Investing:

It isn't the private members' club you think it is

Have you ever felt like investing is something other people do? 

People in suits with a spare £20K lying around.  People who regularly use the words “asset allocation” and “yield” as part of their everyday vocab.

For a lot of us, saving feels normal. We understand putting money aside for Christmas, the car insurance, a holiday, or the boiler that has chosen to strike at the worst possible moment. But investing can still feel like a different world entirely.

It can feel risky, complicated and out of reach.  And if you’ve ever heard someone say they once lost money investing (we will talk about Uncle Joe later), that can be enough to file the whole thing under “not for people like me”. 

If any of that rings a bell, then you're in very good (and very large!) company. 

On the Money & Us podcast this week, I sat down with Joshua Raymond, the UK Managing Director of investing platform XTB*. He's spent around twenty years in this world, and what I found helpful was how honestly he talked about the gap between knowing investing matters and actually doing it.  He reckons there are millions of adults in the UK who want to invest but haven't started, often because they get stuck at the first hurdle.  

So this one is an attempt to take some of the mystery out of that first step.  

By the end, I'm hoping investing feels less like a members’ club for people who already know the password, and more like somewhere you have every right to belong.  

1. It's closer to saving than you'd think

Here's the first thing Joshua said that I think is a really interesting mindset shift for a lot of us.

We tend to keep investing and saving in two completely separate drawers. 

Saving feels like the sensible one: money in the bank, safe and familiar.  Investing is the risky one: charts, gambling and the vague sense that somebody somewhere is shouting “sell, sell, sell”.  

So the first step of moving money from a savings account into an investment can feel oddly loaded.  One minute you’re a sensible person with a savings pot, and the next you’re apparently “an investor”, which sounds like someone who should own a very specific type of gilet.  

But Joshua’s point was that the first step doesn’t have to be dramatic.  

Investing, done the calm way, is really just saving with a longer time frame. It is not the same as cash, because the value can go down as well as up, but the habit of it can be far more familiar than we imagine. 

It doesn’t need to involve thousands of pounds. It doesn’t need to involve picking individual shares. And it doesn’t need to involve becoming the sort of person who checks the markets before breakfast.

The first step can simply be about becoming familiar with it.  

Starting with a small amount helps you see how the process works.  It helps you notice how you feel when the number moves up or down.  And, perhaps most importantly, it turns something vague and intimidating into something real and learnable.  And sometimes that’s the bit we need most.  

Joshua has a lovely way of putting it, he wants buying a global fund to feel as everyday as ordering a coffee. Not something that you do on a whim or without thinking but something that starts feeling like a normal part of how you look after your money.

2. Investing is not the same as trading

One of the most useful parts of our conversation was Joshua’s distinction between trading and investing.

Trading is usually short term. It often involves trying to make money from price movements over a day, a week, or another short period of time. Investing is usually medium to long term. It is more about putting money to work over years.

That distinction matters, because a lot of the fear people have around investing is actually fear of trading.

We also talked a lot about how investing is not just about what you know. It is also about how you are wired.

Some people can handle more movement than others. Some people enjoy checking things regularly. Some people need to set something up and then leave it alone.

So before you start, it is worth asking yourself a very practical question: what kind of approach could I actually stick with?

For many beginners, that answer will be a simple, diversified, long-term approach, rather than anything that needs constant checking.

3. Is 'safe' really that safe?

We think of cash in the bank as the safe option, and in one sense it is.  The number on the screen doesn’t move around in the same way investments can.   

But there's a quieter thing going on. If the cost of everything is rising by around 3% a year**, which is roughly where inflation has been, then money sitting in an account earning less than that is slowly losing value in real terms. The pound in your account buys a little less next year than it does today.

Joshua puts it plainly: if your savings aren't keeping pace with inflation, they're shrinking. Which flips the usual question from “isn’t investing too risky?” to “what is the risk of leaving everything in cash”  

I'm not saying empty your savings account, please don't. A solid cash buffer is essential, and it always comes first. But it's worth knowing that "safe" and "doing nothing" aren't quite the same thing.

