Simple Investing For People In Their Twenties

You have one financial advantage nobody else has. Don't waste it.

Time. That's it. That's the whole secret. Not income, not inheritance, not a degree in economics. Just time - and the decision to use it.

The numbers are stark. Invest a modest amount each month from your mid-twenties and you could have over half a million pounds by retirement. Start the same habit ten years later and that figure roughly halves. The difference isn't discipline, luck, or knowing the right people. It's a decade - and that decade is right now.

Written by someone who ran the UK investment industry - and wishes this book had existed at the start of his career

Stuart Welch spent twenty-five years at the heart of UK financial services - as Chief Executive of NatWest Stockbrokers, CEO of TD Direct Investing, and Global Head of Personal Investing at Fidelity International. This is the book he wishes had existed when he was starting out - written for the reader who has better things to do than become a financial expert, but who understands that the decisions made in their twenties will shape everything that follows.

What's inside

• How compound interest actually works - with numbers specific enough to make you act
• The accounts available to you - workplace pension, Stocks and Shares ISA, Lifetime ISA, SIPP. What each one does and which to prioritise
• What to invest in - stocks, bonds, index funds and ETFs explained without jargon
• The behaviours that make or break investors - and how to automate your way past all of them
• Investing with student debt - whether it makes sense, and how to think about it clearly
• Low or irregular income - why you don't need to earn more before you can start
• Big life events and your investments - how to keep building through the moments that throw everything off
• Your first investment portfolio - what to build, how to set it up, and what to do once it's running
• Staying the course - the psychology of markets, why investors panic, and how not to be one of them

Starting a decade earlier roughly doubles the outcome. You don't need to earn a lot. You don't need to find it interesting. You just need to start - and this book will show you exactly how.

The decisions you make in your twenties will shape everything that follows.

This book makes those decisions straightforward.