"It takes money to make money," says the old adage. There is obviously a lot of truth to this. Bank accounts paying high interest rates that outpace inflation often require substantial sums to be opened. Businesses cost money. Greater financial strength allows one to enter higher risk markets with less apprehension. In short, the saying is true. But does that mean that things are hopeless for the economically challenged investor?

Not at all. Opportunities contract but do not disappear. There are many ways for an investor to get started on a shoestring budget and even in some cases make incredible gains.

LOW START PORTFOLIOS

The key to getting started is picking a broker that has a low minimum account size and charges low commission per security purchased. There are plenty of portfolios with a low minimum account size. A good rule of thumb is to pick a broker that has a minimum standard that is half of your initial investment into the account. Since it would be ludicrous to pay more per buy to the broker than you do for the stocks themselves it is also vital to find one that does not charge much in the way of commission.

There are a few brokers that cater exactly to these needs. A few that meet these all important criteria include ancofutures.com , sharebuilder.com and tangcompany.com. There are many more and researching each one before making your decision is vital.

ASSESS YOUR RISK LEVEL

The most important question before investing has to be how much risk you are willing to accept. There are two ways of looking at the situation. You can view it from the prism of wanting to keep your initial investing nest egg intact no matter what. You can then invest in things like exchange traded funds, which invest in portions of the market itself and do not cost much money per share. Rich investors who want to see a steady if subdued amount of growth over time invest in mutual funds. These EFTs mimic the same indexes at a fraction of the cost.

Of course, you might have an entirely different view on the matter. You might crave a high-risk high-reward situation. Perhaps you are just doing this for fun and the money is something you can afford to lose. Maybe you saw Wall Street and want to test out Gordon Gecko's assertion that, "Greed is good." Whatever your reason, if you want to take on those more volatile markets then there are plenty of available options.

High risk stocks are usually defined as such because the markets they inhabit are very volatile.

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