Your Salary Is Not The Problem.

My day to day conversations with many students made me realised a common denominator - the concern about whether they can start investing with a low monthly salary or capital. And recently, I got this question again - so I wanted to write an article to address this.

Investing Is For Anyone

It makes very little sense that people ask the question whether they can start investing with a low salary.

Let me ask you this. Is is possible for you to open a bank account with 0.05% interest rate with a low salary? Of course - nobody is going to stop you from opening a bank account.

Why is investing your money in a brokerage account any different? In fact, a brokerage account probably will pay you several times more than a bank account!

The answer? They feel that investing is risky.

Well, let me share with you my perspective.

For those who think that investing their money is risky. Let me tell you this - putting your money in the bank earning 0.05% interest rate, getting your money eaten by inflation, not being able to become financially free, stuck in a job for 50 years, always worrying about money - THAT is even risky than investing.

You make your assessment which is riskier - putting your money in the bank account or investing your money in the stock market.

So why would it even matter that you are starting with a low salary in the first place? Regardless of your salary, you will STILL need to invest! (Unless you are happy being worried about money for the rest of your life.)

Let me tell you the truth about this - I have met many friends who tell me, "I will invest once my salary increases, there is no point to start investing now since I have so little capital."

Do you really think that capital is the problem? If you only have a $100 - you need to start with a $100.

Why is that so?

If you cannot even invest $100...what makes you think that once you saved up to a $10,000, you will have the confidence to invest? You will probably be scared to even invest.

But when you are starting with just a small capital - you will be less fearful, and you are more willing to take action, make mistakes without being overly emotionally affected, and eventually master the skill set of investing in the first place. 

We need to start small, fail fast, learn from our mistakes, and scale big. That is how we get ahead of others. Most people are saying they don't have capital or their salary are too low - let me be upfront. We can either make excuses or we can produce results, but we can't do both. 

I know I am harsh with my words, but these are intentional because I only want the best for my readers.

Investing Is A Journey

Can you start investing with just a $100?

Yes - of course you can. I generally recommend $5,000 as a start, but nothing should stop you from starting with a $100.

But - please don't have the mindset that you are NEVER going to add additional capital into your brokerage account. This is incredibly silly.

Where else will you put your savings? In the bank? The surefire way to get your money eaten by inflation?

For me, I started with $7,000 - and every single month, without fail, I will set aside a portfolio of my salary for my investments. Why? Because I know the stock market will compound the money much faster than leaving in the bank! I hate leaving money in the bank so much that I will feel angry at myself if I leave more than $3,000 in my bank account. It just doesn't make any financial sense.

So sure thing - start with $100 if you want. But always make sure to set aside a portion of your income for your investments.

Can't You Increase Your Income?

Let me ask you this question.

Do you know of anyone who is earning twice your salary?

or even three times your salary?

or even ten times your salary?

Heck - I know people who are making six-figures every month!

If you know that these people exists - it means that it is possible to increase your income! You just need to find out what they are doing that is different from what you are doing - and actually execute.

Always remember that success leaves clues.

Among my readers, there will also be some who claims that in their country - the average income is naturally low. Because of that, they give themselves the comfortable reason that they find it hard to increase their income.

Let me break this down for you.

My partner and I - we run an ecommerce business and when we need to get a packaging design done, we do not do it ourselves. We hire a designer for $70 and let him do it for us. This designer is from Pakistan, and the monthly income from Pakistan is not that high. But he knows how to make use of his resources and skillset. This designer does about 20 packaging designs every month, and that is additional $1,400 of income. That $1,400 is in USD. 

So let us be clear about this. You can sell your value or services online. We stay in a globally connected world - if you can read this blog post, it means that you have internet connection. Don't find excuses that you cannot do it. Again, we either make excuses or get results.

I Don't Have Any Skills...How?

Some of us would say that "I don't have any skills for me to sell online."

A business is transaction of value and money. This means that you can only make money when you add value to others.

But here's the thing - in order to add value to others, we must first add value to ourselves.

If you don't have any skills...this answer is simple - add value to yourself first.

Go and learn a skill set that allows you to contribute and add value to others!

If you spent an hour every single day, focus on a particular skill set - you will become a master of that skill set in a couple of years. Yes, it will take a few years to master a skill set - but that skill set will stick with you for life.

Go to YouTube or Google and you will find endless resource to learn any particular skill.

But the only downside of Google and YouTube is that you will be drowned in information. And let's be honest, some of the content out there are not great.

For myself, I always choose to pay for courses because it helped me to get results much faster. Till date, I paid more than $20,000 learning from multimillionaires in both investing and business. Yes - I add value to myself and will continue to do so. People think I am crazy to spend these money, but yet I am so much ahead of those who are trying to "figure things out" on their own. As my mentor will say, "pay money = get speed".

The Bottom Line

The morale of the story here is really that our salaries or amount of capital should not stop you from investing - it seriously does not matter because we all have to start somehow.

Like I said, we have to choose between leaving money in the bank and have a guaranteed loss of money due to inflation, or we can choose to invest and become financially free.

And if you really feel that your salary is stopping you - the reality is that the only thing stopping us are the limiting beliefs that we place on ourselves. Once we break our limiting beliefs, we can do wonders to our lives. Nothing is stopping you from putting in the effort to master a skill set and add value to others to make an extra income.

If you like to learn more about how I invest using qualified stocks, check out the webinar below.