The closer I get to paying off my debt, the more I have been thinking about getting serious with investing. Right now all I have is a savings account that I am trying to pad up for emergencies and after I hit my target goal of $5,000 I will start pushing more funds into long-term investments. Yeah the stock market sucks right now, but hopefully by the time I’m ready to throw some stocks into my portfolio things will be a bit brighter. Dangnab our Bushcrap economy!
So, if you’re anything like me (you poor thing), the thought of seeing balances grow in investments is well, FUN! Especially if you’ve been in that nasty, dark pit of barely making ends meet surrounded by a tornado of generic cardboard pizza, overdraft fees, late payments and credit card debt. I think I just described the average American college student. 
Here are some cool investment websites to get you excited about investing your money online:
Zecco
Zecco Trading is an online trading and investing community. The bold pink and gray colors and intuitive design stands out from similar sites and actually gets me a little giddy about investing! There is no minimum balance and stock trades are just $4.50. Zecco Trading also offers up to 10 free stock trades per month to every customer with at least a $2500 balance in their account. Take advantage of their thriving community to join investing groups where investers pool their knowledge together to make better invesments.
etrade
etrade.com was one of the first sites online to offer public trading. There are a lot of great features and tools like comprehensive reports, attentive customer service and helpful advice geared towards the “stock virgins” which is great if you need it, but it comes with a higher price tag of $12.50 per trade.
Forex
Forex is a site designed for Foreign Exchange Trading, the largest financial market in the world with a daily turnover of trillions of dollars. Yes, I said trillions! At Forex.com you can start with a free $50,000 practice account for training With real time charts, news and research.
Sharebuilder -
Another popular investing site that offers no minimums or account maintenance fees and a professional, easy to navigate site. Limited trades cost $15.95 but if you participate in their ShareBuilder plan, they are only $4. A great, practical feature is being able to set up automatic investments each month of week. For instance you could set up a reoccurring $100 deposit into a mutual fund every month…this is great for people who have a hard time setting aside money for investments!
Yahoo Finance
Stay informed with the latest market news and stock reports and create a personalized portfolio
Google Finance
Google’s version of Yahoo Finance. Has similar features with no ads and while it does offer more slick flash and ajax coding, it needs some serious tweaking cause it’s pretty plain vanilla.
SaneBull
Sanebull is a slick app that lets you create a personalized overview of your stock portfolio with news feeds, tickers and widgets. Great for side by side comparisons too by having all of your data on one page. They boast they are “Yahoo Finance on steroids”.
Wall Street Journal
Even though you’ll cool reading the Wall Street Journal, it’s pretty beastly. Check out the interactive edition instead for all dirt and dish on the national financial world.
Motley Fool
A creative website about stocks, investing, and personal finance with lively discussion boards, videos, articles and personal finance resources.
Bank of America
Known for their consistent offering of high-yield rates on bank certificates.
