@ carty1 , I am a former stockbroker and have to inform you that buying stocks that you can afford needs to include more than just the actual price per share for the stock. You need to do some research as to the potential growth of the company, does the company pay dividends? does the company have a Standard and Poors or Moody's credit and performance rating? many of the "penny" stocks do not, based on that they also carry a higher risk of paying off for you. This is why you either have to put in the time and effort in to research or rely upon a broker whose job it is to perform some of that research and make recommendations for you. You also need to determine what you goals are, and what is known as your risk tolerance. Usually younger people are considered to be able to handle higher risk as they have the element of time on their side to recoup any losses they may have early in their investments. More senior people as they approach retirement generally would look for lower risk in order to protect their principle and thus move their investments into dividend paying stocks like utilities or muni bonds which don't require Fed income tax be paid on their earnings. There are tons of companies that offer newsletters which are usually tied to certain particular stocks or industries so you can become excited about their particular recommendations. However, there are others that can offer guidance while remaining somewhat neutral, they can teach you the general things to evaluate but generally won't make specific recommendations. One is The Motley Fool, another would be to google Jim Cramer from MSNBC, Standard and Poors will provide good third party information as well as Reuters or Bloomberg which are primarily stock and business reporting news media. Hope some of these ideas help get you on a good start.