… doesn’t feel confident enough to start. Well, then the following might be steps for her to consider.
Suppose you are Laurie. First, you should figure out the maximum risk you are willing to take, or able to take. There is a difference. For example, your financial situation may enable you to take considerable risk, but your personality makes you unwilling to do so. On the other hand, your family responsibilities could make you less able to take risk, despite your willingness to take more risk. For a more complete description of the distinction between ability and willingness to take risk, you may refer to Risk tolerance (by the Ontario Securities Commission).
It is generally understood that, of the two major asset classes of securities, equity investments (think stocks) are generally more risky than debt investments (think bonds). There are a number of online risk tolerance questionnaires you can experiment with, to determine what proportion of your investment portfolio should be in equity and what proportion in debt. None of these questionnaires are perfect. (Some of the issues with risk tolerance questionnaires may be found in this article). However, one of the better questionnaires, in my opinion, is Your investor profile, by the Autorité des Marchés Financier (the Quebec securities regulator, in English). Upon completion of the questionnaire, you are provided with a range of the proportion for your investment portfolio you should consider investing in debt or equities, with the remainder for investing in the other asset class. The range suggested may be rather wide, so pick any point along the range, remembering that such an assessment is not based on an exact science. Keep your risk tolerance numbers handy for Part 3 (Yes, Part 3, not Part 2).