How I Began Building My Portfolio Using the Stash App to Invest in the Stock Market (Part III)

I had no idea what I was doing when I used the Stash app for beginner investors to make my first few investments in the stock market. I basically just threw a dart at the internet and bought a few bucks’ worth of some brand names I recognized.

But from there, as I shared previously, I moved on to some diligent, intentional Google research, finding my way to some industry experts with loads of wisdom to share. Then, as described in my last article, I started exploring the in-app learning resources provided by Stash, which led me to gain an understanding about how to “diversify” my portfolio to minimize risk and maximize stability for long-term growth.

After that, I came to my third step so far of building my very first portfolio, and this is the one I believe has been most important and most valuable for the long haul.

The following is based on personal opinions and personal experiences, and should not, under any circumstances, be considered professional investment advice. Always do your own research before making financial decisions. Please note no views or opinions of the author are endorsed by any other party mentioned herein. (I doubt they even know I exist.)

Step 3. Signing up for the Motley Fool Stock Advisor.

This is the most recent—and the most exciting, informative, confidence-boosting—step I took while researching stocks to build my very first investment portfolio. And it's the only one that cost me any money beyond actually buying the fractional shares I wanted.

That said, beware... Stock Advisor is not a cheap resource, even with a half-off coupon code. As I've shared in other posts, I grew up under the poverty line, and I'm not exactly made of money these days, either. Shelling out almost a hundred bucks for investment advice is not a move I expect every amateur investor to make right away. It's definitely the biggest gamble I've taken in this experiment so far. In all honesty, if the Stock Advisor subscription link I stumbled upon hadn't promised a 30-day risk-free refund period, I would've skipped the opportunity altogether. (And remember, the Stash app provides plenty of ways to begin investing in the stock market without an expenditure like this, so you can start wherever you're at.)

But here's the thing. Since beginning this journey on January 1st, in all of my reading, researching, and cross-referencing about stocks and market behaviors, Motley Fool articles keep coming up at the top. As one review site observes, “If you have ever done research on investing, you've likely heard of The Motley Fool.”

Now, remember, before 2021, I knew absolutely nothing about investing in the stock market. But I’ve known how the internet works for a long time. At first, I wasn't completely sold on whether Motley Fool resources were really as proven and reputable as the website claimed, or if they just had a killer search engine optimization strategy to get high rankings on Google.

So I proceeded with caution. And the more I read about stocks during my first two steps to building a beginner investor portfolio, the more I saw Motley Fool researchers quoted and cited by other high-profile authors in the subject area. Plus, what free content I could get my hands on without a subscription seemed to be the best and most thorough information out there for self-made investors.

When I looked into the philosophy behind this company, I learned why: the Motley Fool co-founders have built a freakin' empire based on their commitment to share everything they know to help their members on the path to financial freedom. And they’ve been doing it for a long, long time—with some of the industry’s most impressive results to show for it.

Although the Motley Fool team doesn't specifically target their advice toward empowering low-income or working-poor investors with wealth-building know-how, which is where my little heart lies, the founding David and Tom duo are known as dedicated investor advocates unlike any others. Basically, they're in the game to give away what they've been given, knowing they thrive when they help other people thrive. And that ethic certainly aligns with my hopes for a more equitable society. From the Motley Fool website:

"The world and the markets operate best when the opportunities for growth, impact, and prosperity are clearly available to all."

Catch that? Available to all. That's the peculiarly revolutionary kind of messaging that drew me, a broke South Dakotan living paycheck to paycheck, with no previous trust or interest in investing whatsoever, to download the Stash app to see how it works.

"Stash was built with a simple philosophy: everyone should have access to investing." Everyone should have access. And that's a hope for humanity that led me to begin The Serenity Project—an experiment in winning the wealth-building game. If I can figure out how to do it, you can figure it out, too.

All this is to say, I bit the bullet, I paid the subscription fee, and I signed up for Motley Fool Stock Advisor. Immediately, I started reading about Tom and David's top picks, and… wow. With the depth of research, detail, and readability, along with the enormous library of practical premium content, I might never need to consult another investing resource again.

Armed with this perspective, after spending the first two weeks of 2021 learning how to build my very first portfolio, investing a few bucks here and a few bucks there, I ended up deciding to invest my whole $600 government stimulus check. Now, that might be just a drop in the ocean for some people, but $600 is a big deal for this girl. I was willing to take the risk because I was so impressed and so inspired after doing my research about the Motley Fool and its mission. I'm not telling anybody else what to do—I'm just saying most of my $600 stimulus check went into building up my first investment portfolio with company stocks recommended in the Motley Fool's latest picks, updated on Thursdays.

