Ryan King: How He Built a £140,000 Investment Portfolio in 7 Years

This transcript is auto-generated and lightly edited for readability, it may contain errors.

[0:00] Ryan King:

I always say to people, because I get a lot of messages about oh, I’m like 45, just paid off my mortgage, is there any point in investing? I’m like 100%. It’s better to start late than never start. My name’s Ryan King. I’m 27 years old. Initially just started as drawing my final year of university, sharing some very basic and simple tips on personal finance and investing. Nearly six years later, now I’ve got a book out.

[0:20] Sammie Ellard-King:

Do you feel like someone who’s perhaps listening to this in their late 40s, mid-50s, do you feel like they can still start investing as well? 100%.

[0:28] Ryan King:

Firstly, people are living longer than ever. So even if you’re in your 50s, you could potentially live for another 40 years. Even if you haven’t got much money, it’s still worth getting started, particularly because of just building that mindset, building that habit, and it causes compound interest over the long term. What is an index fund and how does it actually work? The really good companies essentially get listed onto the stock market. You of course can invest into individual companies. You can then group these companies into what’s called an index. So an index really is just a collection of sort of individual companies, individual stocks. Although the US is the best at the moment, if another country starts performing better than the US, then that’ll be reflected in the Global Index Fund. The best country is always changing. So if I just own them all, then I’m gonna be fine. This is how you can get six figures

[1:13] Ryan King:

invested in the stock market by doing literally nothing. People think there’s like these like special hacks and stuff.

[1:18] Sammie Ellard-King:

It’s literally Welcome back to the Money Gains Podcast. Today we’ve got a very special guest in the house, all the way from Australia, even though he is a gooner just like me. His name is Ryan King, and he’s got a brand new book called Stop Waiting, Start Investing Out Now as well. And it is all about how anyone, literally anyone, can start investing using really simple tried and tested methods. Ryan also has a £140,000 investment portfolio, and we unpack exactly how he’s done it in seven years. You guys are gonna love this one, but for now, let’s get started on the Money Gains Podcast. The Money Gains Podcast.

[2:01] Ryan King:

So, Ryan, welcome to the Money Gains Podcast, man. How are you? Thank you, Sammie. Glad to be here. I’m good. How are you? All the way from Australia, man. Especially for this. Um also seeing the family as well. Are you? How’s the flight back? It’s not too bad, to be fair. Obviously, it’s a long flight. Um, bit of jet lag, but I got over it now, and then here to like do a few podcasts, promote the new book, uh, talk about investing, hopefully help some people out there listening.

[2:21] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah, mate, I’m really excited. I know we’ve probably been chatting for what, a couple years?

[2:26] Ryan King:

Yeah.

[2:27] Sammie Ellard-King:

Must be really.

[2:28] Ryan King:

I’ve been trying to organise this podcast for probably a good year out of that as well.

[2:31] Sammie Ellard-King:

But it’s better that you’re in person. I don’t think like if we’d have done it in audio, we wouldn’t have got to see the book, see you, obviously make some cool clips out of it as well. Agreed. Um, but for those that don’t know you, you would just want to give them the sort of 411.

[2:43] Ryan King:

Yeah, so my name’s Ryan King. I’m 27 years old. I do have a day job working as a chartered accountant. Originally started in London, but now I moved over to Australia. Um, and then on the side since 2019, started making money simple. Initially just started as during my final year of university, sharing some very basic and simple sort of like tips on personal finance and investing. And then, yeah, sort of grown over the years into Instagram, TikTok, and now five and a half, nearly six years later, now I’ve got a book out. So it’s pretty mental to be honest. But it’s been slowly, just like my investments I was gonna get into, slowly sort of grown over the years.

[3:16] Sammie Ellard-King:

I think when I first started out, like I came across you, I came across like Mr. Manajar to me, and then obviously Martin Lewis, and you were kind of it back then. Yeah, just kind of cool to see like you’ve your progression like throughout this as well, because you know, you do heavily lean on investing, which is wicked. And I think like I always send people your way as well. Thank you. Like, especially people, a lot of my friends are in Australia and they’re like, What do I do? And I’m like, Oh, you should speak to Ryan.

[3:40] Ryan King:

Yeah, someone actually asked that recently because it’ll the good thing about going to Australia was I just like learn everything all over again because they have different like platforms, different accounts, different funds available. So that was actually someone asked me that recently what the difference was, and I think it actually is better investing in the UK rather than investing in Australia, um, just because the UK has a stocks and shares ISA, there’s no equivalent in Australia, and I think the pension system is better in the UK as well. But of course, I’m still investing my money whilst working in Australia, investing those dingo dollars. Um, but no, it is actually good to like yeah, learn a whole new country sort of financial system and then try and use that to my advantage. What happens to your ISA when you leave? So you can’t – the tax year after you leave, you can’t contribute it to any more contribute into it anymore, but you can still hold it. So it’s just sort of sat there, just growing

[4:26] Ryan King:

slowly. So that’s why you’ve got that like to account thing that you always show on the content. So now I’ve essentially got now I contribute to my Australian workplace pension and then my Australia Vanguard investing account. It’s not a stock and shares ISA, so there’s no sort of tax benefits of that. But yeah, they’re the main two investing accounts that I use in Australia, and then my UK accounts that I built up for five years before moving to Australia are all just still sat there. Obviously, no money’s going in, that’s sort of growing slowly over the long term. Hopefully not dropping.

[4:57] Sammie Ellard-King:

What um happens if you come back, like to the Australian ones?

[5:00] Ryan King:

So can you is it complicated then as well? I think it will be complicated. So I think if I came back, my Vanguard Australia account, if I wanted to move the money back, I’ll have to sell everything and then pay any capital gains tax, right? And then move the money back, which will probably be fine. Um, but my Australian workplace pension I think is a bit more complicated because I think if I move that back, I’d actually get taxed 45%. What there’s a massive deterrent that they have to for people not to leave the country, essentially. I don’t know if I could just leave it there and then access it in like 30, 40 years. Um, there’s not a huge amount of money in that. Um, so yeah, I’ll probably try and suss that when I come back in a year or two. But if I do withdraw that, I’m gonna lose like half of it. So hopefully I can leave it there and just let it compound

[5:46] Ryan King:

for the next 30 years. Any plans to come back? In a year or two, probably. Yeah, I’ve still got two years after my visa. Nice. So I’ll probably definitely do one more year, probably two more years. Mate, in all honesty, your life looks pretty sick, aren’t you? It is pretty good standard of life over there.

[5:58] Sammie Ellard-King:

I see you on the weekends like, yeah, I’m just doing an 18-mile run now, Melbourne. I’m like, what the heck? It’s pretty cool though.

[6:05] Ryan King:

Yeah, actually at the moment, so it’s November back in the UK. I was speaking to someone this morning and it’s 35 degrees in Melbourne at the moment. So I’m not built for that. So I’m going back to it.

[6:13] Sammie Ellard-King:

My sisters are both in Adelaide. Oh. Uh just outside.

[6:16] Ryan King:

I’m going there for New Year’s. Oh, cool. I’m real. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[6:19] Sammie Ellard-King:

They love it, man. She’s been out there for a couple of years now, and I I just don’t think she’ll come back.

[6:23] Ryan King:

Yeah, they’re gonna stay.

