Getting FIREd up 😀

killerpeaty

It's not stupidity (in her case it was just the lack of caring). Inflation will almost always eat away at cash, whereas if you take a small but emotionally not insignificant amount of risk then you will usually keep ahead of inflation. This is all over the long term, however long term is the most important thing when it comes to a LISA because the shortest time it can sit in your account (assuming you don't use it for a house purchase which is an entirely different thing and would lead to the opposite conclusion) is 25 years. That's 25 years of inflation eating away at your savings, versus riding the ups and downs if investments.

Personally, I invest in index funds. They attempt to emulate the market (there are different funds for different markets) rather than beat it. You might think of investing as you pick individual shares, this is a high risk strategy compared to index funds. This is because the average person can only afford to buy so many shares so you can't diversify very much, whereas the funds invests in lots of different shares and you effectively buy into it saying "I want a bit of what you're having but not the whole meal".

I spent about 6 months before I started investing with the money sitting in an account being ignored, not getting interest nothing because I wanted to feel unattached. And it was SO DEVASTATING  when my investments went into the red. A decade later, my investments sit at between 50 -70% up depending on the markets. That's just what time in the market does.

I would suggest reading from monevators guides, I haven't kept up with investing honestly, but I used to love that blog. Hopefully they're still around.

Sorry for the essay.

PennysIntoPounds

Thank you for the not at all essay @killerpeaty, much appreciated

South_coast

kaycastle said:

Was he mowing the lawn on the other side of the window?   

Not today! Not even going to say what's actually outside my office window 🤣!

TallGirl

Just joining in with the investment talks I had to seek financial advice when I inherited some money but I also did this free Course on Open learn. It was really good to get the concepts and understand risks and your own ideas around it. I could highly recommend it to anyone. 

South_coast

First of the month round-up….

• 9x extra £50s this month, coming from a big chunk of interest on one of the cash ISAs (and a big Tilly tidy to round it up), the usual interest, surveys, a big amount of TopCashBack (hotel stay), another load of TopCashBack for taking out the Barclaycard (in May!), We Buy Books and Vypr. Phew 😅! Used one for a charity donation and the rest towards my niece's account - which is now complete 🥳! So she gets lots of lovely interest compounding away for the next 7-8 years, and I get to delete a standing order 🧚‍♀️

• Got underway with saving for the refurb 🥳!

• £708 of growth across the pensions and S&S in the last month, not too shabby!

11.01 years to go….

South_coast

Oh, and I made it through dry January 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️

SuperSecretSquirrel

Well done on all counts SC! 🙂

South_coast

Thank you 😀😀😀

South_coast

Very dark Prolific survey to kick off my morning. All about whether Russia would launch nuclear weapons in a fictional future conflict in 2030 😬

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pO1HC8pHZw0

CCW007

I had that prolific survey, not a great topic to consider before I'd even had a cup of tea.