Invest Money Wisely at Any Age: 7 Simple Principles

The COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis have triggered extreme stock market volatility. This week, Wall Street also saw the stock price for GameStop, a video game retailer, skyrocket far above what many people think it's worth. 

Seeing huge daily spikes and drops in stocks and the overall market may leave you wondering what to do with your investments or whether you should be investing in the first place.

You'll learn how to achieve long-term financial goals, such as retirement or paying for a child's college, even if you don't have much money to invest.

Fortunately, the answer to wise investing hasn't changed. In fact, the market turmoil and GameStop stock frenzy prove that using simple, tried-and-true investment strategies is the best way for investors to get through any crisis. When you have a strong investment strategy, you'll never panic or wonder if you're doing the right things with your money, no matter what the news headlines say.

This post will review seven simple principles to grow your net worth no matter if you're just starting to invest or you've been at it for decades. You'll learn how to achieve long-term financial goals, such as retirement or paying for a child's college, even if you don't have much money to invest. I'll include an explainer on why everyone has been talking about GameStop and if it matters to average investors.

7 simple principles to invest money wisely

Follow these seven simple principles to invest money for healthy returns without taking too much risk.

1. Separate savings from investments

Though we tend to use the terms saving and investing interchangeably, they're not the same thing. Savings is cash you keep on hand for short-term planned purchases and unexpected emergencies. It should be liquid so you can tap it instantly if you lose your job or have a considerable expense. Make it a separate bucket of money you accumulate as a safety net.

In The Right Amount of Emergency Money to Keep in Cash, I explain how to build your emergency savings, so you're always prepared for what happens in your financial life. 

Also consider saving money for big purchases that you want to make within a year or two, such as a new car or home. Keeping the money in a bank savings...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Nutrition Around the World: Indian Cuisine

I recently got an email from Madhav, who wrote from India and asked how people eating a more traditional Indian diet could apply nutrition advice that’s based primarily on Western dietary patterns.

I asked Vandana Sheth, a registered dietitian and the author of the book My Indian Table, to talk about some of the nutritional pros and cons of traditional Indian cuisine, how to select the healthiest options, and how to make your own healthy Indian food at home!

Below are a few highlights from our conversation. It has been lightly edited for clarity. Click on the audio player to hear all the enticing details.

Monica Reinagel: Of course, India has lots of regional culinary traditions so "Indian cuisine" doesn't encompass one single thing.

Vandana Sheth: India has a great diversity in terms of food, spices, and flavors, and the food varies greatly among different states. Although some of the spices and ingredients are similar, the way they are incorporated is quite different. In general, cuisine can be divided into four styles based upon geography (North, South, East, and West). Much of the cuisine that's typical in U.S. Indian restaurants is from the Northern or Punjab region.

MR: Are there any elements that the various regional culinary styles have in common?

VS: Using a variety of spices and herbs to flavor up food is a common factor among various regional culinary styles. Turmeric, cumin, cardamom, and coriander are all common in Indian cooking. 

MR: What are some of the healthiest aspects of traditional Indian diets?

The wide variety of whole grains, beans/lentils, vegetables, fermented foods, nuts, seeds, and spices are some of the healthiest aspects of traditional Indian diets.

VS: The wide variety of whole grains, beans/lentils, vegetables, fermented foods, nuts, seeds, and spices. There are so many flavorful plant-based options.

MR: Is vegetarianism any more or less common in India than in the U.S.?

VS: It was definitely more common in the past, in part connected with religious traditions. With more globalization, more people are likely to add meat to their diets today. But it remains more of an accompaniment rather than the centerpiece of the meal. Vegetarians in India typically consume dairy products but not eggs, which are not...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

7 Ways to Turn Your Startup into a Success Story

It’s exciting to start a business. But did you know that roughly 90 percent of them fail?

Before my company Preply became what it is today — a leader in the education technology space with 250 employees and 15,000 tutors spanning 185 countries worldwide — I experienced failure with my first startup, FindGuru. 

I’ve learned a lot along the way, from both success and failure. That’s why I’m sharing seven tips that can help you turn your startup into a success story.