[6:24] Sammie Ellard-King:

I think so. Like, they just love it, and it’s just a way, different way of life.

[6:27] Ryan King:

A lot of people do stare. I can see why. Yeah, the standard of life, the quality of life’s good, but I’ll probably come back because obviously all my family’s here. That’s the main thing that’ll pull me back. But unless they move over, but they definitely won’t.

[6:38] Sammie Ellard-King:

Well, like I think they’ve set the conversation up nicely today in terms of like how we’re gonna be doing it. And this is kind of gonna be like, I think, a really decent beginner’s masterclass into investing and simple investing as well, which is like what you’re known for mostly. But you’ve built up a portfolio of around about just over six figures now, right?

[6:56] Ryan King:

Yeah, I actually checked the other day because of the since the US election, because the markets have been booming. Good. It’s up to 140,000 pounds now. Wow, amazing. That includes everything though. Often get questions like, oh, is that your pensions? And that’s literally everything. So like ISA’s pensions, other general investment accounts, yeah, everything. But yeah, it’s pretty mental.

[7:13] Sammie Ellard-King:

It is pretty cool. It is amazing when things like that happen, especially at that level, because it’s that kind of uh once you pass 100k, yeah, like a three, four, or five percent difference, you’re like, whoa. Thousands, yeah, thousands of pounds, and sometimes in a day, and it’s like obviously to get to that point is majority your own contributions, right?

[7:29] Ryan King:

Exactly, yeah. And I think in the first early years, it like does seem a bit pointless. I haven’t thought of that myself. You invest in like I started £100 a month, and then after a year I got a thousand pound invested. Then I’m like after a few years, after two years, I’ve got five thousand pounds invested. It almost seems like pointless. So, like, even if you get like a 10% a good year, it’s like I made a couple hundred quid. What’s the point? But it’s only really when you sort of zoom out, and now like five, ten, for more for me, seven years later, I’ve got a six-figure portfolio. And now when there’s like a 10% increase in the market, I think, yeah, like the last two months there’s been like £15,000 worth of gains that I’ve had just because the stock market and crypto markets have been doing well. And it’s like five years ago, it wouldn’t have happened. But the reason why I’ve got to this point is because, as you say, your contributions, and that’s like the main thing in your control and the most important thing.

[8:15] Ryan King:

Um, and I think probably the way that I’ve actually built my portfolio up the most, people think there’s like these like special hacks and stuff. It’s literally just working the nine to five in my case and investing as much as I can for my salary every month. And then, particularly for me, when I qualified as a chartered accountant, I got a big salary jump so I could start investing four figures per month, and I’ve been doing that now for nearly well over three years, and there’s all those sort of religious monthly contributions, and then yeah, all of a sudden it’s like wow, you got six figures and it feels good.

[8:43] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah, well, like something you said there is important to say like 15,000 pounds, and that’s like in a few months, whatever, by doing nothing as well, by doing nothing, right? Just regularly keeping it up, that’s half of an average UK salary, yeah, right there, and that’s after seven years. So, like imagine if you push that out to you know 20. Another seven, 40, it’ll be another seven years, and that time for you to go from 100k to 200k is gonna shorten. Yeah, and that’s how you know interest on top of interest, and it really does grow. I I suppose instead of asking you like how you did it, I mean you just said how you did it, but we’re gonna get into that shortly. Like, how does actually having that amount there now make you feel?

[10:04] Ryan King:

I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really feel any different. I feel like because it’s happened slowly over time, and I I do track everything religiously, obviously putting as much as I can every single month. I don’t really feel that much different. It feels good because I know I’m gonna keep contributing and that money’s gonna keep compounding, and then I know for a fact I’ll be able to retire early. And I think that the more I can invest per month and like the kinder the returns are from the markets over the next sort of 10-15 years, I could potentially retire maybe five, 10, maybe 15 years earlier, assuming I carry on working like a corporate nine to five, um, had I not done this. I don’t think a lot of people get to the point where they sort of like spend or save all their money, then they get to the point where they’re looking to retire and they can’t really like afford to. But even if it’s like a couple hundred quid, you might not get you may have

[10:49] Ryan King:

more money than me or a lot less money, but if you can just start with what you can afford, even a couple of hundred quid here and there, it will go a long way, particularly if you’re younger and gonna be investing for 30 or 40 years. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I don’t feel massively different. I guess it is like not when I I don’t really like think about it too much when someone says like, yeah, 140,000 pounds, like it’s a mental number. Um, and yeah, it’s taken, it’s what happened overnight, obviously. Um, but I think once I start potentially like thinking how to live off of the investments one day, that’s when probably already sink in that okay, this is pretty mental.

[11:17] Sammie Ellard-King:

And that’s a possibility, like if you continue to grow that, you know, if you moved it into say like a dividend fund or something along those lines and that’s kicking out money to you every single year, it’s basically a yearly salary.

[11:27] Ryan King:

Yeah, that’d be the aim to get it to a point where I can either live off of the pot or live off of the dividends, and I can just fund my lifestyle. Um, so I think as well that people think you need to get to millions and millions of pounds invested to retire. But if you live a relatively like if you’re very materialistic and everything’s extravagant, you’ll need a lot of money, full stop. But if you’re relatively minimalistic and not really fussed about materialistic stuff, like a massive house, a fancy car, you can actually become financially independent on a much lower pot. So that’s one benefit of I guess I’m not a bit inherently frugal and like save and invest in, and that’s probably one benefit as well. You can actually build your pot to a smaller amount and then sort of retire early much sooner than if you’re just spending all your money on flashy stuff.

[12:09] Sammie Ellard-King:

100% man. Like I always say to people, like, when you do work out your number that you want to get to, like, what does you you may spend £25,000 a year right now, for example, but if you actually want to spend £35,000, like if you’re not okay with that, then you take that number and you times that by £25, and that’s the number that you go for. Yeah, it’s bot on that. And do you work to a similar way or is it?

[12:35] Ryan King:

So if I yeah, to honestly, someone actually asked this yesterday, like, what do you number do you want to get to? And I honestly have no idea. I feel like I’m very much still in like working and I’m in like the wealth accumulation phase. So I’m just trying to invest as much as I can every single month into my like pension and my investment accounts. I actually haven’t really, and this probably sounds a bit counterintuitive, being that I like make content on investing in personal finance, but I actually haven’t thought about what number I want to get to. But I think it’s probably once you have, I guess, like a more I haven’t got a house or a mortgage, like once I get a mortgage and maybe once I have kids, then I’ll probably think about okay, these are my yearly expenses and will be for the next 20 years. This is what pot I need to get to. Um, but right now it’s just like, yeah, I try and invest as much as I can and then I know it’ll pay off.

[13:18] Sammie Ellard-King:

You’ve got like this kind of delayed gratification mindset. You need that 100% of investing. You’re a runner as well, so it’s kind of the same thing, right?

[13:25] Ryan King:

Especially in this day and age when it’s all sort of like social media, like instant gratification, fake gurus, Lamborghinis. Um, a lot of that is just like on finance and a bit of a lie. So you can have in like delay the gratification. The thing is though, you can still have fun. I’m still like doing nights out, drinking Guinness, going on the holidays, you still got to do fun stuff, obviously. Um, but if you can sort of tax yourself first, pay yourself first, put aside 10-20% of your salary every single month and do that religiously for years and years, even decades, then you can have fun today whilst delaying gratification and then becoming financially independent over the long term. You are so right, man.

