Article index
All 125 articles on The Investment Habit, by section.
Getting Started
Section page →- The decisions that only need making onceAug 11, 2026
- Lump sum or drip feed, and what the evidence saysAug 9, 2026
- The annual review that takes twenty minutesJul 6, 2026
- Waiting until you understand everything is a decision tooJul 3, 2026
- The first year is about the habit, not the returnJun 27, 2026
- The one page to write before your first contributionJun 24, 2026
- Choose the allocation you can hold, not the one that optimisesJun 22, 2026
- Fear of buying at the top, and what the fear costsJun 18, 2026
- Why more research stops helping surprisingly earlyJun 16, 2026
- Your first market fall is the real inductionJun 10, 2026
- Automating the decision you are worst at makingJun 8, 2026
- The starting amount matters less than the standing orderJun 4, 2026
- What to do with the urge to check on day threeJun 2, 2026
- The cash buffer that keeps a portfolio intactDec 1, 2025
- Opening the account is not the same as being investedNov 25, 2025
- What your platform actually does with the money you send itNov 23, 2025
- The paperwork that decides where the money goes without youNov 18, 2025
- Raise the contribution when the pay rise arrivesNov 16, 2025
- Investing for a child asks a different question than investing for yourselfNov 13, 2025
- The scattered accounts you collected without deciding toNov 8, 2025
- Your first mistake is cheap, and later ones are notNov 5, 2025
Funds & Trackers
Section page →- Reading a fund fact sheet without being sold toAug 5, 2026
- Diversification is not the number of funds you ownJul 31, 2026
- Fund choice absorbs the effort that changes the leastMay 29, 2026
- How a portfolio quietly becomes an identityMay 24, 2026
- The urge to add one more fundMay 22, 2026
- Simple portfolios feel like an admission of ignoranceMay 18, 2026
- The fund you researched longest is the one you cannot sellMay 16, 2026
- Say out loud why you own each holdingMay 12, 2026
- Thematic funds sell a story you already believeMay 9, 2026
- A satisfying portfolio is a warning signMay 5, 2026
- Comparing portfolios is a category errorMay 3, 2026
- Backtests describe a past that was chosen after the factApr 27, 2026
- Familiarity feels like informationApr 25, 2026
- An index is a set of rules, not a photograph of the marketNov 3, 2025
- The gap between a tracker and the index it tracksOct 31, 2025
- Accumulation and income units own exactly the same portfolioOct 27, 2025
- Market-cap weighting decides your concentration for youOct 23, 2025
- Physical and synthetic replication carry different risksOct 19, 2025
- The currency a fund is priced in is not the currency of its riskOct 15, 2025
- The letter telling you your fund is changingOct 14, 2025
- Bond funds do not behave like the bonds inside themOct 9, 2025
Costs
Section page →- The percentage that eats a third of your outcomeJul 29, 2026
- Costs are invisible by design, and invisible costs are never resistedApr 22, 2026
- Why a phone contract gets more scrutiny than a platform feeApr 17, 2026
- Paying for reassurance is a purchase, so price itApr 15, 2026
- Trading is the price of your own restlessnessApr 12, 2026
- Zero commission changed behaviour, not costApr 7, 2026
- Certain costs and uncertain returns get unequal attentionApr 4, 2026
- The cost review nobody schedulesApr 2, 2026
- Why nobody gets round to switching providerMar 28, 2026
- The part of an adviser fee that is behaviouralMar 26, 2026
- The costs that never appear on a statementMar 23, 2026
- Expensive signals quality everywhere except hereMar 18, 2026
- You pay the spread going in and again coming outOct 6, 2025
- Flat fees and percentage fees cross over somewhereOct 3, 2025
- The exchange rate is where the quiet charge livesSep 30, 2025
- What the ongoing charges figure leaves outSep 27, 2025
- The same index at three different pricesSep 22, 2025
- Leaving a platform costs more than arriving didSep 18, 2025
- Somebody earns interest on the cash you left uninvestedSep 16, 2025
