My first step towards making money work for me was opening a Degiro account on 21/01/2018. After the fairly straight forward process of setting up the account with the usual scans of documents (proof of ID and address), I started with a very small investment of €150 per month. This was my first step into investing in the stock market. Stocks are volatile.  The 2008 economic crisis is still fresh in the memories of Irish people. With these things in mind I adopted a simple mindset:

“Don’t invest any money you can’t afford to lose”.

Some of my very first stocks were purchased simply because I was testing out the interface and trying to learn how to place an order. I really am still green about stocks but after much reading I am starting to understand more. I aim to be a buy-and-hold investor with the large part of my cash going into the S&P500 EFTs from Vanguard and the rest into dividend stocks.

The First Few Months of my Degiro Account

The balance in my Degiro account is very modest at this stage but you can see that the yield is around the 10% mark. All my reading tells me that this is a very good return on investment (ROI). I plan to continue to add €150 per month to the account and will keep buying stocks. I will put more effort into researching which stocks give dividends and aim to focus on these. Degiro Portfolio Snapshot 6th August 2018  

Is Degiro better than Davies?

I can’t answer that definitively because I have never used the Davies services but one thing I do know is that Degiro is much cheaper. Davies offer an execution only account but you’re still paying way over the odds compared to the fees Degiro charge. Degiro also has a really good app which allows you to check on your portfolio on the go and place orders. The only drawback so far is the availability of up to the minute information from Degiro on stock prices. But you can just use Google Finance to get the info you need.

Should I Invest More?

I may decide to increase the amount that I invest into this platform but this decision will be balanced with my other investment plans that centre around buying a rental property.