Ladies first, so I’ll kick off, shall I? 
I first invested in 2013 after I had paid off all my credit card debts and found that I had a pot of money earning very little interest in a cash ISA. The money wasn’t for immediate use, so I decided to invest it. I didn’t have a clue what to invest in so I just did a bit of reading up and opted for some global funds in a stocks & shares ISA. I started investing every month and also started a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension).
A couple of years later, I read that the fees for index tracker funds were cheaper so I switched over all the global funds into trackers, which still form the bulk of my investment portfolio. At this stage, I’d started getting more interested in investing, particularly earning dividend income.
I invested in some high yield shares (think SSE, CNA, BP, VOD) but found that it was a lot of work trying to do all the research for particular shares. I stopped buying individual shares and started to look at investment trusts for income as well as diversification. All dividend income is reinvested. My ultimate aim is for dividend income to cover my basic expenses.
My investment strategy is buy and hold, it’s quite rare for me to sell, so in the 5 years I’ve invested, I’ve probably made less than ten sales in total! I can honestly say that not all of my purchases have been a success and that there is still a hell of a lot for me to learn about investing.
What’s my long-term goal? Early retirement! 
I enjoy investing and also run a small ‘fun’ portfolio where I follow the ‘Dogs of the FTSE’ strategy.