Is investing for someone like you? Invest for the future

And the good news is that investing can help get you to other medium- or long-term goals more quickly. So, if you have a savings goal like buying a property or car, retirement or helping your children with money towards university of their first home – here’s what you need to know to get started.

When you think of an investor, you might think of someone rich. But anyone over 18 can start investing with any money left after expenses, an emergency fund, short-term savings etc – even if it's only a few pounds.

You have to get your own finances in order before you consider investing, so you need to make sure:

• any debts are paid off
• all bills and expenses are covered by your income
• you have some easy-access savings to rely on for emergencies

before taking the next step to invest.

Any spare cash you have left over could be ripe for investing.

Investing over a longer timeframe usually gives you higher returns than cash savings, However, investing always comes with some risks, a longer time also helps your money has time to bounce back from any short-term falls in value. Five to ten years’ plus is a good rule of thumb.

Have you just had a payment from an inheritance, redundancy payment or insurance? This is a great time to consider investing some of your money once you’ve taken care of your immediate financial needs.

If saving for later life is your goal, always look at putting extra money into your pension before other investments. This is because you’ll get tax relief or maybe even an employer match on your pension contributions, helping you to save even more money.

However, any money you put into your pension gets locked away until you retire, so if you want a bit of flexibility in accessing your money, other investments can be worth considering.

You might think it’s safer to keep your money in a low interest savings account because there’s less risk involved.

Saving is a great place to start, but inflation can mean your money is going down in ‘spending power’ even when it’s earning interest.

Read more about inflation and your savings in our guide.

You can still save but maybe you could split up your money to do different jobs and take on different risk levels.

When people talk about ‘risk’ with money, what they’re really talking about is how likely it is your money could go down in value. Savings accounts are usually the lowest-risk place for your money.

The trade-off is that savings tend to grow slowly, compared with ‘investing’, so it’s a good place to keep money you’re using for short-term goals or that you might need quickly like an emergency fund. However, over time, their value gets eroded through inflation so you can end up with your money buying less when you come to use it. This is where investing can often be a better strategy than saving.

Investing means putting your money into things like companies or funds, with the intention of letting it grow over the medium to long term. There is higher risk because the value of your investments can go up and down. If you only invest for a short term, you might see losses which can feel uncomfortable. Over longer periods though, investing has historically offered higher returns than savings.

Different investments carry different levels of risk (and are often labelled as low, medium or high risk). A good way to think about it is that higher potential reward usually comes with higher risk, and finding the right balance depends on how long you can leave your money alone and how comfortable you are with possibly seeing your money going down.

It’s not all calling up your broker and shouting ‘buy buy buy’ (that might just be only in the films!) – choosing where and how you invest can feel confusing.

A good place to start is by thinking about why you’re investing and when you’ll need the money. Something we all need to think about is retirement and how we want it to look – so your pension pot is always a good place to start.

You don’t need to know lots about businesses or buy shares in individual companies you think are going to do well to invest in. Many people invest in funds, which is where you spread your money across lots of types of investment at once. These can include shares, property, gilts and bonds. This helps reduce risk because you’re not relying on a single business doing well.

There are different funds with different themes you can consider.

These might include:

• ethical or sustainable funds that don’t invest in things like weapons or fossil fuels
• Sharia-compliant investments if your faith has rules around investing
• tracker (or index) funds that follow the top companies listed on one country’s stock market, such as the FTSE 100 in the UK or S&P 500 in the US
• worldwide funds, that can spread the risk of a single economy not doing so well.

Want to take the next step and start investing? It helps to ask yourself a few questions first.

Taking the next step to investing can feel daunting and if you are completely new to it and unsure where to start, getting professional help from a financial adviser is a good idea. They will recommend products based on your personal circumstances and recommend products that will fit in with your financial goals and attitude to risk. Here’s how you find and choose the right financial adviser for your needs.

Your bank, building society or pension provider is likely to offer investments and will often be able to offer financial advice and recommend products that could work for you based on your financial goals and attitude to risk. Bear in mind they will only offer their own products or choose from a limited range. This is called restricted advice.

There are lots of digital platforms that can help you choose investments you can manage yourself.  Some are better for beginners, while others are aimed at more confident investors.

A big deciding factor will be the fees, which will either look like a platform fee (a small percentage each year), Fund fees (built into the investment themselves), or trading or dealing fees (when you buy or sell). What might seem like a small fee, can add up – and offset increases in value of your investments, so make sure you do a bit of maths before assuming it’s a cheap provider.

Make sure the provider’s platform is easy to use and understand and is FCA regulated so that your money is protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).