Remember back in the day when you had to have some fancy stockbroker or banker handle even your most basic investments? Not any more. In today’s highly automated world a website like E-Trade can handle your basic investment needs with little cost. E-Trade allows thrifty self-directed investors to buy and sell securities such as stocks, bonds, options and mutual funds right from their computer; you can even exchange securities via smart phone.

For the green investor, E-Trade will walk you through all of the steps for opening an account and investing in various securities. The web site has all kinds of research and analysis tools and expert opinion that will help you start picking the stocks and bonds you’d like to invest in. They have a very intuitive layout that helps you understand where your money is and how it’s “performing.”

It’s best to start with an E-Trade coupon so you can start using the web site at little or no cost. This way you can familiarize yourself with both E-Trade’s format and with investing in general. If you feel a little overwhelmed, the web site has a lot of support services like streaming education videos and live on-demand seminars. Most big cities even have brick-and-mortar E-trade branch stores if you feel like you really need to talk with a financial consultant face-to-face. So if ever have felt like you wanted to start making investments, but didn’t want to hire a stockbroker and have to put up large sums of money, start out small with E-Trade.