Investing Online: Getting Your Money's Worth

Investing used to be an activity that defined the wealthy. They had bankers on Wall Street taking buy and sell orders by the hour. Through the paper pushing of their accounts they were able to make millions of their thousands and hundreds of millions from their few millions. Now however, financial analysts are advising that everyone should do at least some investing which means, at minimum, a retirement account. There are dozens of resources online to help you invest your money properly and successfully. Here are some websites to help you prepare for your future and your family's future.

Sharebuilder
This website allows you to invest with as little as three dollars. They have a variety of investment plans that can be used on a monthly basis through automatic withdrawals from your bank account or on a month-to-month basis so you can determine each month how much you have to invest. Two of the plans require a monthly fee that covers a set number of investments per month and charge a low fee for more than the set number of investments. The third plan has no monthly fee but charges a slightly higher fee per investment. Sharebuilder also has numerous research tools so you can determine what you'd like to invest in. This program is a great option for someone who doesn't have a large sum of money to invest all at once with a broker, even a discount broker. They also have an option to reinveest dividends. One negative is that Sharebuilder is made possible by agreements with companies and investment firms and Sharebuilder does not have agreements with all firms and all stock owning companies so some stocks are not buyable. Insider Tip: Don't choose the reinvest dividends option. Sometimes they invest in spin-offs of the original companies you invested in. You don't want to end up with a company that you did not choose to invest in as a part of your portfolio.

Zecco.com
This website is an excellent low-cost investing service. You do need a minimum $2500 balance but you don't have to invest it all at once, you just have to have it. They offer free trading. How free? Very free. Your first 10 trades of the day are free and you are allotted 40 free trades per month. If you are truly a day trader this may be a good option for you. However, it's even better for someone with a long term view on investing. Fourty trades per month is a lot of investing with very low expenses. If you are a day trader you will need at least $25,000 equity in you account. This website also has research tools.

Fidelity
Fidelity also requires a minimum $2,500 investment. All their mutual funds are Morningstar rated and you can screen and select your funds based on a variety of criteria. You can select from mutual funds, individual retirement accounts, annuities, bond funds, and a variety of other investment categories. The website is easy to navigate and offers hordes of information on your stock or mutual fund picks. It's a good choice if you want a higher service brokerage and have the money to finance it.

Fool.com
This is a website dedicated to savvy investing through non-conventional means. It was started with a book called The Motley Fool. The website offers a huge variety of advice on investing including how-to-guides, hidden gems, discussion and an income investing service. Complete access to the website does however require a subscription. However, if you are interested in being in complete control of your investing through another firm but want to be fully informed, this is an excellent website to get information from.

Yahoo screeners
Yahoo has some excellent screeners for stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. You are able to completely base your picks around the criteria you want. At the very least you can find investment opportunities that fit your situation and then do more research into the companies that own them and/or are selling them using one of the resources listed above.

Treasurydirect.gov
This is a government website for the buying and redeeming of government bonds. You can learn about the different kinds of government bonds. They also allow you to convert any paper bonds you might have into electronic bonds. These bonds are excellent for making gifts to minors for their college education. Generally education is what these bonds are used for.

Hopefully with these tools you'll be able to become a savvy and financially stable investor.