Getting Started
What to do with the urge to check on day three
New investors check their balance constantly, and frequent checking makes a perfectly reasonable investment feel intolerable.
Getting Started
Accounts, first contributions and the decisions that only need making once.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 2 of 2
Getting Started
The cash buffer that keeps a portfolio intact
A separate pot of reachable cash is not competing with your investments. It is the thing that stops a broken boiler turning into a…
Getting Started
Opening the account is not the same as being invested
Money that arrives in an investment account sits in cash until somebody tells it what to buy. A surprising amount of it never gets…
Getting Started
What your platform actually does with the money you send it
Custody, nominee accounts and client-money rules decide what happens if a provider fails. Almost nobody reads about them until it…
Getting Started
The paperwork that decides where the money goes without you
A nomination form takes ten minutes and can override assumptions that would otherwise take years to unwind. Most accounts are…
Getting Started
Raise the contribution when the pay rise arrives
Money you have never had in your bank account is far easier to invest than money you have grown used to. The window closes within…
Getting Started
Investing for a child asks a different question than investing for yourself
Whose money it is, when they take control of it, and what happens if plans change are the real decisions. The fund choice is the…
Getting Started
The scattered accounts you collected without deciding to
Every job change leaves a small account behind. A decade later the pile carries duplicated costs, unknown holdings and nobody…
Getting Started
Your first mistake is cheap, and later ones are not
An error on a small balance costs a small amount and teaches the same lesson as an error on a large one. The lesson is the asset.