 TITLE: How to Start Investing CONTENT: It's best to start investing when you are confident you can easily manage your monthly budget, including expenses such as your mortgage or rent and other necessities; you have little to no credit card debt; and you've built up an emergency fund. Investing will tie up your money for a significant period of time, so it's critical that you have other funds to take care of your monthly expenses and emergency costs that could come up.\nOnce you're ready to start, do your research, create a plan and plunk down your first investment, however small. The more time your investment has to grow (in most cases), the more wealth you can build over the long term. Starting early is often key to growing investments because as those investments yield a return, you'll be able to reinvest that money and watch it grow over time.\nImagine this scenario: You start off with an initial investment of $1,000 and contribute $25 each month for the next 30 years. In this scenario, your total out-of-pocket contribution would be $10,000 over the 30 years. If your investment grows at an average of 10% annually, you'll end up with $66,798 at the end of the 30 years; that's more than six times what you originally invested.\nIf you were to do the same thing but for only 10 years, you would have contributed $4,000 out of pocket, and your total investment would only be worth $7,375. The dramatic difference in these totals shows why it's important to begin investing as soon as it makes sense. END