Don't start gambling until you've got money you can afford to gamble.

I'm 40 years older than you. I remember when the newspaper boy would bring a big-city newspaper and it would have every stock's price listed in a big multi-page table.

The first investing I did I didn't actually do... my mother, the notary, forged my signature on a form to open me a brokerage account. Then she bought me something and gave it to me for my college graduation.

Next, it was the 401k at my first big-boy job. I put 25% into the company stock fund.

My next big investment was the wedding. Not the reception, but finding the right woman to marry.

Then a house.

Then, after our first kid was born, I was finally making enough and life was stable enough that we started investing outside the 401k...but before we started investing outside the 401k, we were maximizing our contribution into the 401k.

All this was through mutual funds. Not stock, not bonds, not pork belly futures, and not currency trading. Mutual funds that combined money of different investors to buy a few shares of this and a few shares of that and a few shares of something else.

And eventually, we did open a gambling account and bought some stock. We've bought some stinkers and some winners. We bought 10 shares of McDonalds on a whim at 23 bucks. It's now trading at 270, if I recall correctly. But we also bought some BP 3 months before the Darkwater Horizon disaster. And we've bought stock in a company that went bankrupt.

The key is diversity. Eventually every company falls on hard times, one way or another. When I was your age, the most popular entertainer was Bill Cosby. He's had a rough few years now. Imagine where I'd be had I invested in a television production company he could have owned.