How to put money into below an hour: The lazy information to getting began

Making money tends to take time, effort and sustained commitment. Investing is an exception.

Sure, if you want, you can spend hours poring over spreadsheets, analysing global economies and trawling through company reports to find hidden gems to invest your hard-earned cash in. But you don’t have to.

All you need is to commit just under an hour of your time to get started.

And with the end of the tax year looming on April 5, there’s never been a better time to take advantage of this year’s Isa allowance to grow your savings tax-free.

You can save up to £20,000 each tax year – or £9,000 for children – across one or more types of Isa.

If you invest in a stocks and shares Isa, the taxman won’t get any of the capital gains or dividends that you make.

So, what are you waiting for? Here is our hassle-free guide to investing.

Is it right for you?

Investing tends to produce better returns than interest on cash savings over the long term.

Say, for example, you saved £100 a month into a cash Isa between April 1999, when the product was first launched, and January 2025. You would have contributed £31,100 and your cash Isa would be worth £39,000, if you’d earned an average interest rate, according to calculations by investment platform Moneyfarm.

But if you’d put £100 a month into a stocks and shares Isa over the same time period, you would have around £147,200. That’s assuming you’d invested in a basket of companies from around the world.

However, although investing tends to produce higher returns than interest on cash savings over the long term, the journey tends to be much bumpier.

With cash, you know exactly how much you have in your account from one day to the next. With stocks and shares, the value of your Isa will swing up and down, although it tends to rise over the long term over most time periods.

So to decide whether investing is right for you, you need to consider if you’d be comfortable watching the value of your savings rise and fall. There are ways to moderate how large the swings are – some investments are more volatile than others – but there is no such thing as risk-free investing.

Though it is worth mentioning that sticking to cash is not entirely risk-free, either. If you are earning a lower rate of interest than the rate of inflation, your savings are losing purchasing power over time. 

Inflation is around 3pc in the UK, as measured by the consumer prices index (CPI). Although there are some accounts that pay more than this, plenty don’t, so you’ll lose value in real terms over time.

Next, think about whether you’re going to need to get hold of your savings in the next five to ten years. If the answer is yes, you’re likely to be better off opting for a savings account. With investing, you need a good amount of time to ride out the rise and fall in the hope that the value of your funds increase over the long term.

Finally, if you have unsecured debts, the rate of interest you are paying may well exceed the size of returns you could achieve by investing. So you may want to pay off the debts – overdrafts, personal loans or credit card bills, for example – first. Outstanding mortgage or student loan payments needn’t get in the way – so long as you have cash after paying them to invest.

In this guide, we’re specifically addressing investment through a stocks and shares Isa. If you are investing through a workplace pension, it rarely makes sense to opt out even if you have outstanding unsecured debts.

You will also want to have some cash savings before you start investing – three to six months of expenditure is recommended.

Where to begin

Once you’ve decided that investing is right for you, the key is to just get on with it.

Don’t wait until you feel like a very knowledgeable investor to get started – you can learn as you go along.

The first thing you need to do is pick a stocks and shares Isa provider. Much like cash Isas, you can save up to £20,000 of your total Isa allowance into a stocks and shares version and all returns that you make are tax-free.

Some offer a range of thousands of funds, investment trusts, shares and bonds. These are perfect if you enjoy constructing your own portfolio. Popular platforms include Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell, Interactive Investor and Fidelity.

Others offer less choice, which can be perfectly ample if you are a beginner or are not interested in choosing your investments. Options include Wealthify and Moneybox. Some even offer rock-bottom fees, for example Trading 212, InvestEngine and Dodl. Most High Street banks now offer stocks and shares Isas, too. 

> Best and cheapest stocks and shares Isas: We compare the top providers

Remember that you can always transfer your stocks and shares Isa to a different provider if you are not happy with your first choice.

If you ask your new provider to manage the switch, it will ensure that it is undertaken while keeping your investments within the tax-free wrapper of your Isa.

Don’t attempt to carry out the switch yourself by selling your investments, closing your Isa and opening a new one, as you will lose your tax-free protection.

What to invest in

If you’re a confident investor, you can crack on choosing a range of investments that suit your values, appetite for risk and objectives.

However, if you’re just starting out, you may prefer for your platform to do this for you.

Most offer ready-made portfolios – typically in a range of around four to six. Your platform will ask you a series of questions to decide which best suits you and determine how much risk you are happy to take.

We often equate the word ‘risk’ with reckless behaviour, but, when investing, taking risk is necessary and often financially prudent.

As a rule of thumb, the more risk you take, the greater the chance of higher returns – but also the greater chance of lower ones or losing money. If you have a long time frame, you can afford to take more risk because you have longer to ride out any market tumbles.

Typically, even the riskiest ready-made portfolios are still comprised of thousands or even tens of thousands of different investments – shares in firms worldwide, as well as bonds issued by governments.

By holding such a vast range, you reduce the risk of all your holdings falling in value at once.

For example, if UK stocks fall, your portfolio may take a hit if you hold these. But if you also hold stocks in US companies or emerging markets, you shouldn’t take such a dramatic hit unless these fall in sync with the UK stocks. The key is to spread your risk – so not putting all your eggs in one basket.

However, you need to ensure that you’re not taking so much risk that you are up at night worrying.

Let it be

Once you’ve set up your portfolio and you’re happy that it meets your current objectives, let it be. That means not checking it all the time unless your circumstances change.

All investment platforms will allow you to set up a direct debit or standing order into your Isa, so that you’re putting away a sum every month. Alternatively, if your income is less consistent, you can just put away a bit when you can.

Some providers permit so-called microinvesting – in other words, putting as little as £1 in your stocks and shares Isa whenever you can.

For example, app-based banks Monzo and Zopa allow you to invest as little as £1 at a time.

Finance app Plum uses AI (artificial intelligence) to analyse your balance and spending habits to decide how much you can afford to invest. It then automatically moves this amount from your current account into your investing one.

Check every few months

You don’t have to check on your stocks and shares Isa regularly – every few months should be fine, unless your circumstances change.

If the value of your investments has fallen since you last checked, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are not on track. It’s performance over the long term that matters.

But while there are some things – such as the state of global financial markets – that you can’t control, there are others that you can.

One of these is fees. Every penny that you pay in fees is a penny taken from your investment portfolio which impacts its chance to grow. These can quickly add up.

Say, for example, you have a stocks and shares Isa worth £10,000 that you contribute £100 to every month for 30 years. If your fees were 1 pc of your pot, you’d have £125,292, assuming you enjoyed investment returns of 6 pc a year. If your fees were 0.5 pc, you’d have £140,616 – an extra £15,324.

It may be that you’re happy paying a little more at first for a ready-made option but that as you grow in confidence, lower fees would suit.

If your circumstances change, you may need to check it still meets your objectives. For example, if you need to access your funds, you may need to dial down the level of risk that you’re taking to reduce the chance of a sharp fall just before you take your money out.

Get the family involved

All adults have a £20,000 Isa allowance. So a married couple has a combined £40,000. Children under the age of 18 have a £9,000 allowance. Junior Isas cannot be accessed until the child turns 18 so, if that is way off, a stocks and shares version may make sense.