[14:02] Sammie Ellard-King:

Like if you get paid £2,000, you don’t get paid £2,000, you get paid £1,600 or £700. Yeah. And that’s gonna like and that’s what you get paid. If you just get that into your head, it’s gonna make such a big difference to you later down the round.

[14:15] Ryan King:

Like taxing yourself first, yeah, 10, 20%, whatever it is, is like the best tax you’ll ever pay. Just put that money away. And I think as well, people I feel like a lot of people like inherently save and obviously you need to save for stuff, don’t get me wrong, like a holiday, a house deposit. And I feel like in your 20s and 30s, there’s so much stuff that you’re trying to climb a corporate ladder, trying to start a side business, trying to go traveling, all of this stuff. Um, but with saving, it is good and you need to do it, but over the long term, it just loses out due to inflation because inflation is normally higher than the interest rate you’d earn on any savings, which is why you need to be investing, whether it’s for hopefully your workplace pension, set up a separate stocks and shares ISA, get money into those two pots, invest every single month, and just hold for the long term.

[14:57] Sammie Ellard-King:

You made such a good point there, and it’s it’s been skewed recently, obviously, because savings rates have been like five percent. It’s only in the last few months, once inflation has sort of come down, that we’re in this kind of odd environment where inflation is much lower than the interest rate.

[15:11] Ryan King:

First time in like 15 years.

[15:12] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah. And people are like, Well, why invest? Yeah, yeah. And I’m like, Well what why wouldn’t you? Is the answer I throw back at them because I’m like, your growth is gonna vastly outstrip rather than you getting, say, 2.5% in actual value growth.

[15:29] Ryan King:

Yeah.

[15:30] Sammie Ellard-King:

And I just, you know, you try and fight this fight con consistently, and I’m like, you’re thinking in months, you need to start thinking in decades.

[15:38] Ryan King:

100% right. And even for that argument, no, it’s like, oh, I’m earning 5% risk-free on my savings in a bank. Fair enough. Whilst investing isn’t risk-free, I don’t even know what, I can’t remember the top of my head, but I think like the global global funds and US funds this month have made like 20 or like much more than 5%. Yeah. I’m not sure the number on the top of my head. I was actually looking at, I know Bitcoin, separate topic, that’s up 122% so far this year. Like index funds are up by so normally, even when cash is doing well in the bank, you’ll still make more money by investing, assuming you’re holding for the long term. It’s very much not a get-rich, quick, monthly thing, as you mentioned, it’s very much in decades. Um, and you do need to save, of course, but investing is gonna give like the biggest bang for your buck over the long term out of anything you could do.

[16:19] Sammie Ellard-King:

No, I completely agree. Obviously, you’re on the younger side of things. Like, I’d sort of maybe throw myself still in that hat, probably got a couple years left until I start getting middle-aged, definitely got a few grace, damn it. Um, but you know, obviously you are 27, right? So like you have much you are you can look in decades. Yeah. Do you feel like someone who’s perhaps listening to this in their late 40s, mid-50s, who are perhaps coming up to retirement, and actually that’s you know, much sooner than it is than being in their 20s. Do you feel like they can still start investing as well? 100%.

[16:54] Ryan King:

I always say to people, because I get a lot of messages about oh, I’m like 45, just paid off my mortgage, is there any point in investing? I’m like 100%. It’s better to start late than never start. Firstly, people are living longer than ever. So even if you’re in your 50s, you could potentially live for another 40 years. So you have still have decades and decades of compound interest ahead of you. I’m not gonna bullshit you. If you start at 18, of course, you got 50, 60 years plus of compound interest and you’re gonna have build massive wealth. But if you are starting later, it’s definitely better to start late than never. So firstly, you’re living longer than ever, so it’s definitely worth starting. Secondly, even if you can’t necessarily get to the point where you build up some massive seven-figure pot you live off of, imagine you could get to a point where you still build a smaller pot, but you can like tap into that and work

[17:40] Ryan King:

maybe a more enjoyable part-time job or that supplemental lifestyle. You can then thirdly pass it down to kids to other generations, give it back. So it’s still 100% worth, even if you’re older, to start investing.

[17:51] Sammie Ellard-King:

Totally agree, man. And you know, it’s it feels like people are like, oh, once I hit 65, like that’s it. Yeah, like I can’t add to it, I can’t do anything outside of it. Keep holding and investing, and yeah, you could, yeah. And a lot of people don’t retire these days, like they just don’t s believe in it. And I I’m actually the same, I don’t believe in retirement. I’m like, if you find something you love, do it till you you literally can’t pick up a pen anymore or type of type of weather. I’m I’m obviously on the computer. So now if I can’t see yeah, or live lift up my legs to even get to the computer anymore, then it’s probably time to call it a day, right? But at that point, it would be past I wouldn’t need to worry at that point.

[18:29] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah.

[18:29] Sammie Ellard-King:

Um, and I just feel like people think, wow, I’ve got 15 years left, because I’m 50. Yeah, and I’m gonna retire at 65 or 67.

[18:38] Ryan King:

But if you were healthy at 65, you might have like 30 years living. So you can keep, yeah. If you’ve got a job you enjoy, keep doing that, keep investing, start living off of your investments, start giving some money back, giving it away. I think actually one thing as well, when I get a message from people who are older, if you have a and this is a very common misconception, and it’s always amazing how many people don’t realise this, but it’s important. If you have a workplace pension, you are an investor. Yes. Because I didn’t know this as well when I first started. I got auto-enrolled into my so I sort of accidentally started investing in August 2017 when I did a placement year in between my second and third year of uni. So I worked in London for a year and I got auto-enrolled into a workplace pension. And luckily it took me a year to figure it out that that was actually my money, that that is actually being invested into something. And in my case, it was being

[19:23] Ryan King:

invested into a very high fee active fund. So luckily, I sort of educated myself and then switched the fund I was invested into to lower my fees, make it more global. Um, but it always, yeah, if you have a workplace pension, you are an investor. That is your money. You need to get access to it as soon as possible, whether through HR, through the pension provider. And then once you’re access, actually look at it. What is that money being invested into? How much do you have? Is the right amount going in per month? What is it being invested into? Because ultimately, that is your money. And of course you can’t access it for like two or 55. That’s gone up to 57 in 2028. So people sort of just forget about it. But it’s still worth taking control of it, taking ownership. Because if you can make a few little decisions today, you could literally end up with five or six figures more whilst that money is compounding,

[20:09] Ryan King:

particularly if you’ve got a high-paying job and you’re investing into a workplace pension, get an employ an employer match, doing that for 30 or 40 years. Um, so you might be an investor and you don’t even realise it in a workplace pension.

[20:21] Sammie Ellard-King:

100%. My mum just found 65,000 pounds in an in a NEST pension. That is unreal. Like, and she just had no idea. And she probably calculated, I think she put in about 12,000 pounds, so that’s growth over that time. And then she consolidated her pensions and found it, and it’s like one in ten have 10,000 pounds and lost pensions.

[20:38] Ryan King:

I always see that about like lost pensions.