Get the right team in place.

You need to have a good balance within the team. Balance means a few different things.

When we first started our company, we had three engineers, two business people and zero product designers. You need the right mix of experience and expertise to get things done efficiently. For example, if your company requires that prototypes be drawn up quickly, you need that designer in the mix. You need to have a full-stack team to succeed. While it’s expensive to have every type of person onboard early on, you can utilize freelance services to fill in the gaps where you need help.

Balance on a team also means shared missions, visions and values. Everyone needs to be on the same page, working towards the same goal. This is crucial to setting a strong foundation and roadmap for the future.

And of course, always look to hire passionate, ambitious and hard-working individuals. People you can trust. If you’re interviewing a lot of different candidates, have a checklist with factors that are critical to your business. Why do they want to work for you? What do they bring to the table?

Choose your investors carefully.

Investment in your company is not just about money. It’s about bringing people on board who have the knowledge and experience your company needs. People who will challenge you; people who will bring valuable perspectives, suggestions and insights. There’s a big difference between good investors and investors who are nice people with money. Once we had the right investors in place, we saw...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

"The Three Mothers" Excerpt: Our Trials, Tribulations, and Tragedies

The three women’s lives vacillated between pain and joy. They raised their children through times of great social upheaval outside of their homes, and they also experienced tragedies within their family that rocked the foundation of their existence. But their pain shows us the strength of their continued ability to push forward. By remembering the events taking place beyond their homes—race riots, the onset of World War II, strides in African American freedom movements—we are able to see how each woman navigated loss and triumph both in and outside of her family unit. The way Alberta, Louise, and Berdis dealt with their own agony gave their children the strength to push through the suffering they would experience in the future.

In many ways, Alberta’s life was the easiest in her younger years as compared with Louise’s and Berdis’s. Her parents were able to provide her with a stable home, a loving community, and the education they desired for her. They laid the groundwork that set her up for success and in turn provided for her children and their children after them. Alberta was able to stay in the South and thrive: she could support her husband through his journey and pass on her knowledge to her children. This is not to say that Alberta was not required to work hard and persist through her own challenges, but the generational resources her parents built for her gave her a cushion the other two women were not as fortunate to enjoy.

Alberta’s father, Reverend Adam Daniel Williams, the son of a slave exhorter from Greene County, Georgia, arrived in Atlanta at the age of thirty. At the time of his arrival, he was not aware of all the incredible things he would accomplish before his death, for his family, his church, and his larger Black community. Under his and his wife’s thirty-seven years of leadership, Ebenezer Baptist Church became one of the most central and influential parts of Atlanta’s Black community. He took the church from a small gathering of people to one of the largest congregations in the country. He’d lived through the horrific race riot of 1906, when white mobs killed and attacked as many Black people as they could, and he’d spoken up against such injustices. He made himself known as a person who would not stand by but would make as many changes in the world as he possibly could or die trying. He and his wife were some of the earliest members of the NAACP. They led boycotts and other demonstrations, never wavering in their fight for freedom.

Alberta’s...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

5 Ways to Use a Weighted Vest

A few years ago, a friend of mine took me up on a challenge and raced a Spartan obstacle race wearing a weighted vest. It’s not an exaggeration to say that doing so made an already intense race a million times harder. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but you get my point.

After the race, he said that he “literally felt like he was dragging an entire extra body around the racecourse.” After looking at the data from his wrist-worn activity tracker during a debriefing later that day, we could see that his heart rate shot up, his lungs and muscles were burning, and his body temperature went through the roof. The next day he was so sore and fatigued that his walking gait reminded me of a zombie in an old horror film.

Weighted vests are a potent tool for enhancing the difficulty of an aerobic workout, building extra strength and muscle, and turning up the intensity of bodyweight exercise.

While I certainly don’t think you need to do an obstacle race in a weighted vest, this piece of fitness gear can come in quite handy as a potent tool for enhancing the difficulty of an aerobic workout, building extra strength and muscle, and turning up the intensity of bodyweight exercise.

