Year 0 age 35 — Getting started

First home & getting started

The first decade is the one with the most doublings left in it. We spend it building habits, a deposit and a first pension — the pounds that will double three times before you retire.

By this decade a £250 pound — and its heading, set at the size it has grown to.

A young professional at the start of a career, planning the first home

Getting started is less about products and more about order: an emergency buffer, then the deposit, then the first pension started early enough to catch every decade of growth. The sums are small, but they are the highest-leverage pounds you will ever invest, because they have the longest to compound.

We help you size a realistic monthly contribution, choose a low-cost, diversified default, and set it to increase automatically so the plan keeps pace with your pay. Then we mostly leave it alone — the first decade rewards consistency, not cleverness.

The rest of the plan