[20:39] Sammie Ellard-King:

It’s insane, isn’t it?

[20:40] Ryan King:

Luckily, I got on top of it early, so I know what my pensions are. Yeah. If people don’t, definitely try and find them. And then you can consolidate them into one big pot, just makes it easier to manage.

[20:50] Sammie Ellard-King:

100%. You sort of touched on it a couple of times, and you mentioned global, and I think it’s like something that you actively champion in pretty much every video that you talk about. And I I just love your approach to it, and it’s actually from watching you change some of my own strategy really with it because I was heavy SP.

[21:08] Ryan King:

Yeah.

[21:08] Sammie Ellard-King:

Um, and we’ll touch on what these things are a little bit in a second, of course. But like from watching you, I was actually changed my thought process, um, which was really interesting. And obviously, you’re a big fan of index funds, and it’s like a big buzzword in I suppose in our world, but even when I get messages all the time, it’s like, you know, what is an index fund and how does it actually work? So, yeah, would you mind sort of giving us the four?

[21:34] Ryan King:

So to go back to absolute basics, you obviously have companies all around the world. So even you’ve got obviously big companies like Tesco, Nike, Adidas, Tesla, you obviously got smaller companies, and obviously all these companies are like making products, selling a service, they’ve got employees, they got officers, they’re trying to survive and trying to make money. The really good companies essentially get listed onto the stock market. So once they’re listed on the stock market, me and you, and really anyone who have access can then sort of buy a share of Tesco from the stock market, buy a share of Apple from the stock market. What then sort of so these are all individual stocks we call them. So it’s like individual companies, and you of course can invest into individual companies. And if you actually work for an employer, like I think Apple have a really good scheme

[22:19] Ryan King:

where they will give their employees like share options and you can then get shares in the company. Um, so people may even have shares that they don’t really realise what they are or they don’t even have them. But these are sort of individual stocks, individual companies. You can then group these companies into what’s called an index. So an index really is just a collection of sort of individual companies, individual stocks. So some famous ones that people probably would have heard of. You mentioned the S&P 500. The largest 500 US companies, the FTSE 100 is the largest 100 UK companies, other sort of ones, NASDAQ, you’ve got the Nikkei 225, but then you also have these global index funds, which group companies from all around the world in. But an index is just essentially a collection of individual companies or individual stocks.

[23:05] Ryan King:

Index funds are then how like we, me and you, everyday investors, can then invest into that index. So rather than using the S&P 500 as an example, rather than going out and buying one single share of every 500 companies, which would be a pain in the arse, and those companies always changing, we can just invest into an S&P 500 index fund or ETF. They’re essentially the same thing, um, and then get access to those 500 companies through one index fund or ETF. Um there’s a massive emphasis, of course, on the US. I think because generally speaking, the US is probably the most sort of capitalistic and innovative country. It’s also the largest country that makes up the global stock market, about 60%. It’s got the biggest companies Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Facebook, or Meta.

[23:50] Ryan King:

Um so there’s a lot of focus on it. And I’m not gonna lie, bullshit you, the S&P 500 has had amazing returns for the last 15 years. It’s been the best performing country by a mile. Some of the stocks like Apple, Nvidia, have had unbelievable returns. But my approach personally is to use global index funds. So global index funds, I guess sort of as we broke down what index fund already is, but it’s just invest into companies all around the world globally. So not just the US, but also the UK, Japan, China, literally everywhere around the world. And I personally choose to invest into that. It sort of means that although the US is the best at the moment, even if another country becomes better in the future, China or India are probably the two most likely. Is it gonna happen? I don’t know. But if another country starts performing better than the US, then that’ll

[24:35] Ryan King:

be reflected in the global index fund. If the US still performs well, don’t get me wrong, I’ll still be benefiting as well because the US makes up the majority of the global index fund. Um, but yeah, the reason why I like using global funds, it just keeps my approach really simple. Um, it means I’ve not got to have multiple funds. And if something did happen to the US, I’m still gonna be sort of fine either way, because I believe the global economy is going to continue growing, innovating over time, and then slowly my wealth will grow with that. So that’s sort of whistle stop tour of the stock market and why I personally use global index funds.

[25:08] Sammie Ellard-King:

And there’s many different types of global index funds, and I get this question a lot. So I’m sure you do, right? What what what do you reply with normally when people ask you that?

[25:18] Ryan King:

So I actually think this is like probably one of the biggest barriers to entry that isn’t talked about much. It’s in so hard to work out what a fund actually does. If you type in global or world, you’ll get like FTSE global all cap accumulation, FTSE global all cap income, FTSE all world, VWRP, distribution. Yeah, yeah. Then you’ve got like all these other buzzwords, then like Vanguard have got one, iShares have got one, Invesco got one. It’s an absolute mindfield to work out what funds actually mean. So what I would say is if anyone actually looks into specific funds, the best thing to do, and is a bit of a manual job, is to look up the fund and then actually look at the fact sheet or the key investor document. Okay. Because in there it’s a two-pager, it’ll give you the objective, what the fund’s invested into, as well as the fees.

[26:03] Ryan King:

There’s a few other bits, but I think those two are the two most important things that I look at when selected in fund, what it’s actually invested into, and I of course want to invest globally, and then what the fees are, and of course, I want as low as fees as possible. Um, the fund that I talk about a lot in the book and just for years on social media is the FTSE Global All Cap, which is a Vanguard. So the whole the whole fund name is called FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund Accumulation. So it’s I C C Yeah bit of an absolute uh jargon sentence, but to break that down. No wonder it’s so bloody hard for people. And it’s and it’s actually got Vanguard at the start. So Vanguard are an investment platform, but they also offer funds, yeah, and that is their fund.

[26:45] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah.

[26:45] Ryan King:

The FTSE Global All Cap is the index it tracks, and that index is essentially a global index made up of companies from all around the world, the developed world and the emerging markets world. And the companies are of all sizes, large, medium, and small. So sort of the most diversified fund you can invest into. Index fund, we’ve covered that. There’s a passive index fund approach to invest in, so that’s low fee. And then accumulation, which is very important, means that all of the dividends will be automatically reinvested back into the fund. Okay. So generally speaking, you want to use accumulation funds because if you can automatically reinvest the dividends back into the fund, not only is that automatic and you haven’t got to do anything manually, it also is going to grow and compound your wealth slowly. But that is the main fund that I use. So in my Vanguard

[27:30] Ryan King:

UK stocks and shares ISA and SIPP, 100% of my money is in the FTSE, Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund Accumulation. 100%. Yeah. And that’s the only fund I invest into. Of course, it’s people, people can do whatever they want with their money. I could also invest into the S&P 500. I could also invest into another global fund into individual stocks. But I personally just, like the name suggests, want to make money as simple as possible in my own personal life and just yeah, have one fund. And that’s the only fund I need, to be honest with you. Um, another very popular one is Vanguard’s FTSE All World VWRP,

[29:10] Ryan King:

which is an ETF rather than an index fund, but it’s essentially it’s very similar. Yeah. That’s available on more platforms, so that’s probably actually a more popular fund to invest into. Yeah. But that’s if I’ve got the FTSE Global All Cap, the FTSE All World is very similar. And then what will happen is like iShares, Invesco, Fidelity, all these other they were all offer their own one. So what I say is normal, say just go with Vanguard because I have the lowest fee. Unfortunately, as well, I’m not actually sponsored by Vanguard. I wish I was because I’ve been talking about them for years. Um, honestly, let me know. Make a fortune. Um, but I normally go with Vanguard because I have the lowest fee. But if you wanted to, you could like click into all the fund fact sheets and actually see which is the lowest fee. And if every single fund is doing the exact same thing, then obviously pick the one with the lowest fee. Really good advice.

