Although the media reports that they spend much of their free time killing things, two-thirds of millennials appear to be unable to fully capitalize on their natural killer instincts enough to take on the risks of investing in the stock market to increase their wealth outside of having a job.

Whether that's because their parents failed to teach them to invest or because they find it too “scary and intimidating”, it seems strange that so many Americans of the millennial generation haven't grasped that investing can be as easy as buying the products that you want to have and isn't much more expensive than that. In fact, to quote Girl$ On The Money's Mabel Nuñez from her presentation (HT: J. Money) at the LOLA Retreat money event for women that was held in New York City last month, “if you can afford the product, you can afford the stock”.

That's really a great way to think about it. If you like a product enough to buy it, odds are that there are a lot of other people like you out there also buying it, which is what keeps the company that makes or sells the product in business. And if you and a lot of others like the company a whole lot, odds are that the company makes a positive net margin (or profit) as it does business.

But, if you're only a customer of what the company sells, you're missing out on the opportunity to make money from the company's success in providing the kinds of products and services that you and lots of other people like you are happy to buy at the prices at which they sell them. One way you can do that is to buy shares in the ownership of the companies whose products that you like to buy, which is what you're really getting when you invest your money in those companies' stocks. The stock market is simply the place where you can publicly buy, sell or trade those shares of ownership.

Let's go shopping, shall we? A great resource to find companies whose products that you like to buy is Dividend.com's listing of stocks by their industrial sector, which is kind of like the mall directory for the stock market. Starting here, you can zero in on the companies whose products you like to buy.