Why am I publicly sharing my stock investments on Twitter?

I'm sharing my stock investments openly because I want you to think about your own money. I'm 31 years old, and if there's one thing I regret is not taking care of it sooner.

Full disclosure:
I'm not a financial expert, and I never will be. I'm just someone how regularly follows tech stocks and invests.

Here's my story.

The biggest lesson I learned ten years ago

About ten years ago - in 2010 - after I landed my first "real "full-time job as a project manager and consultant working for a creative agency, I went to my "home bank "asking for advice on stock and other investment strategies.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a great experience on my end.

The stocks and companies I was interested in (U.S. tech stocks, such as Microsoft) were considered too risky, and therefore, not recommended by my consultant.

On the other hand, I hadn't had any real interest in investing into businesses and industries I had no clue of (such as manufacturing / Austrian stock exchange).

Besides, the recommended minimum amount per stock was around 5-10k euros. Considering that I was only starting, earning my first full-time money, this was a lot — too much money.

Because of that, I ended up doing nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. A small amount went and still goes into a fond that's running for ten years.

But my stock investment adventure didn't start, because I just felt that I hadn't enough money in the first place. And tech stocks were considered too risky.

Well.

The short story is that it took me almost nine years, until 2019, when my real stock investment started.

Now looking back, I should - obviously - have started sooner. But between 2010 and 2019, I was spending my money elsewhere. Mostly on traveling and other experiences.

I don't regret that, as I'm planning to keep my traveling and experience-based spendings; however, I regret that I put my active investment thoughts on hold.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started

I think this also applies to your financial situation.

Talking about money

Here in Austria, where I grew up and lived most of my life, people barely talk about money. Even with friends, we rarely exchange salary figures or how much money we own.

For a long time, this was pretty OK for me, as I wasn't interested in finance anyway.

However, over the last year, I recognized the benefits of having a friend or someone to whom you can openly talk about your financial situation.

As I started my first stock trades in 2019, I began to exchange those openly with a friend. We started to invest together as we kept sharing our watchlists and pinged each other on news and other updates.

Getting started with actively investing in stocks, ETFs, or other products can be worrisome if you do it alone and for. The first time.

At some point in the last few weeks, I was thinking about sharing it publicly on twitter. To inspire you to inform you and to tell you two things:

1) The amount you invest in doesn't matter. If you don't have much, invest something small. That's fine.

2) Tech stocks are not that risky. At least for me working in this industry for 7+years now. I still have less clue about more "traditional "stocks than Tech & SaaS stocks.

Getting started means getting ahead

A big thank you if you've made it way down to this part of the article. I want to close with one last thought:

Just start.

Because starting will open you up to new learnings, and the sooner and faster you learn, the better you get.

P.S. there will be many learnings ahead if you get started. Hit me up on Twitter @tompeham, if you'd like more insights on my investment path.