Two people. One portfolio. Zero pretending.
Before the portfolio.
We had subscriptions we'd forgotten about, no real budget, and savings that weren't going anywhere. We knew roughly what we owed.
It took a few months to sort out. A proper budget, an emergency fund, the bills we'd been paying on autopilot for years. We made the dreaded phone calls to renegotiate insurance and broadband. Most of them came down. Companies do want to keep you, so always seek the best deal. It surprised us how much came off.
The Build Up is everything we did to get there. Eleven modules, eleven worksheets, and the TIC Tracker to keep it running. Not ready to invest yet? Start there.
Then came the portfolio.
We knew nothing about investing. We'd read the odd article, watched a few videos, and still had no idea where to actually start or whether we'd get it wrong.
In February 2023 we opened a Trading 212 Stocks & Shares ISA with £1,000 and started paying in monthly. Eight months later it had built to £8,557. The most we'd ever managed to save in such a short space of time. Part contributions, part market growth.
But in October we had to sell it all. Our landlord couldn't afford to keep the house he was renting to us, so we were asked to leave. We put it toward a house of our own. It took every penny we had. We moved in December 2023.
We started rebuilding in January 2024 and continued paying in monthly contributions up to early 2026. Then a redundancy and a new baby, six weeks apart. We sold again, kept cash back for the months ahead, and started again in April. Honest verdict: we sold more than we needed to. The portfolio sits at £10,607 today.
You can build something real on an ordinary salary. You can stop and start when life forces you to.
