The Wealth & Investing Starter Guide

What's inside

• Start with the foundations — Before investing a penny, clear expensive debt, build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses, and make sur…
• The power of index investing — Decades of evidence show that most professional fund managers fail to beat a simple low-cost index fund over the long ru…
• Use your tax wrappers — In the UK, ISAs shelter £20,000 a year from all tax on growth and income, and pensions (including SIPPs) add tax relief …
• Why diversification works — Diversification is the only free lunch in investing. Different assets fall at different times — when stocks crash, gover…
• Asset allocation by life stage — Your allocation should match your time horizon. In your 20s and 30s, a portfolio of 90-100% global equities maximises gr…
• Building blocks for UK and US investors — A simple three-fund portfolio — a global stock index fund, a bond fund, and optionally a REIT or property fund — capture…
• Rebalancing and staying the course — Portfolios drift. A 60/40 portfolio left alone can quietly become 75/25 after a bull market — taking more risk than you …
• Compounding and behaviour — Compounding is slow, then sudden. £500 a month at 8% becomes roughly £750,000 in 30 years — and most of that arrives in …