I recommend doing extensive research on your industry before getting started, the possibilities are endless.
I would also recommend that you start and grow a social media account for whatever business you decide to create to make it easier to gain some traction. Find a niche and start interacting with other accounts within that niche to help it grow quickly.
If you do your research and have the right idea, starting a business for under $100 is very possible and if done right, could make unlimited amounts of money.
For some ideas on starting a business, check out our 6 Epic Side Hustles for Teens and College Students article (Coming soon)!
Real Estate
Guys, I’d be lying if I said that you can buy a house with $100, and that’s not what I’m here to sell you on. But there are some great ways to invest that $100 you have (ideally a bit more) to begin exposing yourself into real estate.
If you’ve never heard of an REIT before, check out this article to learn a bit more about them. If you have heard of it before, you may know that this is a great way to get exposure to the real estate market with only a small amount of money.
An REIT stands for a Real Estate Investment Trust, which is essentially a stock (some are publicly traded, others you need to find specific brokers for). It is a fund that takes the investments made into it to expand its real estate and pays out its shareholders accordingly. The beauty with investing in an REIT is that you have the choice to choose which type of real estate investing strategy fits you and find one that has a similar vision.
*Disclaimer: Most private broker REIT brokers do require $500, but there are publicly listed options on the stock market that serve the same purpose.
When looking to invest in real estate, some may look for capital appreciation which comes through buying property and focusing on the area and the value of the property itself. Others may be more interested in flipping houses for a profit with no intent to rent them out. Regardless, there are plenty of opportunities in the real estate market.
Through investing in an REIT, you are letting your $100 work towards investing in whatever trust you select. To give a simple picture as to how they work, imagine giving your $100 to a real estate investor as an investment with a goal to make money through their efforts.
There are many different ways to invest in an REIT, some of which are listed on major stock exchanges, while others are public non-listed and private. If this is something that interests you, be sure to do some more research as to the type of REIT that fits what your goals are and find out how to invest in them.
Invest in Yourself
Yup, I said it. I know it may sound corny, but with $100, you may not have a lot of wiggle room to make larger investments. Investing in yourself can come in so many ways and while you may not have the money to buy full-blown courses with it (which are scams more times than not anyway), there are plenty of other options.
I’d have to say that one of my greatest recommendations to invest in yourself is to buy some books. Personally, I’d recommend e-books or books that you can listen to on your phone, but sometimes there’s nothing like a classic paper book.
I actually have a list of books on my website that have greatly helped shape my mindset in the areas of mindset, wealth/investing, and fitness. I’ve read all of them and they have given me amazing ideas that I have used over the past few years to help me reach my goals.
The best thing about this is that there are so many options depending on what you are looking to get into. If you want to learn about real estate, there are plenty of books available to give you more insight depending on your level of prior knowledge.
As you know, I even have my own e-book on investing lessons that I learned that I think could be extremely helpful for young people to know. If that’s something you want to check out, look more into it here.
Or, maybe you’re looking for ways to start a business – there are plenty of books on this too.
However, one type of book I would recommend more than anything is a self-improvement type of book. You’d be shocked at the number of people who have so much potential to make a lot of money or have great ideas, but they just don’t have the right mindset to go about it. Self-improvement books can help this drastically.
Aside from just books, though, there are other ways to invest in yourself
Investing in yourself could be as simple as doing any of the three investment methods that I recommended above. Starting a business is investing in yourself just as much as anything else.
With only $100, though, you need to ask yourself what you think the best way to invest in yourself is. If you have no idea what you want to do moving forward or are extremely new to an area, I still think books are a great way to invest in yourself. While there is a lot of free information on the internet, the knowledge you will gain from reading is so much greater.
However, if you have a business idea in mind and are ready to jump right in, put that $100 towards something that will help you to get your business started.
At the end of the day, you need to ask yourself; “What is the best way to invest this $100 for the potential to grow it later?”
Remember, these are just very general ideas. My personal recommendation would be to create a business after thorough research. For those of you who have never taken on a business venture before, I plan on launching an entire content project to help y’all with that. But, if you’re not really in the spot to start investing in things such as REIT’s, a business, or the stock market using DCA, grab some books in the meantime. Their present value seems useless, but the knowledge you gain from them is invaluable.
Were you surprised by any of these ways to invest with $100, or did one in particular interest you? Check out more blog articles on GoodStrongMen.com for other ways to invest, or let us know if there’s something you’d like to learn more about by reaching out!