As of yesterday, I am officially back in the stock market! Oh, how I missed it.

Before I get too carried away, let me share the details. All I did was put $100 into a mutual fund and I do not plan to add more any time soon. I made this investment because I opened a Charles Schwab One Brokerage With Investor Checking account a few months ago and I had a little money sitting in it. This account is really nice because you get a checking account with interest, free checks, overdraft protection (on margin), a debit card, and you get a low-fee brokerage account. Part of the brokerage account is a selection of mutual funds that you can invest in with no fees and a minimum of only $100. This is probably the best deal I have seen for the small investor (fees of any kind really hurt the little guy). I’ll share more about this account in another post.

So, about the investment. I briefly looked over the Schwab One Source list (the selection of funds available with no fees). I wanted an international fund and I really didn’t spend much time looking for one. I picked the Laudus International MarketMasters Fund - Investor Shares (SWOIX). I wanted a fund with at least a 10 year track record and a decent expense ratio. This fund has a 1.64% expense ratio (about average in its group) and a 10 year annual return of 12.84%. Again, I wasn’t looking for the greatest fund ever, just something solid. Remember, I’m only working with $100 here.

I don’t plan to do any more investing until I have at least paid off all of my credit card debt and probably not until the student loans are gone too. I just had the money there so I wanted to somehow put it to good use. In addition to that, I really love the stock market and it feels good to be back in. Some day in the future, when the debt has been destroyed, I hope to spend a lot more time writing about (and making) investments.