The first step is to determine what you want to achieve with your investment, whether it’s in the short-term or long-term. Next, you should think about how hands-on you want to be with your investment. There’s no wrong answer to this. “Ask yourself, ‘Do I want to get into the nitty-gritty, evaluating multiple investments, and agree to do that regularly? Or would I rather set it and forget it?’”

You can help gain a more quantifiable measure of your risk tolerance by taking quizzes to help you figure out whether you’ve got a more aggressive or conservative mindset. Just remember that your time horizon will also be pivotal when figuring out how much risk to take on. It is commonly known, that the closer you are to needing the money, the more likely you should consider shifting to conservative investments.

In a nutshell, diversification means you don’t have all your eggs in one investment basket, which may help protect you if any part of your portfolio falters. For example, if you invest in just one company whose stock goes bust, then your portfolio will go bust. “If I own 2,000 companies in my portfolio, and 10% go bankrupt, I’m still going to be fine,” Blaylock says. “For me, it comes down to the law of large numbers. I’d rather own small pieces of 2,000 companies than 100% of one company.”

This will depend entirely on your investing goals, income level, employment status, and tax situation. But consider opening a retirement account as your first order of business because retirement savings are generally described as one of the pillars of financial security. And if your employer matches contributions to a 401(k), be sure to take advantage of that match—it’s essentially free money! If your company doesn’t offer this perk, you may want to consider a traditional or Roth IRA.

The reason is simple: Many of us have paltry nest eggs—36% of people have less than $1,000 stashed away for retirement. “We’ll all retire someday, but most of us are under-saved for it,” Blaylock says. And given the modern life span, you could expect to live about 30 years as a retired person. Think about your expenses each year, multiply that by decades—and you’ll start to conceptualize just what a tremendous savings goal retirement is.

It all depends—on you. Maybe you get joy from watching the numbers go up or perhaps the ups and downs seriously stress you out. “The frequency is less important than having a set schedule,” Blaylock says. Winkler suggests twice a year, or even once a year may be fine if you’re fairly comfortable with how your portfolio is performing.

Retirement accounts are generally either tax-free or pre-tax, Blaylock says. Traditional IRAs and 401(k)s are pre-tax because they provide a tax break in the year that you make the contribution by reducing your taxable income. So if you make $50,000 per year, and contribute $5,000 to one of these accounts, you’d only be taxed as if you’d made $45,000. However, your withdrawals will be taxed later as ordinary income.