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Hello! I am a social investment supporter. My journey started last year when I read Hans Rosling's book: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World -- and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. According to Hans, the best investment opportunities are in the emerging markets of Asia and Africa. He described how we should look at statistics to make smart business decisions. I especially liked how he was optimistic about the future of the world and how countries are working hard to get out of poverty. It's not an investing book per se but it gives a good insight on where you might want to focus your attention if you want to make a difference in this world. It also solidified my rule to invest in the Philippines only and not be distracted by any foreign investment product (as I am currently based abroad).

Here's a TEDtalk as an intro to Hans Rosling: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty/


I further asked myself how could his ideas be particularly applicable in the Philippines, where a lot of my countrymen are still living in poverty? Fortunately, I found Vince Rapisura on Facebook and he constantly discusses being a "Social Investor." Before meeting him, I have never heard anything about Social or Impact investing. I thought investing was just to make my money work for me. But through him, I learned that investing can create more value than just mere profit. We can select investments that have a conscious goal of making a positive impact on society. Vince's company, SEDPI, is focused on such ventures and his presentations are on his website: https://vincerapisura.com/impact-investing-handouts/

I am still reading more books about the topic and my search got me to Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. It was written by Muhammad Yunus and he earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in Bangladesh. I think his concepts are pretty similar to what Vince is doing with his company.

Let me also share this episode about Tagum Cooperative (which Vince has been raving about recently) and I must say their work and mission are inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQbtbORwUfE

Sorry, I am just blabbing about my recent reading/watching list but to answer your question, yes, socially responsible investments have been on my mind lately and I got excited when I saw your question. I admit that I still have an index fund and I know that some companies there don't have the best reputations, so I am slowly transitioning and studying more materials in order to invest in enterprises that I can understand and have the same principles as I do. It is a hard task but hopefully, I would get there. If you ever have a chance to attend a seminar by Vince, I'd say go for it.

I'm one of those Robinhood users but I can't complain about much it's not a bad way to start learning how to trade and buy stocks. I contribute every payday into my account it's currently around $5,000. Not much but it's decent. For the last two-and-a-half years I've been investing a portion of my paychecks to the stock market I spent about four months losing a lot of money trying to follow all these YouTube gurus advice. I lost about $1,500 trying to do that. Eventually though I decided I should just teach myself the ropes instead of taking somebody else's word for it. I purchased 4 books from Amazon and these books are great they teach you a lot of stuff about the stock market how to value companies and ideas to help you grow your portfolio over time I just wanted to recommend these books if somebody is just starting out it's not that much money it's about $45 worth of investment it has been great for me since reading them. I also have to recommend a YouTuber that I follow quite closely his name is Jeremy and his channel is called financial education. I like his investment style and I try to do very similar things myself.

.https://amzn.to/2mnwnOg The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

https://amzn.to/2nVmy A Random Walk Down Wall Street by  Burton G. Malkiel

https://amzn.to/2nfkfiE Irrational Exuberance by Robert J. Shiller

https://amzn.to/2nn7imH The Bogleheads’ Guide to the 3 Fund Portfolio by Taylor Larimore

>I’m 20 right now with 1.5M in savings.

You have a great head start compared to most people! Don't squander the money. You'll realize 1.5M isn't that big soon enough, if you haven't already.

>While I really do appreciate the groundbreaking and insightful concepts that he introduces in his books, I feel like it doesn’t specifically teach you how to invest especially if you are an absolute beginner

Yes, I noticed this too but there was one crucial lesson he taught in the book that people miss - cashflow management. What did you learn about cashflow management?

Don't underestimate that lesson. It's literally the key to becoming and staying wealthy. It's probably more important than learning how to analyze a company's financial statement, forecast price movement, etc.

Once you feel like you're ready, go and study the different methods for analyzing a company. I would suggest reading this book: Security Analysis and this. Those two books will teach you exactly what you're trying to figure out now in terms of "learning to invest".

Keep learning, don't stop growing.

I would suggest Investing 101 for beginners because it's an easy read and discusses topics in simple, layman's terms before delving into the more complicated terminologies. It helped me a lot when I was a newbie myself. Although it doesn't tackle investing in the Philippines itself, it does give very helpful information on investments and the basics. Got a copy from Fully Booked. :)

Start with the basics - The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

Then go Technical - Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets

Then go Random - Random Walk Down Wall Street

Sa katagalan, makakabuo ka ng sarili mong strategy kung saan ka comfortable.

Yass queen :) Freelancing and being a companty of one is the future. Someone write about it here.