<prompt> Human: Hey there rpersonalfinance. So, Im 27, and finally getting out of some debt. I just opened a small internet business. I will not be making much doing it starting out, but I get to be my own boss, and work from home. I trimmed all the extra fat out of my life to do this. I am renting a large room, which Ive made my officebedroom I kind of never really stop working right now. If Im not actually doing work, Im looking for new clients. I chose the room based off it being on a bus line so I can get to wherever I need to get without having to use my car. Everything I have is PAID FOR, and I am trying not really to use any credit in the near future except for small purchases I have the money for. Like a TV, or something from Best Buy. If I used credit, I would just buy what I was getting on credit, and pay the purchase off immediately when I got the bill. I have about 4,000 in savings, and with my current income from the 2 clients I have, my monthly bills run about 25 of my income. Anyway, thats my financial situation right now. Anyway, Ive been thinking, considering I will be working in front of a computer screen all day as is, and on my own time, I might want to play around with the stock market a little bit, and learn a bit about it. Immediately after I considered this, my brain was flooded with questions because I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the stock market. Here are just a few questions now, and if anything else pops up, I will ask some further questions. Is there any bookswebsites you would suggest everyone read before making this step? Do you think I should reconsider and just focus 100 on my business and sink more money into it instead? honestly, there is a lot of stuff I could be doing to making it more successful, but most of its free information I would need to study that I could find on the internet. What are the pros and the cons of the stock market aside from the obvious you could make lots of money or lose lots of money? How much time on average a week would I have to be researching, thinking about, etc the stock market to be successful? What would be a reasonable amount of money I should consider investing as a trial run? Any specific programs you would suggest to make this transition smoother? Anything else that you find would be useful andor pertinent to this subject, please feel free to share. If you have some stock market successfailure stories, please share them, too! Anyway, thanks for your time.  <response>: There are thousands and thousands of financial experts who have devoted their lives to studying the stock market, and have entire companies and research teams at their disposal-- even then, the vast majority not only do not beat the market, they fail to even match it.Long story short-- dont day trade in stocks. Invest for the long term in broad indexes. 