welcome to the stock forum tpaine, 20 is a good age to start to invest, the youger the better.....
as for your question investing is easy to get into, though sometimes hard to understand.
1. first you state you have some savings. shop around and try to get a good rate for your money GIC/CD. that is locked in for a short period of time.
2. pay down debts
3. start with a mutual fund. for the most part these require a small amount 500-1000 (some 5K, 10K and up) however many are small amounts.
do some reading and research which ones have performed well, and look at expenses. these are easy with a bit of research to find out about, on many sites,...such as morningstar and many others.
4. by the way try to spend one hour a week one just reading on the subject, that is not that much time in a week. or a few minutes a day.
for example the article DTB provided a link for only took a few minutes to read, (note: that is the only kind of spam I now receive, 4 a day)
5. you may want to invest in drip and spp, dividend reinvestment plans, and share purchase plans. you buy the stocks and the dividends are reinvested for free.....a nice way to slowly build up a portfolio.
there is sharebuilder, and buyandhold, and many more in the US. also most discount and full brokerages allow you in reinvest the divs for free to buy more shares.
6. do not use margin to invest, at least not for a few years if ever. many people are destroyed by borrowing to much and then they get wiped out.
I do have margin accounts however you must be carefull, also follow certain trading rules.
7. avoid options, futures, currency trading, ect. you can worry about these after you are comfrotable with stocks.
know someone who invested in futures the first year and made seven figures. he was already wealthy.
within two years lost his gains and almost all of his money, came about 30-50 cents (if the stock dropped that much more) he would have lost it all.
has since recovered most of his losses, but there are rules in investing and trading stocks, learn those well before playing with options.
by the way his main mistake was dollar cost averaging on a losing position........
8. do not invest in one sector, a good friend has just began investing in stocks after being in mutual funds for years.
he has made a few trades in oil and gas stocks. is up 15% in just two months.
problem is he seems to always want to buy oil/gas stocks. great if oil goes to 100 bad if it slips below 55.
diverisfy financials, tech, resources, ect. with etf it is easy to invest in different sectors and even countries.
thanks
selkirk
