I can do this if I stick the initial purchase on my credit card and pay it off next month. I’m thinking it’s probably still worth doing, despite the immediate hit I’ll take that way.

Basically you can stick in a spare £25 every now and then if you want (afaik).

Who?

Market ticker Karl denninger.

Ah, it's gone up then. If you can afford it I urge you to put in or find a platform that has a cheaper min investment. 

I'm going to emphasise again it's impossible to time the markets and it's tempting to hold out and wait for further reductions, but in my experience this is not required. Be at ease knowing the price is very cheap right now and leave it at that. Things are getting so bad they may suspend trading indefinitely and you might not be able to take advantage soon. A lot of companies are going to go bust - well known names, and there is absolutely no exit stratergy from a lockdown other than to hope a vaccine comes along soon. If there's nothing by winter things are going to be very grim indeed. The time to invest is maximum shitting it, which is this week. By buying a tracker you will be lowering the risk significantly, but this collapse has happened before and it'll happen again. 

The markets will recover, and probably quite quickly, but unfortunately there's going to be quite a lot of casualties. This will be over in 18 months and the chances of your local Pizza Express being open when it's over may be quite slim, but it will recover. It always does. Always.

iWeb seemingly allows you to do any amount. So I've done £100 in Vanguard US Equity Index. Yes I know this is a low amount, but since it lets me do this I can keep a months rent in my savings and I reckon something invested is better than nothing.

Just to ensure some basics: 

I go to Cavendish website (as an e.g.)
Sign up and create an account
Choose a tracker
Done

SpaceGazelle wrote:

I reckon you're right. Put an ISA wrapper around it.

Silly question that you've probably already answered, how?

Also, can you have another cash ISA open at the same time?

OK, I've signed up, added some cash, added the fund, haven't set an amount yet as don't know about this ISA wrapper thing?

Ok yeah, ISA is created. So looks ok, I've added that fund SG recommended and will just see how it goes, will wait for this shit period to end, read more about investing and then start to dabble I think

When you select before that you choose Investment ISA I think it said then once you add the fun it created an ISA automatically. I’m guessing it’s based on the rules of the fund. The one SG suggested said it’s ISA approved.

I used Cavendish. Next few months are gonna be shit for everyone and I had the money in my account, so decided to risk it. Looking at the historic performance of the fund SG recommended looks good. I will look to top it up once I'm out of this short week work thing, which could be a while.

SG's rec higher up the page: https://www.cavendishonline.co.uk/funds/ubs-sp-500-index-fund-class-c-acc

Yeah you should get an ISA option. The tracker I listed was just a quick Google search really but they all do similar things - invest in a given stockmarket or markets. They buy a bit of the first 100 or 200 companies or whatever. 

To confuse things, having a good fund manager is probably a good thing right now, and they can steer a course through choppy waters in a crisis. However, and this is the point of all this, they are expensive and don't really outperform the markets when things are going well. That expense really adds up and you need some knowledge to find good ones, that later turn out to be not so good. This is about getting a tracker and forgetting about it through good times and bad, but periodically topping it up or putting a wad in at times like this. It's probably best and easier to periodically top it up like you would any savings account. you'll get more confident about this in 5 yrs or so and begin to understand it will wobble from time to time but it'll be fine. Make sure you choose an accumulation version of the fund - it'll have "Acc" in the name. 

Once you see it's progression over a few years you'll start getting a bit carried away and sticking a bit more in than normal but remember the golden rule - once it's in it's in. When it gets to pension age you'll move from accumulation to the income version. It's the same fund but you won't stick the dividends back in for reinvestment, these will be your pension. It's like living off the interest without actually selling anything. You could actually sell the fund for a bigger pension or you can give it to your kids when you die. You'll know a lot more after you invest and get access to the platform tools and start researching. You should actually move into stable bonds and stuff as you get old but you'll learn all that later, much later. You'll check everyday at first but learn to relax later. I tend to have a look when things go tits up just to see if there is anything else going cheap.

I've been thinking for a while now about grandkids, great grandkids etc. I guess this happens when you become a parent. The thing every investor of a passive fund (not managed) realises (at some point) is "I wish I'd done this earlier". Investing at 20 can make you an order of magnitude better off than someone who starts in their mid 30's because exponentials. 

If I didn't give the fund to my kid to spaff everywhere but gave it to his grandkids it'd be worth a fucking fortune by then. Serious, serious money. So I'm thinking the best thing to do would be to give half to Charlie, 1/4 to his kids and 1/4 to his kid's kids. This assumes they will all have kids that outlive them and nobody can touch the fund until they retire. They can only inherit if they do the same thing to future generations in way of a will. Now it's probable money won't be a thing by then but if it is we'd be the wealthiest family on the planet in about 15 generations. Everyone could spaff their personal inheritance and it wouldn't make a dint.