Interested in investing? First, understand your finances.

A close friend told me they want to invest in the stock market. Why? They hope to retire at fifty. I'm concerned. The stock market is not a get-rich-quick scheme. If it were, we would all be rich. On the other hand, the market may treat reasonable investors very generously. We cannot all be Warren Buffets but we can all be like me.

The first thing any would-be investor must do is get their present financial life in order. To this end, I advise a spreadsheet. Many of us have computers preloaded with Excel, the excellent Microsoft spreadsheet.

That said, I use the LibreOffice spreadsheet. My copy of Excel expired and Microsoft asked for a lump of cash for renewal. I moved to LibreOffice and sent the Europeans a donation in support of the open source movement.

 

You can design your own budget spreadsheet or you can use a downloaded spreadsheet as a template.  All spreadsheets require a little tweeking. 

To find a budget template, search the LibreOffice Extensions or check out the Vertex42 offerings. McAfee checked the Vertex42 site, determining that Vertex42 is a good company posting threat-free software. McAfee gave the site their SECURE certificate.

Here is a link to the Vertex Personal Budget Spreadsheet shown on the right. Remember all spreadsheets can use a little tweeking. It isn't difficult. If I run into a problem, I find Google quickly delivers a solution.