Have you gotten the stock bug? Are you itching to get into bonds or the derivative market? Do commodities sound like the place to be right now? Are you ready to jump into a mutual fund? Are you ready to start investing? Are you sure?

You have to be ready before you start investing. Blindly entering a market could cause you to lose a lot of money. First, you need to learn about investing. If you don’t know how a stock works, how are you going to expect to make any money from one? Read books, watch the news, search online, and find out what it is that makes stocks appealing to investors.

If you want to invest in bonds, find out what a bond is, how you buy them, and how you make money from them. Even learn about investments you may never buy such as derivatives and commodities so that you can understand how they affect the market and, in turn, your investment.

The next step is to get the money to invest. You can invest without money. Money is the backbone of any investing plan. You also need to start with a pretty good amount. You won’t get very far with a starting amount of $10. A broker will look at you like you’re crazy if you walk up with ten dollars in your hand.

Make a budget in order to start saving money. Cut back where you can and cut out things that you don’t need. If you can save at least 10% of your income, that is a great start.

Next, you need to find a place to invest. As much fun as it might sound, you as an ordinary person cannot go to the trading floor on Wall Street to place your trade. You have to find a brokerage firm to place the trades for you.

You can either invest with a large brokerage firm that offers professional service or you can use a discount broker such as an online firm. The larger brokerage firms will only accept you if you have a substantial amount of money to invest with, sometimes $2,000 or more. If you are starting smaller, you can sign up with a discount broker such as Sharebuilder.

When you have learned all you can, start using your newly learned skills to research companies and choose stocks and bonds to buy. Don’t buy anything unless you’ve put a lot of thought and effort into it.