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Hello and welcome to Nerdwalt's Smart Money Podcast, where we answer your real-world money questions in 15 minutes or less.

I'm your host, Sean Piles.

And joining me as my co-host, Diana Yolkham.

All right.

Today's question comes from Sean in San Francisco.

He asks, I have $5,000 to invest, but I'm afraid of losing my money and don't even know where to begin.

Help. Wait a minute. Sean from San Francisco.

Yes, that's me. Okay, I admit it. This is my question, but I know that you're an investing

Maven, and I figured I might as well use this wonderfully educational platform that we have

created to educate myself and others like me who are maybe inexperienced with the world of

investing, but still want to have their money make them more money through investing,

if that is how this works.

It is.

Aw.

I'd be happy to help you.

First off, Sean, don't get all Gordon Gecko or Wolf of Wall Street on me. Let's set this

stage to make this a successful foray into investing. I'm going to start by asking you some very

personal details about your finances, okay? All right. If that's the price I have to pay to get this to work for me,

let's do it. The big reveal. Well, we're going to start with some financial housekeeping.

So these are the questions that everyone should ask themselves before they start investing their

...