I started taking investing for my individual brokerage portfolio and my Roth IRA seriously, starting on January 5th, 2026.
Prior to this, I've dabbled in trading shares of companies here and there, and also traded options for a few months of 2024.
But to be totally honest, I like others, done this with a gambling mindset, in hopes to get rich.
So with that being said, I have been doing my due diligence, learning about how to put together a portfolio depending on what my goal is.
I wish when I was younger I had more of a interest in teaching myself, but hey we can't reverse time. I am turning 27 this July, and I'm currently two months invested.
I currently have two individual accounts and a ROTH IRA, that I am trying my best to allocate $500 monthly, split evenly between all 3 accounts. It's not the best, but it's what I can afford; and when I'm in a better spot, my goal is to max out my Roth IRA every year and grow my portfolio for my taxable.
Below you can see my current portfolio for these account types:
VT, SCHD, SPYM = TAXABLE INDIVIDUAL BROKERAGE ACCOUNT #1
SCHG = TAXABLE INDIVIDUAL BROKERAGE ACCOUNT #2
AVTM, QQQI, SPYI = ROTH IRA #1
From what I understand, most, if not all of these could be held in one place such as a Roth IRA, but I personally like the setup I have. Maybe I'll consider changing it around as time goes on, maybe not.
I think investing is awesome and everybody should be doing it, the earlier the better. ETFs really gets my attention because it's intriguing how you can purchase a fund, and all of the stocks you want to be involved in is located inside that fund. Then the fun part comes in where I also want to be part of dividend re-invesment and grow my shares, thus, analyzing the performance of these funds are important to pay attention to. Just because a fund performs great for one year, doesn't mean it will for the next. So it's just a matter of picking and choosing, doing the research on what I want as part of my portfolio.
Shoutout to ^Linux and ^Tummz by the way. They actually tried to teach this to me when I was 19 but of course I was young and not as hungry to learn. Cheers! :thumbsup:
Ball out. Financial literacy is the way to go brother. Congrats.