Work-based retirement plans deduct your contributions from your paycheck before taxes are calculated, which will make the contribution even less painful. Once you're comfortable with a one percent contribution, maybe you can increase it as you get annual raises. You won't likely miss the additional contributions. If you have a 401(k) retirement account at work, you may already be investing in your future with allocations to mutual funds and even your own company's stock.
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Investing in stocks can be done in many ways. If you would like to form a strategy and manage your own investments, you can open a brokerage account. If you're unsure about where to start, consider opening an account with a robo advisor who will do the work at a lower cost. For those who want more guidance about their retirement plans, turning to financial advisors might be a good solution.

Before making your first investment, take the time to learn the basics about the stock market and the individual securities composing the market. There is an old adage: It is not a stock market, but a market of stocks. Unless you are purchasing an exchange traded fund (ETF), your focus will be upon individual securities, rather than the market as a whole. There are few times when every stock moves in the same direction; even when the averages fall by 100 points or more, the securities of some companies will go higher in price.
Regarding your private keys, can either keep them on a software wallet, or on a hardware wallet. The software wallet is the easiest way for beginners, but it implies that you have a computer that is properly secured (strong password, antivirus etc.) and that you do backups of your data. Remember, if you lose your private keys, the money is gone forever. As you get into cryptocurrencies more seriously, you will inevitably look for a hardware wallet, which is a dedicated device resistant to hacking where you can store your private keys (or to say it in an easy way, your crypto assets/invested money). I have already written an article on a hardware wallet, the TREZOR (see here). The most common wallets are the TREZOR and the Ledger Nano S. The TREZOR has a new model being sold from January 2018 (Model T) which will support much more currencies than the current TREZOR. The Ledger Nano S has more integrations currently, but I would recommend to wait for the TREZOR T to judge properly. Those devices usually cost around 100 USD, so once you have more than 100 USD to protect it starts making sense to get one.
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Rarely is short-term noise (blaring headlines, temporary price fluctuations) relevant to how a well-chosen company performs over the long term. It’s how investors react to the noise that really matters. Here’s where that rational voice from calmer times — your investing journal — can serve as a guide to sticking it out during the inevitable ups and downs that come with investing in stocks.
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