One of the biggest things that hold people from investing and growing their money is the thought that they don’t have enough money yet to start investing. Have you ever thought, “I’ll start investing once I save up $1,000”?

Forget that! So many brokerages allow free buying and selling of stocks, exchange traded funds and mutual funds. Plus, there are a growing number of brokerage firms that will allow you to buy and sell fractional shares. Fractional shares are pieces of a whole share that you can purchase, if you don’t have enough to buy a whole share. For example, before it’s split, Amazon stock was trading over $3,500 a share. In the past, you’d have to wait to save up enough to buy a single whole share, and if you wanted another share, you’d have to save up a whole other $3,500+ to buy your next share. Not anymore. Brokerage firms like Fidelity and Robinhood allow you at buy fractions with no cost and just with $1 (Robinhood requires the minimum order size is $1 and/or 1/1000000 of a share and the company has to have at least a $25mm capitalization; at Fidelity the minimum purchase must be $1.00 or more as long as it comprises at least one one-hundredth (0.001) of a share).

It’s free

What’s even better is that you won’t even have to pay a commission at most brokerage accounts to do so. The cherry on top; many brokerage accounts don’t even have a minimum you have to have in the account to keep it open.

The bigger question becomes, “What should I buy after opening a brokerage account?” I would suggest you buy a little bit of everything the US stock market has to offer by purchasing bits of two of my favorite exchange traded funds (ETFs); Blackrock’s IVV and Vangaurd’s VTI.

IVV is an exchange traded fund that has super low fees (.03%)and is made up of all the S&P 500 companies. VTI is another exchange traded fund that has super low fees (.03%) and is made up of 3,935 different stocks. Investing in these funds are an easy way to get invested in the market. If the market goes up, so does your investment, and if it goes down so does your investment. Investing isn’t free of risk but the US stock market over the long run has gone up. As of this writing IVV has gone up 20.80% and VTI is up 21.58% just this year. If you buy into these ETFs, overtime your investment will also grow.

There, with just a couple of dollars, you can open a simple brokerage account, fund it with a few dollars and invest in IVV or VTI or both and watch your money grow! Good luck!

Side Note: The Moneyaires love using TD Ameritrade for their investing activities because the trades are free, you get access to thousands of ETFs and Mutual Funds, it’s a well established brokerage and I personally love the app and the news/information they provide about stocks and funds. Unfortunately, TD Ameritrade does not allow the purchase of fractional shares outside of dividend reinvestment. However, TD Ameritrade was bought by the Charles Schwab brokerage firm which does allow the purchasing of stocks on the S&P 500 at a $5 minimum.