[29:56] Sammie Ellard-King:

Can you explain the dividend in a little bit more detail for people? Because I feel like it’s something people overlook. And actually, like, you know, for me it’s fantastic because it’s like 1.5% dividend, and I’m getting 8% that year, for example, is actually a 9.5% increase.

[30:10] Ryan King:

100%. So to very basics, all dividends are is essentially cash that is paid out by companies to shareholders for holding the stock. So a lot of fast growing companies like Tesla, Amazon, Meta, they won’t pay dividends because they are reinvesting all of their money back into the business. Older companies generally, though, so think like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, they will pay dividends and that because they’re not as fast growing, but that’s sort of a way to reward shareholders for holding their individual stock or individual share. And of course, the more shares you have, the higher dividends you’ll get. Funds, index funds, inherently are made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of companies. So the S&P 500 has 500 companies, the FTSE Global All Cap invests into 7,000 companies all

[30:55] Ryan King:

around the world. So inherently, they will also pay a dividend, and it’s called the dividend yield. So as you mentioned, 1.5%, that is the dividend yield, how much is paid out of the share price every single year. Um, those dividends are actually really powerful because for years and years, the S&P 500, when interest rates were like 0% in this country for years, uh, the S&P 500 still had a 2% dividend yield. So even if it returned nothing, yeah, you were still getting more from dividends than keeping money in a savings account. Of course, it’s a bit different now because interest rates have risen, but you make a great point, it’s so often overlooked, and that is part of your return. And it’s actually there’s a bit of a tangent, but there’s some really good studies, and I actually touched on them in the book where over the long term, about half of your return will actually come from reinvesting dividends.

[31:40] Ryan King:

So that’s how powerful it is, actually, I guess using index funds and then reinvesting all your dividends because they will obviously compound as well over the long term. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so how does this actually work in practice? Well, you have accumulation funds and income funds, and these accumulation funds will automatically reinvest the dividends back into the fund. So that one and a half percent you mentioned, that’ll get reinvested back in it normally either quarterly or yearly, depends on the fund. With the FTSE Global All Cap, it’s um quarterly. Normally the S&P 500, sorry, with the FTSE Global All Cap, it’s yearly. With the S&P 500, it’s normally quarterly, but I guess reinvested back into the fund and then grows your wealth even quicker over the long term.

[32:19] Sammie Ellard-King:

I love dividends.

[32:20] Ryan King:

Yeah, dividends are good. I agree, aren’t they? And the sort of end goal is well, imagine you can get your pot to a point where you can then switch to an income fund and then live off of the income from the investment pot. That is the dream. Yeah.

[32:32] Sammie Ellard-King:

I funny fact, today on the way in, um, I got an email from Free Trade, which I just completely forgot I’d opened the account, and I got a dividend for 0.01. Every penny, the start of the next million. It’s like, get in. And I was like, oh right, all like that. It’s like absolutely smashing wealth growth right now. You gotta start somewhere. Yeah, I think I looked at it and I looked at it and I was like, oh yeah, good cool. I think it’s got like £5.69 or something on it, and I was like, oh wow, amazing. Yeah, I’m I’m going up in the world, guys. Um, obviously, you you’ve spoken about the S&P 500, it’s probably the most famous, but why is it that you just 100%? Why only that? Like a lot of because I’m I split, um, so I do like 80% index funds,

[33:18] Sammie Ellard-King:

20% individuals, and then even my 80%, I do 50% global. Yeah. And if you make that 80% 100%, yeah. So then 30% S&P 500 and then 20% UK. Yeah. And that’s just like for me, I feel more balanced with that. And it I suppose it’s different for everyone, yeah.

[33:35] Ryan King:

And that’s the that’s I guess the beauty of investing. You can literally invest into whatever you want. Just because I’m doing this, shall we go? This is my approach. She might have a different view on things with the US market. It’s like undeniable that the lowest that the last 15 years, the gains have been much better than investing to a global fund. Global funds have still benefited because they’re made up primarily about 60% of US stocks. But it’s no doubt the US market has performed better. The problem is it’s impossible to know if that’s going to continue. And with a global fund, you’re efficiently investing into countries around the world in the direct proportion that they make up of the global stock market. Right. That’s a bit of a mouthful.

[34:15] Sammie Ellard-King:

But what that essentially means it’s like the world’s economy, basically. Essentially, yeah.

[34:18] Ryan King:

So the UK only makes up about 4% of the global stock market. Interesting fact, there’s like a few US companies that are actually more valuable than the entire UK stock market, which shows just how massive the US is. Um, but so the UK is made up, is makes up 4% of the global stock market, which means in my global fund, there’s 4% UK stocks. The US makes up about 60% of the global stock market, which means in my global index fund, the FTSE Global All Cap, it’s about 60% US stocks. So what then happens is over time, as different countries and companies grow and some fail, that’s then reflected in the global index fund. So I’m sort of always efficiently investing into companies and countries in direct proportion that they make

[35:04] Ryan King:

up of the global stock market, if that makes sense. So I know, and a lot of people, a lot of people that follow me and message me, they actually do have like half their money in the global fund, half their money in an S&P 500 fund. That’s completely fine. And you can do that. And if the US continues to dominate, then you will make better gains than I make. But the thing is, and actually in the book, go through like a hundred years of stock market data, and the best country is always changing. It’s very rare. That’s wild, isn’t it? Yeah.

[35:30] Sammie Ellard-King:

So even the US over the last hundred years, like Japan and Japan. Yeah.

[35:34] Ryan King:

So Japan made up 45% of the stock market. I think it was in the 1980s, and now it makes up 8%. So imagine back then that the biggest stock market, all my money’s going in Japan. You would have lost out massively 50 years later because Japan is now only about seven to eight percent of the global stock market. So the thing is, I don’t know, I don’t think it happens to the US. You think it’s got all the biggest tech companies. That’s the thing. Like you can’t imagine happening. But the point is, I sort of concede that I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I don’t know which country or industry or company is gonna perform the best. So if I just own them all, then I’m gonna be fine. I’m gonna get spectacular returns and make thousands of percent. Um, but I’m also gonna sort of slowly build my wealth as the global economy continues to sort of innovate, produce stuff, make more money and grow over the long

[36:19] Ryan King:

term.

[36:19] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah, 100%. Like Andrew Craig puts it, like you’re investing in human progress. Yeah, which is just such a lovely way of thinking about it. Like, and if that goes to shit, we are literally not gonna give a toss about our stock portfolios. We’re gonna be worried about who how we can make nicker tinabate beans from the house over there, right?

[36:35] Ryan King:

That’s a very common question as well. It’s like, oh, if I invest into an index fund, like a US index fund or global index fund, why don’t it goes to zero? I’m like, honestly, if it goes to zero, it would have been like a nuclear war, like a zombie apocalypse, like a meteor. Everyone’s gonna be dead. You’re gonna be living off rice and beans, I’ll still be checking my portfolio. No, literally. What your money lies on my death page.