I’m not gonna give away the farm here or go into any great detail about the research that informed my decisions, since I got the inside scoop from the premium Motley Fool content I paid for, and that content is somebody else’s livelihood. Suffice to say I'm now especially keen on companies like Qualcomm, NVIDIA, SVB, Coupa... obscure-to-me companies I might've never even known about, til I read the Stock Advisor justification for these picks and gained total appreciation for how clever these opportunities look for the future, especially with a 5G world around the corner.

That's one key to the "Foolish" way of investing: this approach takes the long view, assuming money will be left in the market for a minimum of five to ten years and grow in future value. Long-term investing means short-term fluctuations don't end up mattering very much in the end, because over time, most stocks tend to trend upward. For instance, I might check my portfolio today and see that I "lost" money on a stock I bought yesterday—but five years from now, that stock might be worth two, three, five, maybe even ten times more than what it's worth today!

I don't know about you, but I'm a dreamer... I read all the Instagram ads and Facebook posts and personal blogs about how everyone on the internet these days apparently has six or seven side hustles earning six-figure streams of passive income, and I have all kinds of ideas about ways I'd love to spend my time—if I had time.

But like most of America, I still live in the version of reality where I need to work full-time to pay the bills and put food on the table, in the hope and the prayer that if I stick it out long enough, I'll gradually be able to find opportunities to pursue my passions and leave a meaningful legacy.

You see, for me, winning the wealth-building game isn't about showing off a bunch of cash and flash. It's about relieving my family of generational burdens which have prevented us from freely contributing our gifts and talents to the greater good for all our lives so far. We've never had the opportunity to give what we want to give to this world... and I'm sick of it.

The Serenity Project isn't about making a name for myself or personally getting rich. It's about seeing people released from oppressive conditions of poverty and debt to become wide-open, out-loud, peace-spreading expressions of crazy-generous love for other people, enjoying the mutual betterment of futures lived on purpose together.

Yeah, I'm a dreamer. But I'm also a strategist. I have a knack for seeing the small details add up to the big picture. I see potential... everywhere.

So starting with what I've got and putting the little money I do have to work for me? It might not be much right now, but it's the beginning of my new side hustle as an investor. And that's a big deal in my world.

As it stands, after those first two weeks of researching and selecting my portfolio mix, I’m currently invested in…

• 14 companies I chose based on Motley Fool recommendations,
• 6 companies I picked from other sources,
• 2 companies I scored in #StockParty opportunities (which I’ll explain another day),
• 1 company added from my first Stock-Back® debit card purchase,
• 9 domestic ETFs,
• 4 foreign ETFs, and
• 4 variety packs of bonds,

...for a total of 40 investments of various (small, so far) amounts.

This might sound like a lot. And it might actually be a lot to begin with, especially since I don’t have much spare money to spread across them all. But the Motley Fool team has shown "the best way to build lasting wealth is to own a diversified portfolio of multiple stocks—30 or more is great." It seems like a reasonable approach to begin building some solid investment habits. And, with a schedule of automated investments set up, my portfolio will continue to grow over time.

Obviously, I’ll be refining my strategy along the way. I’m learning as I go, using myself as my own guinea pig. For now, I’m glad I started at all—and I’m thankful for the technology available to let me figure out what I’m doing to begin with!

So there you have it… the initial steps I took as a brand-new investor who knows nothing about investing. This is what I did to build my first portfolio by buying fractional shares of stock through the Stash app. To date, while learning how to research my investments, I’ve moved from blind Google searches, to in-app Stash recommendations, to the financial industry’s most acclaimed Motley Fool stock-picking advisors of all time.... not bad for the first two weeks, right?

Now it's time for the hard part of long-term wealth-building: leaving it alone and letting it grow.

In the year ahead, I plan to continue writing about my experiences as a beginner investor, using the Stash app to build a portfolio in the stock market. I’m not saying you should do it, too—I’m just gonna try it myself and let you know what happens. I’m learning as I go, so if you’d like to come along for the ride, we’ll be learning together, hopefully doing our small part to turn the tables and win the wealth-building game, for the good of greater society.

Does that sound overly ambitious to you? Maybe we just haven't allowed ourselves to think big enough before.

If you like anything you read here, please share this article with your social media networks to get more people thinking about how we can all start winning the wealth-building game. Like to connect? Drop me a line: jeanmillersays {at} gmail.com.