How to invest and make money quickly

"You don't have to be an expert. You just have to be committed to doing the basics of the research, so you don't make uninformed decisions."

She's on the Money podcast host is slashing myths around investing in her second book.

The following is an excerpt from Victoria Devine's new book Investing with She's on the Money (Build your future wealth).

Victoria Devine is a financial advisor who has set out to transform the way young women think about money with her chart-topping podcast She's on the Money.

Let's get to the bottom of some investing myths

In my years in the industry, I've found that people who are reluctant to invest tend to share a few common misconceptions. So before we get into what investing actually involves, let's debunk these baseless assumptions.

Victoria Devine. Picture: Miranda Stokkel Photography

It's too expensive

People think investing is expensive, but I'm here to tell you that not investing is far more expensive in the long run. Money stashed in your savings account won't even keep pace with inflation. Investing is one way to insure yourself against future rises in your cost of living.

It's too risky!

There's that 'r' word again! In many situations in life, it's the doom and gloom stories that receive the most attention. Scandals and sob stories sell. And when we hear about the failures of others it makes it seem as though there's a high likelihood that we'll fail too. But that's simply not true.

Pay careful attention to who you listen to, and don't take everything at face value. When you get down to the nitty-gritty of why these people failed, you might find some clues. Like their shares tanked during the GFC so they panicked, sold everything and crystallised their losses. Or they went gung-ho into an investment their mate at the pub suggested, without doing any independent research. 

Risk is relative. What's risky for one person may not be risky for another. It's all about what you can afford to lose.

You need to be rich!

So many people think you need to be rich already in order to make money from investing. And it's true that a lot of the mega-rich people int he world got a pretty decent hand-up from an inheritance or windfall of some kind.

However, there are also plenty of self-made millionaires out there, proving that you don't need to be rich to get started. Got $2000? You're good to go. Does working with $2000 seem a little ambitious? That's cool, let's look into micro-investing.

Any tiny amount you can set aside to invest can help grow your wealth.

I'd be locking my money away

Have you ever been stuck somewhere, unable to grab your phone? You know it's there, but you just can't quite reach it. Isn't it an awful feeling? We've come to depend on our smartphones so much that we feel naked and vulnerable if we don't have access to them at all times.

That's how a lot of people feel about money. They don't like the idea that their funds are locked away in an investment. It terrifies them that they might not be able to access them when required. Funnily enough, a lot of the people who say this are the same people who think buying an investment property is a fantastic idea - how ironic is that? I mean, property is one of the hardest assets to get rid of if you need cash fast, yet these people are reluctant to invest in shares ...

The truth is, there are very few investments that genuinely 'lock' your money away. And these are often the exact kind of investments people seem to think of as more liquid than shares. Most liquid investments allow you to access your funds within a few days, and if you need money in the meantime, that's what your emergency fund is for (more info on that later in this chapter).

I'm not an expert!

You don't have to be an expert. You just have to be committed to doing the basics of the research, so you don't make uninformed decisions.

Worried you're not 'educated' enough to know what to do or where to start? Um, hello! That's why you're reading this book! Now, I'm not pretending that by the time you've finished reading you'll be qualified to trade on Wall Street or anything, but you'll certainly be equipped with the essential knowledge you need to get started, and to know where to find additional resources if you need them.

But I could lose everything!

We've all heard the horror stories of that uncle/friend's ex/lady from your mum's Pilates class who lost every cent they had in some kind of investment-gone-bad. And these stories absolutely do exist. It is important to understand why.

Did those people invest in quality shares - like the top companies that superannuation funds invest into - and diversify their portfolio? If the bottom fell out of those kinds of shares, the very fabric of society as we know it would quite literally collapse. It'd be more of a zombie apocalypse kind of scenario than an 'Oh no! I've lost all my money and will have to move in with my nan and drink lukewarm tea forever' situation!

Losing everything is only possible if you risk everything.