[36:59] Sammie Ellard-King:

Oh, sweet, yeah, we’re all good here.

[37:01] Ryan King:

But like it’s not gonna get us out. Yeah, it’s not gonna matter like we’re all just dead. So I think to be an investor, this is a bit of a different point. You have to be like a slight optimist. If you’re it’s like pessimists, oh, what’s the thing? Like, pessimists are always talking, but it’s optimists that make money. Even since I’ve been investing the last seven years, the whole first year I was in the red because of a little crash. It was then the COVID massive 30% crash. There’s been record high interest rates, record high modern inflation, multiple wars, mad stuff going on with elections around the world, Argentina, the US, even in the UK, and I’ve still made tens of thousands of pounds of gains. So you can be a pessimistic all you like, but if you want to be an investor, you have to be a slight optimist. And that optimist will reward you massively over the long

[37:46] Ryan King:

term through investing consistently. That’s such good advice, mate.

[37:49] Sammie Ellard-King:

I love that you said that. Now you did mention this earlier, and I think it’s another point that people don’t think about, and that is feeds. Yeah. And fees is like, for me, is like the number one wealth killer, the silent wealth killer. It is, yeah.

[38:02] Ryan King:

You’re you’re spot on. So with fees, um, it’s even a 0.5% fee per year, it sounds nothing. Like, it’s only 0.5%, even like 1%, 2%, it sounds so small. But if you compound that over the long term, you will literally lose tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds. I think I’ve put this example on my Instagram before, and I think like over I think it was over 40 years, if you invested 500 pounds per month, and then you got 8% versus 7% because you paid a 1% fee that was too high, you actually lose about a third of your money. I think you ended up with like 1.8 million or 1.2 million. Don’t get me wrong, 1.2 million is still amazing. Yeah. But the point is if you take, if you actually take a bit of ownership

[38:47] Ryan King:

and look into it and you can reduce your fees, you will end up with so much more money in your own pocket over the long term. The two main fees you will pay if you’re going to be just investing regularly into index funds and ETFs, which is what I generally do myself and talk about, is a platform fee and an actual fund fee. So the platform fee is what it costs to use the platform. So Vanguard is 0.15%, Hargreaves Landsdown is 0.45%. There’s a lot of zero 0% commission brokers now, trading 212, InvestEngine, free trade. So the more you can reduce that fee, the better. The second one is the fund fee. And if you are using low-cost index funds and ETFs, like we talked about, the S&P 500, the FTSE Global All Cap, you’re gonna be fine. And if you’re doing

[39:32] Ryan King:

that through Vanguard, Trading 212, InvestEngine, you’re gonna have pretty rock bottom fees, to be honest with you. Um, I think where people get caught up though is when if you start trading and buying and selling a lot, you’ll be incurring a lot of fees they don’t even realise. Stamp duty on UK stocks, FX fees on overseas stocks, maybe trading fees or commission fees, a bid-ask spread if you’re buying and selling ETFs and individual stocks um frequently. So if you are trading regularly, you will be paying a lot of fees. Because you ought to think, right? Even these zero commission platforms, they’re not charities, no, they’re making millions, a lot of money, and it’s all through that sort of trader that they encourage. Um, if you are though just investing regularly into funds, your fees will be rock bottom.

[40:17] Ryan King:

And assuming you’re using like a low-cost platform and a low-cost fund, then you’ll be fine. I think though, and we mentioned this earlier on, where the biggest risk is in the UK and Australia, in both countries I’ve been in and had workplace pensions, I’ve been auto-enrolled in both cases into a high fee fund. So in the UK, it was like a 0.85, 0.85% sort of high fee active life strategy fund. And in Australia, it was a similar situation. So in both cases, as we sort of touched on earlier on, I got access and then reduced the essentially picked a better fund that is globally diversified because that’s what I want and has lower fees. So that is why it’s so important. Whether you’ve had a workplace pension for one year or 30 years, just get access to it and see what you’re being invested into.

[41:03] Ryan King:

That’s the fund side of things. If your workplace pension platform slash provider is high fee, you can also move your money into a SIPP. So this is sort of a separate, I guess, more sort of technical or complicated point. Luckily, with both of my workplace pensions I’ve got in the UK and Australia, even though the um fund options aren’t the best, I still use a global fund and the platform fees are pretty low. But some platforms, because there’s so many workplace pension providers, will charge high fees. So if you wanted to reduce the platform fee, you could periodically move your money every quarter or every year from your workplace pension into a SIPP, into a SIPP with Vanguard, for example, because they offer one. Um just make sure there’s no extra charges.

[41:43] Sammie Ellard-King:

Sponsor me.

[41:45] Ryan King:

There’s no um yeah, the only thing to check, sorry, is like exit fees. Yeah. In this day and age, there shouldn’t be any exit fees or moving your money, but just call up or message them and make sure there’s no fees for moving your money. Um, if there is, maybe do it less frequently once a year. Yeah. If your pension provider is charging you really, I would say anything and more than like 0.3%, I would say just switch it to a low-cost SIPP. Um, and I would actually say as some sort of general guidance, your total investing fees should not be more than 0.5%. Yeah. So absolutely everything, your platform fee, your fund fee, any other fees, an absolute maximum should be 0.5%. And of course, as we said, the lower you can get it, it’s only going to benefit you over the long term. 100%. And as you said, sort of fees are one of the things as well that are directly in our control. So

[42:30] Ryan King:

the main two things in our control are contributions that we touched on and fees. And if you can get both of those under control, then you’ve got the best chance of building like real massive wealth over the long term. You’re totally right.

[42:41] Sammie Ellard-King:

And a lot of workplace pensions they’re like chuck it in the like super, super low risk as well, which is like going up uh, you know, a low percent, yeah, possibly less than some of the savings accounts out there in some cases. Yeah. Which is like you’re just they’re just doing that because the thing is they’ve got people in their company that are, you know, late 50s, early 60s, right through to the 18, 19 year olds. So actually the best thing is just low risk. Yeah. But actually, if you’re in a younger uh period of your life, like that may not be the best strategy for you.

[43:13] Ryan King:

100%. If you’re really, I’d say even up to your 40s, you’ve still got decades of investing ahead of you, in my opinion, just being 100% stocks. If you are more risk-averse or getting closer to retirement, you can switch to a fund with stocks and bonds. But I personally, but when it comes to the stock market, I’m 100% in stocks. I got this message from this guy a couple of weeks ago, and he, I think he’s in like his early 30s, and his he finally, after like watching some of my content, looked into his pension, and for the last like I think it’s like six years, he’s been in so he’s pretty young, has been invested into this fund, and the fund is 25% cash. So he’s literally, I think he said his returns were like 23% in the last six years in this fund because he had other like crap stuff in there. And I was like, mate, I want to like break your heart, but

[43:58] Ryan King:

the stock market’s returned like I think like hundreds of percent, and you’ve like missed out. That’s probably not even be inflation because you’ve got cash and in bonds and in property, and like, yeah, that’s why it’s so important to get control of your workplace pension. Yeah, and I get it’s a bit daunting, and I get like we love talking about this, it’s pretty boring for most people, but there’s one thing you can do. What are you talking about, man? Who are these people?