What is a weighted vest?

A weighted vest is simply a vest that is either made from a heavy material or equipped with small pockets that can be filled with tiny sandbags, custom-sized steel bars, or a variety of other weighted objects. The general purpose of a weighted vest is to add extra weight for bodyweight exercises, walking, distance running, or speed, agility and quickness drills.

When it comes to performance, research has shown that using this type of extra load during sprinting or speedwork requires your lower-body muscles to generate more force against the ground. This can lead to improvements in strength, power, and acceleration during running, as well as increased strength and efficiency during speed, power, and agility drills.

Simply doing your daily activities with a bit of extra weight can significantly increase the metabolic cost (or how much fuel you use).

But even if you’re not a professional athlete, another study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research has shown that you can still benefit from using a weighted vest. In fact, simply doing your daily activities with a bit of extra weight can significantly increase the metabolic cost (or how much fuel you use). It can also increase the intensity of an...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Be a Star When You Join a New Team

Want to guess how many jobs you’re likely to have in your lifetime? According to a 2019 survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s 12! 

Changing jobs can bring about a tremendous blend of feelings. For me, it was always exciting, a sense of a fresh start and a new opportunity to deliver and impress. But also, there was the anxiety. What if I’m not a fit? What if they don’t like me? What if no one picks me for the kickball team? (Occasionally, my elementary school nightmares would seep into my grownup misgivings).

What if I’m not a fit? What if they don’t like me? What if no one picks me for the kickball team?

If a job change is on the horizon for you, then let's talk about some strategies that will help you stand out as a new member of a team.

While I'm at it, allow me to double-up on the value of this episode. Even if you're not changing jobs, the strategies I'm about to share with you can be used to reinvent your relationship with your existing team. So, go for it!

Begin with relationships

Starting a new job can leave you feeling like you’re drinking from a fire hose. A ton of information will be coming at you, likely well more than you’re able to absorb and recall at first. But don’t panic. The most valuable thing you can do in your first 90 days in a new job is to focus on relationships over facts and data.

Start by making connections with your new team members—in groups, and also one-on-one. Strong relationships with your team members will set you up for success. When you have questions, need to seek collaboration, or want advice on a sticky situation, having trusting relationships will become your secret sauce.

So begin by just connecting with people and focus on building trust. Share what you’re willing to share about yourself and learn about each of them as you go. 

Learn the unwritten 

Many organizations have written documentation designed to tell you how things work. Between your company website, an employee handbook, and the employee policy center on the intranet, there will be no shortage of official information on how to get things done.

Many of these questions won’t be answered right away. And you certainly won't find them in a handbook.

But if this isn’t your first rodeo, then you know how important it is to learn the unwritten rules of getting things done. Who are the gatekeepers? What are your boss’s pet peeves? What are the cultural norms of meetings—slides or no slides? 

Many of these questions won’t...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Why Was February Chosen to Celebrate Black History Month?

Every February since 1976, the United States has celebrated the achievements of African-Americans during Black History Month. The month-long celebration puts those accomplishments and milestones into focus via the media and in classrooms.

But why February? Was that part of the calendar chosen for any specific purpose?

Black History Month began as “Negro History Week,” a label applied by historian Carter G. Woodson in 1926.

It was. Black History Month began as “Negro History Week,” a label applied by historian Carter G. Woodson in 1926. Woodson was bothered by the fact that many textbooks and other historical reviews minimized or ignored the contributions of black figures. Along with his Association for the Study of Negro Life and History—later the Association for the Study of African American Life and History—Woodson earmarked the second week in February to raise awareness of these stories.

Woodson chose that week specifically because it covered the birthdays of Frederick Douglass (February 14) and Abraham Lincoln (February 12). The ensuing publicity led many mayors and college campuses to recognize the week; through the years, the groundswell of support allowed the occasion to stretch throughout the entire month.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford made Black History Month official, saying that he was urging everyone to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

A version of this article was originally published as "Why February Was Chosen as Black History Month" on Mental Floss. Read more from Mental Floss.

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips