Investing

The basics, and how much risk and time you have.

• Investing basicsBrokerage AccountsThe account everything else runs through. Two settings decide most of what can go wrong: whether it is a margin account, and how your orders are routed.
• Investing basicsFractional SharesA fractional share is part of a share. It removes the minimum that stopped small contributions working, and it changes how account transfers behave.
• Investing basicsHow to Start InvestingFour decisions, in order, and none of them is what to buy. Ten years turns $10,000 into $19,672; forty years turns it into $149,745.
• Investing basicsMarket TimingMoving in and out based on a view about what happens next. It requires being right twice, it costs something every attempt, and the base rate is against you.
• Investing basicsPassive or ActivePassive versus active: one owns the market, one tries to beat it. The argument is about skill; the arithmetic is about the fee, the part known in advance.
• Investing basicsRisk ToleranceNot how you feel about risk — what you will actually do when the value falls. The two are different, and only one of them decides outcomes.
• Investing basicsTime HorizonWhen you need the money. It is the input that decides almost everything else, and it is the one people state least precisely.

401(k), IRAs, HSAs and the rules around them.

• Retirement401kA 401k is a workplace retirement plan with a menu someone else chose. The match has no equivalent anywhere else, and the fund menu is the part worth auditing.
• Retirement529 PlansAn account where growth is untaxed if the money is spent on education. The account owner keeps control, and the penalty applies only to the growth.
• RetirementAnnuitiesYou hand over capital and receive income for life. It is insurance against living a long time, and the price of that insurance is the flexibility you give up.
• RetirementThe Backdoor RothA backdoor Roth is a route into a Roth when income rules out direct contributions. Two steps, and one rule that makes it costly if you hold pre-tax balances.
• RetirementCustodial AccountsAn irrevocable gift to a child, invested by an adult until a set age. The flexibility is total and the control ends on a birthday, which is the whole trade.
• RetirementInvesting an HSAAn account with three tax advantages at once, usually left sitting in cash. The investing decision is the one nobody makes, and it is the one that matters.
• RetirementRolloversMoving a retirement balance from an old employer's plan into an account you control. The mechanics are simple and one of the two available methods is far safer.
• RetirementThe Junior ISA: The £9,000 Allowance, the Age-18 Handover and HMRC's NumbersA Junior ISA is a tax-free UK account for a child, with a £9,000 limit for 2026 to 2027. HMRC data: 1.6 million paid into, averaging £1,570.
• RetirementThe Lifetime ISA: The 25% Bonus, the 25% Charge and HMRC's NumbersA Lifetime ISA adds a 25% bonus, up to £1,000 a year, for a first home or age 60. HMRC data: 154,100 people paid the 25% charge in 2025 to 2026.
• RetirementPensionsTwo entirely different products share the word. One promises an income and one holds a pot, and almost every question about pensions depends on which you have.
• RetirementSocial SecurityAn inflation-linked income for life that you already own. The claiming age is the one decision, and it is worth more than most portfolio decisions.
• RetirementThe Stocks and Shares ISAA UK wrapper with no tax on growth, no tax on income and no tax on withdrawal. The allowance is annual and it does not carry forward.
• RetirementWithdrawal StrategyTurning a portfolio back into income. The order you draw from accounts, and what you do in a bad year, matter more than the rate you picked.

Index funds, ETFs and what they cost to hold.

• FundsThe Boglehead ApproachA set of rules about behavior rather than a portfolio. Most of it is not contested; the parts that are get argued about far more than they matter.
• FundsCovered Call FundsA covered call fund holds shares and sells calls on them for income. The high distribution is real; the cost is the recovery, and that trade is structural.
• FundsWhat Is an ETF?A fund you buy like a share. The wrapper is the difference: it trades all day, which is convenient and is also the main way people lose money in one.
• FundsExpense RatioThe expense ratio is the annual percentage a fund takes from its assets. It is the one input in investing known in advance, and it compounds against you.
• FundsWhat Is an Index Fund?An index fund owns the whole index. The fee is what you control: 0.75% instead of 0.03% costs $13,844 of a $10,000 pot over 30 years, 18% of the ending total.
• FundsMoney Market FundsA fund holding very short-dated debt, used as a place to keep cash. It is not a bank deposit, and the difference matters in exactly one scenario.
• FundsREITsProperty you can sell on a Tuesday. The structure forces most of the income out to you, which is why the yield is high and the tax treatment is unusual.
• FundsRobo-AdvisersSoftware that builds and maintains a portfolio for a fee. What you are paying for is the maintenance and the not-interfering, and both are worth something.
• FundsSector FundsA fund holding one slice of the market. It is a view, not a diversifier, and the moment it is most appealing is usually the moment it has already worked.
• FundsTarget-Date FundsOne fund that holds a whole portfolio and gets more conservative as a date approaches. The convenience is real; the fee and the glide path are what to check.