[44:18] Sammie Ellard-King:

I love it.

[44:19] Ryan King:

If there’s one thing you can do today, just get access to your workplace pension, yeah, see how much you got, see what fees you’re paying, see what you’re being invested into. That’s your money, and it is being invested. So taking the control of that is the best thing you can do. Because workplace pensions, really, are the easiest and best way to build your wealth over the long term. It’s pretty boring, it’s not very sexy. But if you get an employer match pension of say five percent, you put in five percent, they put in five percent, you’ve got 10 compounding, tax-free over the long term, it’s absolutely massive, and that is like the best and easiest way to build your wealth. 100% caught you say it hard there, man.

[44:54] Sammie Ellard-King:

I’m loving that explanation. Um well, I suppose it leads us perfectly into the book.

[44:59] Ryan King:

Yeah. Here it is. Stop where you start investing. It’s pretty mental, to be fair, to see the physical coffees.

[45:05] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah, is it wild seeing your name on like in front of like an actual hard disk?

[45:09] Ryan King:

Yeah, it’s pretty mental because it’s sort of been yeah, because I originally wrote an ebook in 2021 as I was telling you, and then sort of been doing working on this with the publisher for over 18 months. So it’s sort of like you like you sort of rewrote the book, um, done like the cover, done some marketing for it, done some content for it. And it’s only sort of like a month ago when I got some physical copies posted to me in Australia. I was absolutely buzzing. I was like, this is absolutely mental. And then it’s now then when I was sort of back home in the UK, I’m like bringing one here to you or like giving them to people, and everyone’s like, This is mental. I’m like, I know it’s mental.

[45:41] Sammie Ellard-King:

Did you do the like simba like I need to do that actually at Wembley?

[45:47] Ryan King:

Oh nice. Yeah, holding a Guinness for you as well. Guinness. Holding a Guinness. Yeah, and it’s that’s actually a good idea for a bit of content. But no, it is mental. Yeah, I’m very happy to have it here and um hopefully people get it and start investing.

[45:59] Sammie Ellard-King:

Obviously, the core message it sort of says it on the tin, but do you want to sort of take us through the premise of it?

[46:03] Ryan King:

Yeah, so the main message really is to get people investing. And I sort of run through so the book’s split into three parts. Part one and part two are sort of looking at the I call it the foundations in the investing world, telling you everything you know about investing in the stock market. But then part three is probably where people will get the most use, because that’s then the actual three-step blueprint to actually start investing. And it’s a lot of stuff we talked about today, using a low-fee platform, using an account with tax advantages like a stocks and shares ISA or a pension, and then using a fund. And I specifically use global funds. So that’s sort of the sort of, I guess, the main part of the book. And it’s like practical tips on how to actually start. Um, and then the subtitle is Build Wealth with 10 minutes of work. Of course, the book will take you longer than 10 minutes to read it. I was gonna say it’s not that sure. Yeah, it doesn’t look like 10 minutes.

[46:48] Ryan King:

But um it genuinely takes, and I’ve actually got a QR code in there as well, when it takes you to a there’s a few bonuses with a book, and it takes you to a um video where I actually got my mum set up investing about a year ago. I saw this, and it took eight minutes, and I only took eight minutes because most of the time I was like recording a video. It took like two minutes to get it set up. So it really takes less than 10 minutes to start, and then all you need to do every single year is less than 10 minutes of work. Of course, you can check it every day, every month if you want. I wouldn’t suggest that, but set up an automatic payment and then check every 10 months to uh every year, sorry, spend 10 minutes, increase your monthly contributions, check it again next year. That’s how easy it can be. 10 minutes work a year. Yeah. I check it more, of course. If you literally want to, log in, you get a pay rise, don’t get sucked into lifestyle inflation, increase

[47:34] Ryan King:

your contributions by 5%, boom, every single year. But yeah, the main premise, as you mentioned, is really to get people to actually start investing. Yeah. But I understand that people don’t want to just like blindly invest. You need the understanding of why invest, or what is the stock market, what is an index fund, some of the things we spoke about in this podcast, and that sort of lays all those foundations before getting into the practical steps of actually investing.

[47:54] Sammie Ellard-King:

100%, man. And do you know what? I just think it’s such a like people don’t realise that all they need to know can actually be learned in probably this podcast, yeah, and maybe a little bit extra reading or maybe a couple of other bits and bobs, and that’s like all you need to get started. And they often as well think like, oh, I need to have like when I’m on 50 grand, then I’ll do it.

[48:17] Ryan King:

Yeah. Like where it’s just even if it’s only like a tenner, 100 quid here and there, particularly if you’re younger, because you have so many decades of compact interest ahead of you, just get going. And I actually think is if you have I’m not gonna like bullshit you, if you have loads of money, you can build your wealth much quicker. But I think there’s actually big benefits of starting small. Because I started myself with £100 a month, and by starting small, you sort of start understanding investing, yeah, you understand how volatile it is. You got to get used to that feeling of, oh, you’ve lost money today, you’ve lost like 500 quid or whatever it is. So starting small does have massive benefits, but even if you haven’t got much money, it’s still worth getting started, particularly because of just building that mindset, building that habit, and it causes compound interest over the long term.

[48:55] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so my part uh we got her started with 50 quid. Yeah, they just just got started with 25 quid, and you know, they just slowly edged it up as they one become more confident, two income changes, so they they they they boost it up and three, they start seeing results. So they’re like, I want a bit more at that.

[49:12] Ryan King:

Yeah, that’s actually a good point as well, because I’ve been I’ve been speaking about sort of my own journey and generally saying like increase your contributions over time, but obviously life is a bit unpredictable, and you haven’t got if you can’t contribute for a month or for a year because something’s happened, that’s literally fine. You haven’t got to invest every single if you can invest every month and increase that amount every year, that’s amazing. But if something comes up where you have to stop investing for a bit or decrease your contributions, that’s also fine. As long as you’re investing as much as you can every year where you can afford to, then you’re only gonna put yourself in a better position over the long term had you just saved or like spent your money.

[49:48] Sammie Ellard-King:

100%. I think uh it’s important to sort of say you do have a little bit of other bits on the side as well, right? It’s not just the global fund in there. What what what else is necking around in there?

[49:59] Ryan King:

So of the £140,000, about I think about 80 to 85% is in global index funds and ETFs across my Stocks and Shares ISA, UK workplace pension, Australia workplace pension, and Australia Vanguard account. I know, because two countries, there’s multiple pots. One day I’ll combine them all when I’m back in the UK. Um it’s a bit of a mouthful saying all of that. But then the other sort of 15-20% is in yeah, crypto, specifically mainly Bitcoin and Ethereum. And my approach is pretty similar to the stock market. I just invest a little bit every single month, and I’ve done that now for four or five years. So every single month, just investing little and often into Bitcoin and Ethereum. Um, I’d say that’s obviously a sort of a completely different ball game to the stock market.

