How to Invest When You Only Have $100 to Spend?

June 29, 2022July 15, 2022 monfinance accounts, bank, business, checking account, income, interest, money

Table of Contents

Making $100 is quite simple for many of us, but how about invest that $100 into something greater?

I’ve compiled a list of the 10 best ways to make your money work for you. Making money is easy for most people, but turning that money into lasting wealth is another story.

Before we get started, make sure to visit our pages that includes a ton of amazing free resources available immediately.

Start a business

Many businesses start with an idea and cash to get the business started. While brick and mortars (store fronts) typically take a lot of money to get started, you can start a business of your own online with little money.

I started this business (and blog) with just a couple hundred bucks to get a website design set up and hosting. Now it’s my full-time job and I get to work from home.

Another great example is my friend Megan, a Pinterest Virtual Assistant who created a business around Pinterest marketing. After taking a Pinterest VA course, she’s now a Pinterest Virtual Assistant that helps businesses thrive on Pinterest.

Another great example is turning your hobby into a business. My childhood friend Chelsea creates beautiful macrame home decor pieces. I recently bought a Christmas wreath from her and it’s one of my favorite purchases ever.

Here are a few business ideas if you’re eager to start your own:

Invest in yourself

There are so many ways to invest in yourself that can increase your wealth and help you earn more money.

Earlier this year, I invested in a life coach who helped me completely transform my life. We met for 45 minutes a week and talked through any problems I had related to relationships, my business, and life in general. By creating solutions to my problems, I focused less time on these things and had brain juice for running my business.

You can invest in yourself by:

Getting a life coach
Investing in your health (I did this by getting a Peloton)
Taking 10 minutes a day to focus on self-care

You can build wealth just by improving your physical and mental well-being. When you invest time in yourself, you’re increasing confidence, happiness, and you show up in life so much better.

These aren’t the only ways to invest in yourself. Read more here >Fixed Income Investment – How to get started

Invest in a 401(k) or IRA

One of the easiest ways to turn $100 into $1,000 is by investing your money in a 401(k) or IRA.

Investing is a must if you want a stable and wealthy retirement. And the earlier you start, the better. This is why it’s important to start investing today, even if you don’t have much money to get started.

If you need help learning how to invest for retirement, I have a few resources I personally use and recommend.

I highly recommend taking @personalfinanceclub’s course called How To Build Wealth by Investing in Index Funds. I finished it last month and it makes investing for retirement so simple and easy. It’s an affordable course that pays for itself again and again. If you’re putting off investing, you’re losing the impact of compound interest. If you don’t know what that is, you need to take this course.

I also recommend reading The Simple Path to Wealth and Broke Millennial Takes On Investing. You can purchase either of these books at a local bookstore or check them out at the library.

Pay credit card debt

Paying off credit card debt can save you a ton of money. This is because most credit card interest rates and loan rates are high. When you pay off debt, you get rid of those interest rates.

If your goal is to pay off debt and start building wealth ASAP, there are a few methods to do this. First, we need to know the different methods of paying off debt. The most common methods are the avalanche method and the snowball method.

The avalanche method works by you paying off your highest interest rate debt first. Then you go to your second highest interest rate debt and so on. The snowball method works by paying off the credit card with the smallest balance and working your way up from there.

Let’s look at an example of Sarah’s debt.

Debt 1 (personal loan): $3,000 at 9% interest rate

Debt 2 (student loan): $8,000 at 7% interest rate

Debt 3 (credit card): $5,000 at 24% interest rate

Sarah would want to pay off her debt in this order if she was using the avalanche method: Debt 3, Debt 1, then Debt 2.

If Sarah wanted to use the snowball method, she’d start with the smallest balance, so it would also look like: Debt 1, Debt 3, then Debt 2. If you struggle with staying motivated, I recommend using the snowball method.

If you want to save the most money on interest over time, use the avalanche method. The avalanche method is paying off the highest interest rate debts first.

Use a high-yield savings account

Where do you store your emergency fund or savings you need quick access to? If it’s in a savings account at your local bank, check your savings rate. Most banks offer lousy savings rates that give just pennies back every year. This is why I recommend banks like Ally or CIT Bank.

I store my emergency fund inside an Ally online savings account. At the time of this writing, I’m getting .60%APY in my savings account. In early 2020 before all of the craziness happened, I was getting 2.0%. Savings rates frequently change because of the federal government, which you can learn more about here if you’re curious. Regardless, .60% is much better than what my local bank offers, which is .10%.

Another popular option is CIT Bank. CIT Bank is voted one of the best online banks, currently offering .50% APY on savings accounts. Whatever you decide to do, if you’re going to have money sitting in a savings account, make sure you’re getting the best savings rate. If you’re going to have money sitting in an account only for emergencies or saving for a specific thing, make your money work for you and take advantage of the best savings rates.

Buy and sell

Did you know you can make money by buying items and reselling them? You can earn even more money by fixing up an item and restoring it to a higher quality item.

Here’s an example of an item you can flip. My friend Melissa bought this item for $50 and sold it for $500. She found this item when she was on a road trip with her husband and kids. This item basically paid for her vacation.

I think it’s so awesome and inspiring seeing people take a few bucks and turn it into hundreds of dollars. I have a friend in my personal life who does this, but with furniture. She buys cheap furniture, fixes up the upholstery, and makes hundreds of dollars in profit.

If you want to learn how to buy and resell items for profit, Flipper University is an affordable way to learn how to create a profitable selling business in less than 14 days. The creators of this course created a side hustle that made them $42,000 their first year of side hustling and now make them over $133,00 a year.

Enroll in a course

Courses can teach you skills that help you earn extra money or even start an entirely new career. I’ve taken several courses to learn how to blog, and the most recent course taught me how to make $1,000/month in passive income.

Instead of going back to school to learn a new skillset, you can take a course online for a fraction of the cost.

Set up automatic transfers

Create a set-it-and-forget-it strategy by automating your savings. You can do this by setting up automatic transfers to go from your checking account to your savings account or investment account. This is ideal for people who want to “pay themselves first” on payday. Instead of manually putting money into savings, it’s done automatically so you don’t even think about it.

Once you create a budget, you’ll have a general idea of how much money is leftover that can be put into savings. If you don’t have any money left over, this is time to reduce expenses and learn how to save money. Set up an automatic transfer with the leftover amount biweekly or monthly. If you save $500 a month, that’s $6,000 in 1 year. That’s enough to max out an IRA account in 2020!

Setting up automatic transfers is unique to each bank and investment account. Some accounts let you do this online via dashboard or you have to contact a bank teller or customer support representative to set it up. Most banks and investment accounts will have information about this in the settings area.

I learned this method in 2 different books that I recommend reading: 1) The Automatic Millionaire and 2) I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Both books have great lessons about paying off debt and building wealth in the long-term.

Start a blog

Blogging isn’t easy and takes a lot of hard work. If you feel that you can help people with a blog and inspire others to live better lives, a blog is a great way to do that. I make money with ad revenue, affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and selling my own digital products.

If your dream is to become a full-time blogger and start a blog, I recommend starting a blog with Bluehost. Bluehost has 24/7 support, a money-back guarantee, and makes it as easy as possible to start a blog.

Are you not sure where to start on creating a profitable blog? I recommend checking out this course roadmap to figure out where you should get started first!

Final note

There are so many ways to turn $100 into $1,000. The next time you look at your bank account and see any amount of money, think about how you can turn it into much more than that.

What are some other ways to turn $100 into $1,000?