Allocation, diversification and rebalancing.

• PortfolioThe All-Weather PortfolioA portfolio built so that something in it works in each broad economic condition. It gives up return in the good years to reduce the depth of the bad ones.
• PortfolioAsset AllocationHow much of each kind of thing you hold. It is a decision about how much falling you can sit through, not a forecast about which asset wins.
• PortfolioCrypto in a PortfolioHow much, if any, and sized on what basis. The honest answer starts from what you could lose entirely rather than from a return forecast.
• PortfolioDiversificationOwning things that do not fail for the same reason. Holding count has nothing to do with it, and correlations rise exactly when you need them not to.
• PortfolioThe Glide PathThe schedule by which a portfolio gets more conservative as a date approaches. The shape matters more than the endpoint, and most of it is arbitrary.
• PortfolioGoldAn asset that produces nothing. Its case rests entirely on behaving differently from everything else, so it has to be judged as a portfolio component.
• PortfolioInternational StocksEverything listed outside your home market. Owning it is the cheapest diversification available, and the reason to hold it is precisely that it lags sometimes.
• PortfolioThe Sixty-Forty PortfolioSixty percent equities, forty percent bonds. A default rather than an optimum, and its worst years are the ones where both halves fall together.
• PortfolioThe Three-Fund PortfolioA domestic equity fund, an international equity fund and a bond fund. Three decisions, made once, and almost nothing left to get wrong afterwards.

Dividends, bonds, T-bills and CDs.

• IncomeBondsA loan with a schedule. The coupon is fixed and the price is not, which is the whole source of confusion about how a bond can lose money.
• IncomeCertificates of DepositA bank deposit with a fixed rate and a fixed term. You are paid for giving up access, and the penalty for changing your mind is the whole trade.
• IncomeDividend GrowthDividend growth means selecting on how fast the payout rises, not how large it is. A small growing dividend overtakes a large static one, at a calculable point.
• IncomeTax on DividendsDividends are generally taxed in the year they are paid, including the ones automatically reinvested. That last part is the one that catches people.
• IncomeDividend ReinvestmentDividend reinvestment uses each payout to buy more units automatically. It turns an income holding into a compounding one, and it has two costs nobody mentions.
• IncomePremium Bonds: What a Typical Saver Actually WinsPremium Bonds pay prizes, not interest: a 4.35% prize fund rate at 21,000 to 1 odds. 200,000 simulated years show the typical saver gets less than the rate.
• IncomeTreasury BillsShort-dated government debt sold at a discount. The return is the gap between what you pay and the face value, and there is no coupon at all.

Taxes on investing, and who to take advice from.

• TaxCost BasisCost basis is what you paid, for tax purposes. Bought the same thing several times? Which units you sold changes the bill, and you choose at the sale.
• TaxFiduciary DutyAn obligation to act in your interest rather than merely to recommend something suitable. The same person can owe it on one transaction and not on the next.
• TaxFinancial AdvisersWhat a financial adviser sells, how it is charged, and two questions that separate one arrangement from another. The fee matters more than credentials.
• TaxTax-Loss HarvestingSelling something at a loss on purpose, to offset gains elsewhere. It works only in a taxable account, and the wash-sale rule decides whether it worked at all.
• TaxTaxable AccountsA taxable account has no wrapper, no limits and no rules on when you withdraw. Tax is the price, and where you hold each asset decides how much you pay.
• TaxThe Wash-Sale RuleSell at a loss and buy back too soon, and the loss does not count this year. The window runs both directions and it follows you across accounts.

• More investing pagesWhat Is a SIPP? Tax Relief, Limits and HMRC's NumbersA SIPP is a UK personal pension where you choose the investments. The provider adds 20% tax relief; access is normally from 55, rising to 57 in April 2028.