4. So how do you actually start?

This is the part I really wanted to reach, because "you should invest" is useless without "here's how." So, if you are at the stage where your everyday money is reasonably steady, here are some practical next steps.

Get your foundations in first. 

Before any of this, the unglamorous but vital stuff: clear any expensive debt, and have that emergency fund tucked away (we talked about this recently). Investing money you might need next month is where people come unstuck. This is money you can leave alone for a good few years.

You don't need thousands. 

Possibly the biggest myth Joshua wanted to bust. You can start with £50 a month, sometimes less, depending on the platform you use and what is right for your circumstances. And the point of starting small isn't what you'll earn at first. It's what it does to your confidence. You stop being someone who doesn't invest and instead become someone who does, and that shift is worth more than the early pennies.

An ISA is a sensible place to begin. 

A Stocks and Shares ISA is simply a wrapper that lets you invest within your annual ISA allowance, currently £20,000***, without paying UK income tax or capital gains tax on returns inside the ISA.  For most people starting out, that's a tidy, tax-free place to start.  

Keep it simple. 

This was my favourite bit. If there's one word worth taking from the whole conversation, it's ETF. An ETF (an exchange-traded fund) is basically one ready-made basket that spreads your money across lots of different companies at once, rather than you betting on a single one. It's a calm, spread-your-eggs option, and for a lot of people it's the bread and butter of sensible investing. Remember, investment values can fall as well as rise.

Run on autopilot. 

You can set investing up exactly like a savings direct debit: a set amount, on a set day each month, done automatically. No decisions, no watching, no drama. I'll be honest, this "set it and forget it" approach is the one I use myself, and it suits me far better than trying to be clever.

Make it fit you, not someone else. 

The right approach isn't only about your goals, it's about your personality. How often would you honestly check it? How do you feel when a number dips? So the question is not only, “What should I invest in?” but also “What could I actually live with?”

About Uncle Joe

Almost everyone has one. The relative, or friend of a friend, who "tried investing once" and lost thousands, wheeled out as proof that the whole thing is a con.

But when you actually dig into those stories, they're almost never the calm, diversified, long-term approach we've been talking about. They tend to be someone who put everything into one risky bet, or followed a dodgy tip, or tried to get rich quick. That's a world away from a well-diversified fund left to grow over fifteen years. Same word, "investing," two completely different activities.

And there's a simple way to keep yourself on the right side of that line. Only ever use a platform regulated by the FCA, the UK's financial watchdog.  It takes about a minute: search the FCA register online for the provider's name, then scroll to the bottom of their own website and check the reference number matches. The UK's rules are among the strictest anywhere, and that protection is genuinely on your side.

Start small, keep it boring, let it run

One last thing to expect, because it made me laugh with how true it is. For the first few days after you start, you'll probably check the app more often than you check Instagram. That's normal. It isn't a problem, it just means you're paying attention to something new. 

But over time, the goal is for investing to become less dramatic.

Because that really is the heart of it. This isn't about becoming a finance whizz or watching charts at midnight. The single biggest shift is to think in years, not days. Check it daily and every wobble feels like a crisis. Zoom out to a decade, and those same wobbles tend to smooth into a gentle climb. So you choose something simple, you start small, and then you get on with your life while time does the heavy lifting.

There is plenty more in the full conversation, on why markets wobble, what is behind the surge of new investors, and how to tell investing and gambling apart. It is well worth your time.

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*Joshua Raymond is UK Managing Director of XTB, who sponsor this episode of the Money & Us podcast.

**ONS Consumer Price Inflation bulletin, May 2026: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/may2026

House of Commons Library inflation briefing: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02792/

***GOV.UK ISA pages: https://www.gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts/withdrawing-your-money confirms a £20,000 allowance for the 2026 to 2027 tax year. Overview page at gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts

Capital at risk when you invest. Investment values can rise or fall, and you could get back less than you put in. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances, and ISA rules can change. This is general information and Anna's own view, not personal financial advice, so please seek regulated advice before making any big decisions. Drawn from Anna's conversation with Joshua Raymond on the Money & Us podcast.

For more, check out the Money & Us podcast.