What age were you when you started investing and how many years have you been investing for

I started investing when I was 22 which was 3 years ago, however I’d invest in only one company at a time with a large amount to try minimise trade fees. Trade a few times a year sometimes made largeish losses and sometimes made small gains. I knew this wasn’t the correct way to investing but hated the large fees.

I did some courses in financial markets at university and did some reading on investing beforehand. I did want to learn more about options and look into trading options at first.

Only started investing “properly” when I joined Freetrade due to how cheap it was and now I keep better track of my portfolio and have started becoming more confident in investing.

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I’m 54 and started over a year ago.

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I’m 21 started 6 months ago. Currently at a 125% return of my total investment

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Interesting chat … for me in my early twenties so a bit over than 20 years ago … first two trades were Rolls Royce at 69 pence I believe and sold them 2 years later for £2.50. Then Amazon at $10 and sold them later on at $40 - yeah who knew it will hit $2,000 this year! :frowning: and probably $5,000-$8,000 by the end of this decade. In my opinion, investing should be fun and only with money you can afford to loose.

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I’m the big 50 now, been constantly investing from 20 years of age, my advice, get started, invest regularly and consistently and above all realise there will be ups and downs along the way. The market is a cyclical beast, it always has been and always will be. Stay long stay strong. Good luck all. Finally, never invest more than you can comfortably afford.

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Great advice. I only wish I started to in my 20’s. As the old saying goes better late than never

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I agree that investing should be fun

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23 and started about 2 years ago now. It was something I had been looking at and wanting to do since around 16, but the platform and transaction fees of around £12.50 per trade just made it inaccessible for me.

When I heard about Robinhood, I searched for a U.K. alternative and I’ve been here ever since :blush:

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I started at 21, I’m 22 now and hopefully compounding my investments will help me over the next 40/50 years!

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Started at 18 but only in a very small way but my very first stock pick was Glaxo smithklein (might have been Welcome at the time) when I did a fantasy stock league in our business class at school. Only was able to invest more in my late twenties and then it was in a smaller number but larger amounts because of transaction fees. Even went for Cfd’s for a time and made a bit on dividend stop losses.

Now with freetrade I’m 35 and steadily investing fairly regularly but crowd funded invesemts probably make up 50% of my deposited investments. I say that because I don’t tend to analyse the total portfolio at each raise but do discount eis and seis too. Making sure I’m comfortable with the risk/reward.

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You must be doing well! Your profile hyperlink is broken btw.

I started investing in about 2015, after the start of my first job out of uni, age 25 (30 now). I started with vanguard funds, individual stocks were too scary and also there was no way that i could afford the commissions without decimating any gains, e.g. ~£10 stock commission on hargreaves lansdown.

I have shared my knowledge of vanguard funds investing with many friends and family, i believe it will bring us all up together.

I started buying individual stocks in Freetrade when it launched in late 2018. I’ve now got around 70% return in my freetrade account compared to about 20% return in my vanguard funds for the same period. I will track my stock picking returns against an index fund benchmark over the years, I think 5 years is a good analysis timeline, and i will weight my portfolio according to how i compare to the benchmark.

Join the investing discord for more conversational type discussions of investing:

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28 started 4 years ago.

I started out with just index funds in an ISA with Charles Stanley Direct.

Then I opened a Degiro account to hold some individual stocks but ended up becoming a bit of a degenerate and started making some options plays. I actually did ok on my options, however the liquidity in European options markets is terrible - I had a few trades that went +60%-100% but lost 20% to the spread buying and selling. In the end I think I broke even and called it there - I was just going to end up losing money.

Then I got Freetrade to hold my individual stocks so I could close my Degiro account. Last year I put my ISA allowance into FT and liked it so this year I transferred the rest of my ISA in.

I now solely use FT, with most of my account being an ISA holding a mix of cheap index funds + some US Stocks.

I keep a small amount in the basic account to hold non-ISA stocks: JD.com (my first +100% stock) and TSMC.

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15 years old. I don’t know if it was legal for me to buy shares then and the woman in the bank didn’t seem to know either. £20 commissions, paper certificates. A crap and expensive way to deal, but it was a learning curve.

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Do you know why you can’t buy these stocks in the ISA account

They are American Depository Receipts (ADRs) rather than normal shares. This means that when you buy a share of TSMC on the NYSE a bank buy a an actual share of TSMC and holds it on your behalf. As HMRC does not recognise the home stock exchange they cannot be held in ISAs.

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I “started” investing at 20, at the end of my second year at uni - saw an ad for MoneyBox and thought the round-up feature was neat, knew nothing about ISAs and the like. Put in some roundups, up to about £10-20 before I got bored. For all its faults, it introduced me to the notion of ISAs, pensions and investments.

The next year, graduating at 21 and about to start my first job, I put some effort into making my money work for me and opened a Vanguard ISA. By the end of that year, I had maxed my ISA and made a sizeable (for me) dent into my pension allowance.

Turned 22 a week ago, increased my regular contributions to Vanguard to make sure I max out my ISA again, and bumped up my pension contributions significantly. All in all, I feel pretty lucky to have started (relatively) young.

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Im 28 started 1 year ago

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Started at 20 and have been investing since FT launched.

Before that I spent a few years studying the market and trying to get good returns in stimulated stock accounts. Currently studying so I knew I wouldn’t be able to make consistent returns with £10 commissions as I need to be able to buy/sell regularly.

Up around 110% for the year so all going well, but Covid has meant i’ve had to take out returns due to lack of work. Looking forward to investing in a world that’s slightly less crazy.

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I started a year ago at 24

I’m 22 and started investing through property crowdfunding in 2017, and equity crowdfunding & stock market investing in 2018.