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Playing the stock market? Oh, my, no. That’s best left to the downtown bigwigs, with their chic corner offices, barking inscrutable finance-speak into a Bluetooth headset 23 hours a day, right? Wrong! Yes, investment is a highly involved process, but whether you’re a sculptor or a broker, there’s a way to grow your hard-earned green. Unfortunately, not enough women see it that way.

“Women like to talk about their dating, their dieting, everything — except their money and how they can make more of it,” says Laura McDonald, co-runner of GoldenGirlFinance.ca, an educational website that gives average gals the chance to talk and learn about finance in relatable terms. “But there are so many opportunities to build wealth, to build a nest egg and to build a legacy.”

OK, now you’re galvanized, ready to grab yourself a piece of that money pie. Time to get a subscription to The Wall Street Journal, enrol in business classes and, of course, start tracking the growth of commodities on the Hong Kong stock exchange… just kidding. Yes, there are endless reports to study, trends to track, business jargon to learn, but that’s not strictly necessary at this stage.

For now, “you really need to start building that network of professionals around you,” advises McDonald, “whether it’s a great lawyer, an accountant, a tax specialist, a financial adviser — so that you have your own people.”

That being said, here are a few basics that you should know before jumping in. You can break investments down into two categories. The first is the relatively boring deposit-based things you can do with a bank – collecting interest on a savings account or governmentinsured bond.

The sexier stuff – stocks, bonds, commodities, futures — is called non-deposit investing, and that’s where things get riskier and potentially more profitable. Essentially, you’re purchasing a piece of a company (stock) or loaning out money to one (bond) with no guarantee that you’ll get your initial investment back. Naturally, in this case, it pays to know everything you can about the company you’re investing in beforehand.

“You start with what you know, and people know more than they actually think,” advises Susan Misner (the other co-runner of GoldenGirlFinance.ca). Misner suggests thinking about the products and services that women use every day as the place to begin market research. For example, she says, “They know that they love Lululemon pants, and that many women feel that same way. There are people rushing out to buy those pants and it may translate into better earnings for the company. They can start to look at and follow those trends.”

Moreover, she says, “Stocks that pay a regular dividend, have paid that for 25 years and have a strong dividend growth rate are going to be a safer investment than something that doesn’t meet those terms.”

While that’s a good jumping-off point, this is the territory where you really need some extra help. Narendra Shah, president of Shah Financial Planning (one of only a handful of South Asian-founded finance firms in Canada), says, “Selecting stock is not easy because it involves so many things. You have to consider so many kinds of ratios. You have to analyze financial documents and all financial-related information regarding a particular company, their competitors, etc.” In other words, leave that part to the professionals (at least for now) and focus on the basics. “The first thing the investor should know is the financial objective behind her investment — whether she is investing to buy a car or buy a house or for retirement purposes or for a vacation,” says Shah. Moreover, your knowledge of the industry, risk tolerance and time frame for reaching your goals needs to be made perfectly clear and updated regularly.

For beginners craving security, Shah often recommends a common investment strategy called dollar-cost averaging, which involves taking a fixed amount of money and purchasing small amounts of a chosen stock weekly, biweekly or monthly, regardless of what the market may be doing over that period. It’s a longer-term investment (often several years) and not just a single lump-sum purchase. By spacing out your investments, you stand to lose a lot less money if the stock goes down.

“Most investment advisers will sit down with their clients and make sure that they’re properly diversified with their investments and with their asset allocation,” adds Misner. “That’s why you put stocks, bonds and maybe gold in their portfolio to insulate them and reduce that overall risk.”

Naturally, there’s much more to learn, but knowing the difference between futures versus commodities and whatnot will come with experience. Right now, our experts agree, the most important things are finding yourself good certified advisers, working out your specific goals and understanding — if only on a basic level — what you’re buying and who you’re buying it from.

Even if you’re not interested in putting on a power suit and building an empire, you should have the know-how to expand your nest egg; you just never know when you might have to cover an against-all-odds Ivy League acceptance for Junior or, you know, a sudden relapse in your Jimmy Choo addiction. (We’re not judging.)

BY MATTHEW CURRIE / PUBLISHED IN THE FASHION, STYLE & HOLIDAY ISSUE 2011