[50:44] Ryan King:

100%. The asset class of cryptocurrency has only been around since 2008, so it’s a still a very new asset class in the grand scheme of things compared to stocks, bonds, properties, gold, commodities. Um, but it’s obviously always in the news because people make a lot of money from it. Yeah, it is very volatile. There’s always regularly massive booms and massive crashes. So I would just say read, educate yourself a little bit on it. And I would recommend three books: Digital Gold, which is a history of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin standard, which is history of money and makes the case for Bitcoin, and then crypto assets, which is more actually about understanding cryptocurrency, what it is, how to store it, how to invest in it. Nice if you believe in it. I would say, in my opinion, it sort of makes sense to have a calculated risk of putting a bit of your portfolio in crypto. I think

[51:29] Ryan King:

the problem is people have never invested before, put 100% of their life savings in crypto, they lose a load of money and like, oh, this is a scam. Yeah. It’s like, well, if you do that, you sort of scammed yourself. Yeah, exactly. Educate yourself a little bit, yeah, and then if you believe in it and you think it’s gonna, you know, either make money or change the world, whatever you think, then just allocate a percentage you’re comfortable with. And for me, that’s 10 to 15%. Really? So if that went to zero, I’ll just blow you away. I would lose like five figures, but it’s not gonna like destroy my life. Um, and then if it does increase by hundreds and thousands of percent, then it will make up more of my portfolio, and then obviously I’ll be happy. So I’d sort of, yeah, wherever that happens, I’ll be fine, sort of thing. So but I think the risk is where people just load all their money into one, yeah, dodgy cryptocurrency, then they lose everything,

[52:14] Ryan King:

and then they sort of never invest again in anything because they think it’s all just a scam.

[52:19] Sammie Ellard-King:

I think it’s a really good point you made there. Like your 10 to 15 percent, usually I’m five percent, yeah, but it’s very much stretching now at the moment. Just and I and actually I’m in a position now because of like how the stock market’s performed over the last couple of years, where I’m actually comfortable to let it ride a little bit. Yeah. Just simply because we’re on this like wave, it would be very silly for me to, I believe, like just to like bring myself. Oh, you must stay at that 5%. Yeah. And like I just have to sort of then rebalance other bits in the portfolio, some of my individual holdings, and I’m like, okay, I’ll just sell those down a little bit because I’m happy with them, or I don’t need as much there because you know, there’s the the hype at the moment, and so all over the news. I think it just hit like 90 odd thousand.

[53:01] Ryan King:

Yeah, just the US election has been absolutely pumping. It’s just so unpredictable. Once again, in hindsight, tomorrow it could be 60, and it’s like, and it’s actually a real possibility. I think that’s the thing, like, and I actually have some examples of this in the book where people look at a chart, even for like a stock or a crypto. It’s like, oh yeah, obviously I would buy there before it goes up 100% or sell there before it crashes. It is impossible to know what’s gonna happen. Anyone listening, look at the Bitcoin chart now or the S&P 500 chart, and like on paper, write down what you think you would do, and I almost guarantee you’ll regularly make decisions that will lose you money, which is why it’s just better. And I do have the same approach with the stock market or the crypto market, just automatically invest a portion I’m comfortable with and then hold for the long term. Automate it, man. Yeah, it’s the biggest hack. But crypto,

[53:46] Ryan King:

yeah, it’s always in the news. Just try and always get sucked into the hype, it can be hard because when you’ve got people like random people talking about it, I’ve got your Nan mentioning crypto. I said, No, that’s when you know it’s gonna crash. Yeah, now’s the time to sell.

[53:58] Sammie Ellard-King:

But cheers, Nan.

[54:00] Ryan King:

I did see something interesting though the other day, um, about a week ago, and I tweeted about it where I think the first UK pension fund has started allocating crypto.

[54:09] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah, no, it’s like four or five percent or something, wasn’t it? Or something like that.

[54:11] Ryan King:

Yeah, so I think the thing that was different a few years ago was the and the reason why it started why Bitcoin sort of broke through and started booming was because a lot of institutional buyers, big companies, big banks started buying it, and now the sort of new waivers, the US government are gonna start buying it, and have the largest are gonna try and buy about 10% of all bitcoins in existence over the next X amount of years. Sort of speculation, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Um, so there’s always like a new sort of wave, and that’s what sort of gets it pumping again. But there will still be massive crashes. I mean, I think for Bitcoin specifically, which is the biggest cryptocurrency by mile, would make sort of over 50% of the total crypto market cap. That’s how it’s almost like the US, actually, in a sense. The US dominates the global stock market, Bitcoin dominates the crypto market. I think

[54:56] Ryan King:

on average, there’s a stat where every two to three years there’s a 90% crash. So almost certainly Bitcoin will get to 100 and then probably crash down to 10k or 20k or 30k. It just happens. So you’ve got to be able to sort of stomach that volatility. Don’t worry, the stock market isn’t that volatile. Um, but that’s why I say, yeah, if you believe in it, don’t put all your money in it, take a calculated risk, put a portion you’re happy with it, and then just sort of let it ride over the long term.

[55:20] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah, I think it’s fantastic advice. And that’s why I have been very hesitant to have anyone on the podcast talk about it. And but I knew you’d be the right person to have that conversation with because you have the same mindset as me. And even though it’s just, you know, it’s just me, it’s just Sammie saying it, it’s good to hear another person say it as well because it’s like it is important because it could like mess up everything. Yeah, it could go to zero.

[55:43] Ryan King:

Yeah, there’s like as much chance it goes to zero, probably still more chance it goes to zero than it like changes the world and becomes the national global currency. Yeah, it’s just like in the stock market, if you look at the biggest companies in the world in the S&P 500 20 years ago, they’re completely different now, and they’ll be completely different in another 20 years. You don’t think, but a lot of the biggest companies today won’t exist in 20 years’ time. That’s just the nature of like trying to build a company. Most of them fail and go out of business. Yeah, they showed yeah. Crypto is literally that on steroids where 99.9% of cryptocurrencies will fail and fail actually normally quite quickly. It’s only the sort of I believe if it is to stick around, the big ones that will, which is why I invest into Bitcoin and Ethereum. Yeah. Um, if there was like a crypto index fund, yeah,

[56:28] Ryan King:

I would invest into that maybe one day. But for now, it’s just Bitcoin and Ethereum.

[56:32] Sammie Ellard-King:

Oh, I love that, man. Well, look, it’s been really good fun, and I definitely encourage people to go and get the book as well. We’ve been championing it on socials for um for you, man. And I think I I think it’s uh important that we can get as many people as we possibly can into investing. So stop waiting to invest in is out now. It’s out now. You can get we get it. Um, and we will leave a link in the show notes for people to come and get it. But Ryan, where can people find you, man?

[56:55] Ryan King:

Making money simple, essentially across any social media. If you’ve got any questions about anything we’ve spoken about today or anything else, feel free to just DM me. I’ll either try and help you out or send you someone that can. Um, but yeah, making money simple, making content on investing, a lot of stuff in the book. So yeah, appreciate it. Wicked man, I love this. Cheers, Sammie.

[57:11] Sammie Ellard-King:

Wow, I absolutely loved that conversation with Ryan. And I actually can’t wait to tuck into his new book as well. One of the things I will take away from this conversation is how like small investing over long periods of time have such an impact on your life and your financial outcomes. Anyone can do it. Stop waiting. Start investing in stores now. We’ll see you guys next week. Make sure you’re subscribed on Spotify. Hit that follow button. It really does help the show. And we’ll see you guys next week. Peace.