3 INVESTMENT IDEAS FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS

Pay Yourself First – Start Investing

Open a brokerage account and start investing.  Your goal should be to set aside ten percent of your net take home pay from your jobs or side businesses.  Whether you’re mowing lawns or painting houses during your summer breaks or working at the mall, you can do this.   By regularly investing a set amount you can build long term positions in stocks or stock funds that may appreciate over the long term.

For those who don’t want to fuss over investments, then you can buy a balanced low-cost mutual fund that’s split between stocks and bonds.  

Clear View Wealth Advisors through its partnership with online brokerage custodian Betterment Institutional (www.Betterment.com) offers access to low balance accounts that can buy fractional shares of stocks and Exchange Traded Funds without any account minimums.  Here accounts are invested based on a model tied to your age, goals and time period.

Alternately, you could be more active with your investments and do some day-trading.  This takes more time but just like in school you’ll be rewarded for your diligence and homework if you hit it big.

Open an Online Money Market Account

Sock your money away in a money market account.  Sure, current interest rates aren’t going to make you rich. But building a safe cash reserve will help you as you deal with college tuition, books and fees.   And you’ll have money kicking around when a brilliant investment idea comes your way. While you can open an account at almost any bank, you may find the online options from companies like Discover offer a higher interest rate.

Consider Buying Life Insurance

Sure, you’re young and carefree.  But anything can happen.  And this is especially important if you have a spouse or dependents.  It’s also important if you have or are planning on taking out student loans.  If your parents co-sign for any of these loans, they’ll still be responsible if something happens to you.  And conversely, you’ll still be on the hook on loans that they co-signed but you won’t have their income to help pay the loan if they’re gone.  Consider getting a low-cost term insurance policy for the total of the loans you may be getting.  Since student loans are typically written for a repayment period of ten or twenty years, you should consider an insurance policy with a term to match.