We sold our portfolio twice.
Here's what we'd do differently.

We've sold our entire portfolio twice. Both times for real-life reasons. Both times it was the right call. And both times we did things we wish we'd done differently.

This is that story, as honestly as we can tell it.

Sale one: the house deposit (October 2023)

We started investing in February 2023 with £1,000 in a Trading 212 Stocks and Shares ISA. We didn't know what we were doing. We picked individual stocks, which is a story in itself, more on that another time. But we also started putting money into a Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, which did most of the heavy lifting.

By October 2023 the portfolio had grown to £8,557. Between contributions and market returns, we'd nearly doubled what we put in. We found a house we wanted. We had savings too, a Help to Buy ISA we'd been building for years, sitting at about £4,500. We put everything together, used it toward the deposit, and moved in December.

The ISA wrapper meant the gains were completely tax-free. That part worked exactly as it's supposed to.

What we'd do differently

We sold everything at once. If we'd been a bit more patient, or a bit more organised, we might have found that we didn't need quite all of it. We had a rough target for our deposit contribution but hadn't done the exact maths until we were in the process. Selling everything was the easiest call at the time. In hindsight, even keeping £1,000 invested through the sale would have compounded nicely over the following months.

Not a huge lesson. But worth knowing for next time.

Sale two: redundancy and a new baby (early 2026)

We started rebuilding in January 2024. Regular contributions, decent market returns over the next two years. By early 2026 the portfolio had grown to its peak of £13,725.

Then February 2026 happened. Oliver's redundancy was confirmed at work. Our first baby was due in weeks. Both in the same month.

We made the call to sell. We wanted a cash buffer, enough to cover several months without income while things settled. The ISA wrapper kept our gains tax-free again. We sold most of it, kept some cash back, and waited.

Two months later, with things starting to stabilise, we made our biggest ever single buy: £3,378 into the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. Because that's the whole point of having the knowledge, you keep going when you can.

What we'd do differently

We sold more than we needed to. The cash buffer ended up larger than we used. We missed some of the gains that followed the sale, including a decent run in the months after. Looking back, we could probably have kept £3,000–£4,000 invested and been absolutely fine.

Uncertainty made us cautious, and being cautious with a new baby and no income isn't irrational. But if we'd had a clearer picture of our actual monthly outgoings versus our cash reserves, we might have kept more invested.

Knowing your numbers properly would have changed the call. Not knowing them meant we defaulted to caution, which cost us some gains we can't get back.

The actual lessons

Two sales, two different reasons, two slightly different mistakes. But the thread connecting them is the same: knowing your numbers clearly changes the decisions you make.

Not just your portfolio numbers. Your life numbers too. What do you actually spend each month? How much do you genuinely need in cash as a buffer? What's your actual deposit target, not a rough estimate?

We got both sales broadly right. We used the ISA wrapper correctly. We kept investing when we could. We didn't panic-sell at the wrong moment. But both times we sold a bit more than we needed to, because we hadn't done the precise maths beforehand.

The portfolio today sits at £11,253. We restarted in April 2026. It's the third time we've started from a lower base. Each time has been faster than the last, because the knowledge compounds too, not just the money.