There is always a first time for everything so also for investing. To invest you need capital free of any obligation. If you are not in the habit of saving sufficient amount every month, then you are not ready for investing. Our advice is :-
Save to atleast 4-5 months of your monthly income for emergencies. Do not invest from savings made for this purpose. Hold them in a liquid state and do not lock it up against any liability or in term deposits.
Save atleast 30-35 per cent of your monthly income. Stick to this practice and try to increase your savings.
Best returns are typically on investments made in bad times. You may not feel comfortable investing money into falling/uncertain markets but smart investors will take this as an opportunity to invest for long term.
The truth is, if you want to earn a lot of money from stock markets, the worst time to invest is when the economy looks good, corporate earnings are good, consumers are happy and there are many buyers for expensive stocks. You simply shouldn’t buy when these factors converge, you’ll never make any money. You WANT to buy when the economy looks bad, corporate earnings look bad, consumers are dejected and every one is afraid of buying even the large cap stocks that are trading at 20-30% cheaper than their book value.