When investing, somewhere along the way you may make a few mistakes, however you must avoid making the big mistakes that are so often made by some if you are to become successful at investing. The biggest mistake one could make is not to invest at all, or to put investing off until later. Even if you can only afford to invest $20 per week, make your money work for you and invest it!

Although putting off investing or not investing at all are big mistakes, you must make sure you are in a financial position to invest before putting money into anything as this could be another big investing mistake. So try and get your current financial situation up to scratch first by clearing up credit cards and paying off any high interest loans you may have, and make sure you put aside at least three months worth of living expenses in a savings account. Once you have done all of this you are ready to start making your money work for you.

One mistake people tend to make is investing to get rich quick. This type of investing is high risk, the riskiest type of investing you could do, and in the end you are likely to lose your money, if investing were this easy everyone would be doing it.

The best way to look at investing is for future plans, retirement, and college funding etc. Go for long term maturity of your money. There will be downs as well as ups with this type of investing, but if you can hang tight and have the patience to weather the storm and allow your money to grow you will see benefits. Investing for short term is only advisable to do if you need the money in a short amount of time, but if you get back the money you needed then re-invest with safe investments such as certificates of deposit.

As the saying goes, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. To be successful at investing you need to share your funds with different types of investments for the best returns and also it is not a good idea to keep moving your money around too much, if you have chosen stable stocks, there should be no need to move your money. If the stock drops by a few dollars but is generally a stable stock don’t panic, let it ride the storm and it will go back up.

A common mistake that a lot of people make is thinking that their investments in collectibles will really pay off. Again, if this were true, everyone would do it. Don’t count on your Coke collection or your book collection to pay for your retirement years! Count on investments made with cold hard cash instead.

Always seek professional advice from a financial planner before investing any money, they will help you decide how to invest and where to put your money in order to reach your financial goals.