Bangalore: Putting your money to work for you is the best way to prepare for a financially secured life. As an investor you may use several techniques and make several investments to save your hard earned money. You may have future goals like saving for retirement, children's education and to increase your overall wealth. You may also consider seeking the advice of a financial adviser to help you make the right decision. But if you carefully notice, as an investor you would have made many small and big investing mistakes. These mistakes help you learn and improve your decision making skills in terms of investment. The trick is to avoid investing mistakes , which almost always lead to a loss of money. Starting to Invest Too Soon There is always a right time to invest. It will be a wise decision to start investing when your finances are in order. If you are trapped in debt or are burdened with heavy credit card payment, you should consider clearing your debt first and then move towards making some investments. The basic conventional rule is to start investing early. But when you have no proper future planning, still trapped in debt, and lack basic understanding of how that investment will benefit you, it is advisable to get yourself familiar with the investment rules and have practice in investment before you actually trade with real money. Paying Too Much to Buy and Sell You must be familiar with the concept of buying and selling stocks, mutual funds. Now with so much of advancement in technology, online trading has become popular. Buying and selling online is so simple, and it is a competitive market. This provides the serious investors a golden chance to save some serious money by choosing an online discount stock broker. When searching for an online discount stock broker you must remember that 'the best' company is going to be based on your trading needs. You'll need to evaluate each company. Discovering Your Risk Tolerance at the Wrong Time Everyone has a high tolerance for risk when the market is going up. Sometimes an investor takes a risk to gain some 15 percent, but he doesn't consider the times when the market turns. Because when that happens he lost an extra 15 percent because of the risk he took. It is often in the middle of a bear market that people decide to sell. They sell because their losses are greater than they anticipated. Changing Your Investing Strategy Based on Market Conditions An investor should stay far from two emotional factors that could ruin your future. The two factors are 'fear' and 'greed'. When the market turns down, many investors fear withdraw the money or sell their stocks. When a person sees that he has a loss, he decides to stop buying until the market goes back up. It seems like that would make sense, but it is a very bad move. You may need to re-evaluate your strategy based on market conditions, but don't let your investing approach change.