Every childhood birthday that I can recall, my grandmother  gave me a $50 US Savings Bond.  At the time, I found great disappointment in the lack of a glittery new toy, but I now feel deep appreciation for her foresight.  My dad kept these savings bonds locked away in his safety deposit box for years, until I requested possession of them just a few weeks ago.   Browsing my way through the TreasuryDirect site, I figured my bonds to be worth just under $500.  Not an enormous amount of money, but a decent chunk of cash.  
 
I thought long and hard about the best way to use this money.  Add to my emergency fund?  Deposit to my Roth?  Shopping spree?  It was also becoming clear to me that the stock market is taking a full-on nosedive, and it seemed like it might be a good time to throw some money into the fire.  There were good deals to be had, I was sure.  So I decided to use this money to introduce myself to the investing game.  
 
Currently, my 401k contribution is at 5%, with just one of those percents being matched by my employer.  That money is invested – but I don’t know anything about it.  It’s all done through the investment company, and my participation in the process is limited.  So when I decided to start investing my $500, I had no idea where to start.  R was kind enough to help me set up an account through Charles Schwab – which still sits empty.  He showed me how to view the stock’s history, and look for indicators that the value might be rising.  He pointed me in the direction of Investor’s Business Daily, and suggested I join a simulated stock trading game.  
 
But I still didn’t get it.
 
I signed up for the “fantasy stock market” and perused the pages of Google finance.  And I have no idea what to do with all of that information!  There’s a big search window to “get quotes,” but what am I getting quotes for?  I understand the idea of buying and selling shares, but that represents the entire body of my knowledge on the subject.  How do I figure out what companies I want quotes for? 
 
All of the money advice I see includes the dire need to invest money.  Well, I have the money!  I just don’t know how to do the “invest” part of it.  Do most people use brokers for this sort of thing?  Or are most people just more intuitively capable of choosing where to put their money than I am?
 
So finally, I returned to the Charles Schwab site, and started researching some stocks.  R showed me how to build a custom screener, and I selected a few that interested me.  I googled all of the companies, and dug up all the dirt I could find.  The companies that I still liked after an exhaustive investigation – I must have clicked on three different links for each of them! – I settled on six stocks that I am interested in purchasing.  I headed over to my fantasy stock trading game, and purchased 15 shares of each.  This way, I can continue to hover on the edge of real investing, and just dip my toes in the idea of it.  I’ll watch the stocks for a little while, and see if any give me a heart attack.  Maybe I’ll add some more, maybe I’ll get rid of some.  And then, well, I suppose I’ll dive in – or, more likely, belly flop.