I’ll never forget the first time I tried to open a brokerage account back in 2018. The platform wanted a $1,000 minimum deposit, and I was sitting there with maybe $200 I could scrape together. I closed my laptop and figured investing just wasn’t for people like me yet.
That was stupid, and I wish someone had told me about ETFs and fractional shares back then. Because here’s what nobody explains when you’re starting out—you don’t actually need thousands of dollars to begin investing. You don’t even need hundreds. I finally started with $50, and honestly, I should’ve done it years earlier.
If you’re looking at your bank account thinking you can’t afford to invest, let me show you why you’re wrong and how ETFs make it ridiculously easy to get started.
What ETFs Actually Are (Without the Finance Jargon)
An ETF is basically a basket of investments all packaged together into one thing you can buy. Instead of trying to pick individual stocks like Apple or Microsoft, you buy one share of an ETF that already owns pieces of hundreds of companies.
Think of it like buying a variety pack of chips instead of betting everything on one flavor. If you hate barbecue, you’ve still got other options. If one company in your ETF tanks, you’ve got dozens or hundreds of others balancing it out.
Here’s why ETFs changed the game for someone like me who didn’t have much to invest:
You get instant diversification. Even if you only invest $20, you’re spreading that across multiple companies. When I bought my first ETF share, I suddenly owned tiny pieces of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and about 500 other companies. That felt pretty cool.
The barriers are basically gone. Most brokerages now let you buy fractional shares, which means you can invest literally any amount. Got $5? You can start. Got $50? Even better. There’s no bouncer at the door anymore.
The fees are tiny. I remember my dad talking about mutual funds with expense ratios over 1%. Most ETFs charge like 0.03% to 0.10%. That difference might not sound like much, but over decades, it’s thousands of dollars staying in your pocket instead of going to fund managers.
You can buy and sell easily. ETFs trade just like stocks during market hours. You’re not locked in, waiting for some end-of-day settlement like with traditional mutual funds.
How Much You Actually Need to Start
This is going to sound almost too good to be true, but with platforms like Fidelity, Charles Schwab, or Robinhood, you can literally start with $5 to $10. I’m not exaggerating. There are no minimum deposits on most platforms anymore.
I started with $50 because that’s what I felt comfortable with. My friend started with $25. Another guy I know began with just $10 to test the waters. All of us are still investing years later, and all of us wish we’d started even earlier.
The amount you start with matters way less than just starting and being consistent about it. I’d rather see someone invest $20 every single month for a year than wait until they have $500 saved up. Because by the time they save that $500, the consistent investor has already been in the market for months, their money’s been growing, and they’ve built a habit that actually sticks.
The ETFs That Make Sense When You’re Starting Small
When I first started researching ETFs, I got overwhelmed fast. There are thousands of them, and everyone has opinions about which ones are “best.” But when you’re working with a small budget, you want to keep it simple and go with broad-market, low-cost options.
Total market ETFs give you exposure to basically the entire U.S. stock market. I own VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF), which holds over 3,500 companies. That’s about as diversified as you can get in a single purchase. SCHB from Schwab is another solid option that does basically the same thing.
S&P 500 ETFs track the 500 biggest U.S. companies. This is what most people think of when they think “the stock market.” VOO, SPY, and IVV all do this, and they’re all fine choices. The differences between them are so minimal that arguing about which is “better” is honestly a waste of time.
Dividend ETFs are interesting if you like the idea of getting regular payments while your investment also grows. I don’t own any yet, but my coworker swears by SCHD and uses those dividend payments to buy more shares. It’s like a little snowball effect.
International ETFs let you invest outside the U.S. I added VXUS to my portfolio last year because putting all my eggs in the U.S. basket felt risky. It holds stocks from developed and emerging markets around the world.
When I started, I went with just VTI. That’s it. One ETF. As I learned more and had more money to invest, I added VXUS for international exposure. You don’t need to overthink this at the beginning.
How I Actually Got Started (And How You Can Too)
Let me walk you through what I did, because it’s way simpler than it sounds.
I picked a brokerage. I went with Fidelity because I’d heard good things, but Schwab and M1 Finance are also solid. They all offer fractional shares and no minimum deposits. I’d avoid platforms with tons of fees or that push you toward expensive managed accounts. Keep it simple.
I decided on a monthly amount. I looked at my budget and figured I could consistently do $50 a month without stressing about it. Some months I’d add a little extra if I had it, but $50 was my baseline. The key word there is “consistently.” I wasn’t trying to drop a huge amount once and call it done.
I chose my ETF. Like I said, I started with just VTI. One simple, broad-market ETF that required zero thought. I didn’t need to watch the news or worry about individual companies. It just quietly held a piece of thousands of companies for me.
I set up automatic investments. This was the game-changer. I scheduled $50 to transfer and invest automatically on the same day every month. I didn’t have to remember, I didn’t have to think about whether the market was up or down, it just happened. This approach is called dollar-cost averaging, which is a fancy way of saying “buying regularly regardless of price.”
I stopped checking it constantly. In the beginning, I checked my account almost daily. Super unhealthy. The market goes up and down, and watching those little fluctuations was making me anxious. Now I check maybe once a month, sometimes less. ETFs are long-term investments. You’re not day trading here.
Why Starting Small Beats Waiting for the “Right Time”
I talk to people all the time who say things like “I’ll start investing when I have more saved up” or “I’m waiting until I understand the market better.” I get it, because I said the same things. But here’s what I learned—waiting costs you money.
The market historically goes up over time. Not every day, not every month, but over years and decades, it grows. Every month you wait is a month your money could’ve been in the market, potentially growing.
Small amounts compound. That $50 I invested three years ago? It’s worth more now, and it’s been earning returns this whole time. If I’d waited until I felt “ready,” I’d have missed all that growth.
You learn by doing. I learned more about investing in my first three months of actually having money in the market than I did reading articles for a year. There’s something about having skin in the game that makes it real.
Starting small taught me discipline. It’s easy to invest $1,000 once when you’re excited. It’s harder but way more valuable to invest $50 every single month for years. That’s the habit that actually builds wealth.
The Real Talk About Getting Started
Look, I’m not going to tell you investing is exciting. Most of the time, it’s boring, and that’s actually the point. You set it up, automate it, and let it do its thing while you live your life.
You don’t need to understand everything about the stock market. You don’t need to watch CNBC or follow market news obsessively. You definitely don’t need to wait until you feel like an expert, because you’ll never feel like an expert until you start.
What you need is to take that first step. Open an account. Pick one simple ETF. Invest whatever amount you can consistently afford—even if it’s just $10 or $20. Set it to automatic so you don’t have to think about it.
The hardest part is starting. Once you’ve made that first investment, the second one is easier. By the time you’ve done it for six months, it’s just part of your routine, like paying your phone bill.
I wasted almost two years telling myself I’d start investing “when I had more money” or “when I understood it better.” Those were just excuses because starting felt intimidating. The truth is, I wasn’t going to understand it better until I actually did it, and there was never going to be a perfect amount of money to start with.
So if you’re sitting there with $50 or $100 or even just $20, thinking it’s not enough—it is. It’s more than enough. Open that account, buy that first ETF share, and join the rest of us who wish we’d started even earlier than we did.
Your future self will thank you for starting today instead of waiting for someday.