Good analogy 
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Hiding cash in a free 100% protected bank vault
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Iām down Ā£7100 from investing Ā£23000 in little over a year. I Doubt i will ever get that back and wish i kept the money in the bank. Hopefully I donāt suffer in the future for throwing away my hard earned savings.
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Moved my cash ISA over in late 2019 and bought big. Had very little when the bottom fell out in Mar20 and my investment halved . Chucked what i could at it when it fell, scraped about 3-4k together i think. Today, have a few single company investments, BP and Shell prop those up atm as all losses, but at least dividens heh. Lost big on Evraz, got greedy but also newb and also no idea that it would get pulled due to sanctions. ETF is okay, but nit great, mainly flat because of investment in the dip of Mar2020
Regret no.
Wish I was smarter - yes
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Reminds me of the movie Rogue Trader (of Nick Leeson), him being āon the front of the informational vortexā.
I guess outside of investing being a full time thing us average investors have little to zero chance of being at the front of the market, so longer term gains and maybe some industrial knowledge are the most useful edges.
fwiw Iām also down from investing in Spring last year, by about 4% or so. So generally cash wouldāve been better off sitting in a bank.
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Sadly with Ā£100 in ns&i that knock wont happen , if you go on line and check who wins the big prizes its normally people with max holdings of 50k . I wish you well and it would be fab if you did but 
.
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As I said, it is not an investment as such, its a safe deposit box with a slight chance of a win for the price of inflation.
The chance is greater than zero.
I dont recommend holding as a prudent move, but it has its purpose for someā¦like meā¦and thats ok too.
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Of course, they have 500x chance of winning. Every bond has an equal chance. Thereās Ā£100->1M winners in there. I saw one that invested in the 90s, good for them.
Itās essentially a lottery.
Saying it āwonāt happenā isnāt quite it, Iāve just 500x less chance of winning as them.
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Iāve always wanted to like premium bonds and I have held some over the years.
The thing that puts me off is that withdrawals can take three days which isnāt ideal for emergency funds.
Yeah its not an instant access acount.
Moral of the story is everyone has different circumstances, needs, wants and expectations
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That applies to Freetrade as well
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Yeah, thatās part of why Iād never use a brokerage account for emergency funds. Plus, youād have to wait another couple of days first for cash to settle if selling holdings. That said, Iām toying with the idea of putting cash savings beyond three-six monthsā outgoings in premium bonds or a money market fund.
How do you get this bond thing
Check it out hereā¦
PSā¦no one is endorsing this as profitable 
Iāve got bonds dating back to the 50ās and never won a penny, but have put a bit more in recently instead of buying lottery tickets
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Everyone makes a few mistakes when investing, itās impossible to be right every time. But you can learn from your mistakes. Iāve seen losses referred to as your ātuition feesā in the past, which I quite like.
Knowing that you are going to get things wrong at least some of the time the strategy becomes about risk and money management. My advice would be not to go all in on anything, not to get caught up in hype stocks, and diversify. keep riskier bets small and get a core portfolio of well run profitable companies. (or ETFs)
Donāt be tempted to double down on big losing positions in an attempt to lower your average. It rarely works, and you just end up risking more of your capital.
I have to admit I got caught up in the SPAC trend a while ago. Most of them didnāt work out, but because my positions were a small percentage of my portfolio it wasnāt really a big hit.
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This is the strangest and most worrying behaviour I see on hereā¦
Yes top up a few shares on a small dip, but people are buying more of stocks that are 30-90% down and hoping for a mircale.
Easy road to ruin. And nonsensical IMO.
Thats just buying a VERY expensive lottery ticket.
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I solve this with a credit card, which will pay for the āemergencyā immediately. When cash arrives from premium bonds after 3 days, use cash to pay off credit card in full.
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The problem is that, a lot of us started investing during Covid when that strategy was very viable.
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Can i have a bond and an isa ?