After I graduated from the college and landed my first full-time job, I realized how important investing was.  I needed money for retirement, emergency funds, vacation money, and so on and so forth.

For my retirement, starting the 401K at work was simple.  I simply invested the maximum amount that the company would match 100%.  A couple of years later, I also set up a 2% annual increase so that I could increase my savings.  The next thing was to save for my emergency and vacation funds.

The biggest question was how I could save and earn more than the average interest rates that banks offered.  I found that T Rowe Price offered the monthly automatic investment plan that allowed me to start with as low as $50 a month.

The benefits of the plan was the low and flexible investment amount, dollar cost averaging that minimizes the downside risks, and the above average ROI in comparison with the banks’ term deposits.

Although my investment options was somewhat limited because the investment principal was small, I was still be able to invest in the stock market via the mutual funds and began building my nest egg.