- Performance fees, high-water marks and what they pay forSep 12, 2025
- Charge comparison tables assume a customer who is not youSep 10, 2025
Behaviour
Section page →- Selling in a fall is the most expensive thing investors doJul 25, 2026
- Chasing last year's best fund is a reliable way to lagJul 23, 2026
- Why a loss feels bigger than the same-sized gainMar 16, 2026
- Recency is why last month feels like the futureMar 12, 2026
- The difference between a plan and an intentionMar 8, 2026
- Doing nothing is an active decision and it is hardMar 4, 2026
- The illusion of control, and where it costs moneyMar 2, 2026
- Overconfidence is quietest when it is most expensiveFeb 26, 2026
- Confirmation bias works hardest on things you already ownFeb 24, 2026
- Your calm self cannot predict your panicking selfFeb 18, 2026
- Why the same money gets treated differentlyFeb 15, 2026
- Hindsight makes every crash look obviousFeb 12, 2026
- Behavioural finance has a replication problemFeb 8, 2026
- Financial news is published daily whether or not anything happenedSep 6, 2025
- The price you paid should not be part of the decisionSep 3, 2025
- Everybody in the group chat is winningAug 31, 2025
- Two kinds of regret, and only one gets rehearsedAug 25, 2025
- Motivation runs out, which is what the habit is forAug 24, 2025
- A witness makes a plan harder to abandonAug 19, 2025
- Ask what you would tell a friend holding thisAug 15, 2025
- Apps that are pleasant to open are expensive to ownAug 13, 2025
Risk & Allocation
Section page →- Time horizon does more work than risk toleranceJul 19, 2026
- What a bond allocation is actually forJul 16, 2026
- Risk tolerance is discovered, not declaredFeb 6, 2026
- What a risk questionnaire can and cannot measureFeb 2, 2026
- Volatility is the feeling; risk is missing the goalJan 31, 2026
- Risk you can measure and risk you can only imagineJan 26, 2026
- Stated risk appetite rises with the marketJan 24, 2026
- Your job is already a holding in your portfolioJan 19, 2026
- Rebalancing is designed to feel wrongJan 17, 2026
- Asking how much risk the goal actually requiresJan 13, 2026
- The largest risk is a plan you abandonJan 8, 2026
- Most people mean five years when they say long termJan 7, 2026
- Correlations rise in the weeks you need them lowAug 8, 2025
- Home bias is chosen by not choosingAug 6, 2025
- The arithmetic of getting back to where you wereAug 4, 2025
- Everything you own is in the same portfolioJul 30, 2025
- Cash swaps one risk for a slower oneJul 27, 2025
- Some risks pay you and some just happen to youJul 22, 2025
- Nobody receives the average returnJul 20, 2025
- A glidepath moves the allocation on a calendar, not on a viewJul 16, 2025
- Capacity for loss is arithmetic; tolerance is a feelingJul 12, 2025
Drawing an Income
Section page →- Sequence risk is the retirement problem nobody plans forJul 12, 2026
- Dividends are not free moneyJul 9, 2026
- Spending a portfolio is harder than building oneJan 3, 2026
- Why retirees underspend the money they savedDec 29, 2025
- The mental line between capital and incomeDec 28, 2025
- Write the withdrawal rule before you need itDec 23, 2025
- The first bad year tests the plan, not the portfolioDec 19, 2025
- Flexibility only works if the trigger is decided in advanceDec 18, 2025
- When the balance stops being a number and becomes groceriesDec 12, 2025
- Who manages this if you cannot?Dec 10, 2025
- Guaranteed income is bought for how it makes you behaveDec 7, 2025
- Buckets are a psychological device that happens to workDec 3, 2025
- Spending does not stay flat across a retirementJul 11, 2025
- The slow risk that compounds against a retireeJul 6, 2025
- The years between the last salary and the first pensionJul 2, 2025
- Once a year or once a month, and what the choice costsJul 1, 2025
- Life expectancy is an average and you are not oneJun 25, 2025
- The late-life costs nobody can size in advanceJun 23, 2025
- Two more years of work moves three levers at onceJun 20, 2025
- One pot, two lifespansJun 16, 2025