If you’ve always wanted to invest but don’t know where to start, this Investing Lock-In guide is for you. Over a 4 week period, we held the hands of the Financielle community starting out on their investing journey.
We covered a range of topics from goal setting, how to create an excess in your budget, picking the right platform, the basics of investing and how to change your investing mindset.
This handy guide is perfect to work through whether you’re a curious investor, want to build your confidence or you’re ready to invest.
Part one
The first step on your investing journey is to work out what your investing goal is and work backwards. But what does an investing goal look like?
Here are some examples, you can play around with the numbers yourself.
✅ I want to invest £20,000 over the next 5 years
✅ I want to build a balanced retirement portfolio to support the life I want to live
✅ I want to automate investing 10% of my salary each month
Now you’ve got a goal in mind, it’s time to figure out how to get there but before you start investing, it’s important to build strong financial foundations. At Financielle this can look like Emergency Funds, Sinking Funds and excess in your monthly budget- creating an excess is the key.
Part two
Be honest, how many times have you said “I really should start investing”, spent 5 minutes searching, felt overwhelmed then moved on to do something else instead?
You’re not alone!
That’s why we’ve partnered with the AJ Bell Dodl team. Their low-cost, little-effort investing app to help kick start your journey 💸
Let’s start at the very beginning.
What is investing? 🤔
Investing simply means using your money to buy something that you expect will earn you more money at some point in the future.
🔁 You exchange money now (for example, to buy a stock, or a unit of a fund)
💡 With the expectation that it will grow in value or produce income over time
⏳ You usually wait – investing works best over years (at least 3-5) not days
How can you practically invest? 🤷🏽♀️
You can invest your money in a number of ways but first you need to consider a couple of things to help choose what’s right for you and your life right now, such as how much you can afford to invest and when you would like access to your money.
Take a look at the table below to help understand what type of Dodl investment account could be right for you… (good news, you can choose more than one!) ⬇️
How do I make my first investment? 💰
You’ve chosen your investment account, now what?
If you’ve excess cash in your budget and have a comfortable emergency fund, pick a regular amount that you can ringfence for investing.
Whether it’s £50, £100 or upwards of £250 a month, the aim is to try to make basic investing as passive as possible.
Setting up a direct debit helps to keep you accountable and intentional about your investing journey.
Can I expect to make anything in return? 📈
This can vary depending on how much you invest, into what type of product and ultimately what the market does. Company performance, political affairs and global unrest can all contribute to your investments performing (or not).
This is all out of your control.
Returns will also be dependent on your risk profile, as you can generally pick funds based on your personal risk tolerance.
Want to learn even more? 🤓
Check out The Vault Unlocked episode on Investing here
Part three
Dopamine hit 💅🏽✨
Let’s be real, for a lot of us, nothing hits like that dopamine rush of buying new things. When it comes to investing however, we need to switch up our mindset and lean into delayed gratification. It’s all about resisting that immediate reward for a bigger one later on.
Prioritising your long term wealth over impulsive purchases can make a huge impact to your financial wellbeing both now and in the future.
Elite adulting 💁🏽♀️
Consistency is key 🔑🫶🏼
Embarking on your investing journey requires consistency. We’re looking to build positive money habits over time that will pay dividends in the long run, literally.
That’s why we’ve partnered with our friends at Dodl, Their low-cost, little-effort app is designed to help you invest from as little as £25 per month.
Setting up a direct debit can help you with consistency but also accountability.
The goal is to stay consistent 📈
Part four
Welcome to the final part of our Investing Lock-In guide with our friends at Dodl.
Let’s take a quick look at what we’ve achieved so far ⬇️
📈 Created an investment goal
💰 Made an excess in our budget
🤓 Learnt the basics of investing
📲 Picked a low-cost, little-effort platform (this bit was a Dodl 👀)
🧘🏻♀️ Practised delayed gratification
Well done!
If you need that extra push to get started, check out these truth bombs, dropped by our co-founder and BBC Finance Expert Laura Pomfret, watch it here
Head to our highlights 💁🏽♀️
We’ve had such a positive response to our Investing Lock-In series that last week we opened up a Q&A to the community over on Instagram.
Don’t worry if you missed it, you can watch it all back here
Congratulations, we made it.
Class dismissed 🎓💰👋🏼
Just remember, investing comes with both risk and reward
