Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
How Much Money Do You Need to Start Investing in the UK?
Ruby Layram
19th Mar 2026
If there’s one question I get asked more than any other, it’s this one.
In fact, people ask all the time. They’re curious about investing. They know, on some level, that they should probably be doing it. But they’ve convinced themselves that it’s not for them yet. Not until they’ve got a bigger salary, a fatter savings account, a more sorted financial life.
So they wait.
And while they wait, their money sits in a savings account quietly losing value to inflation, and the months and years tick by, and the gap between where they are and where they could be gets a little wider.
I want to put this myth to rest once and for all. Because the answer to the question, how much money do you actually need to start investing in the UK, might genuinely surprise you.
The answer is probably less than you think
Let’s go straight to the point.
Jasmine Birtles, founder of MoneyMagpie and the creator of our new investing course, has been investing for decades. She has built a portfolio spanning stocks and shares, gold and silver, property, pensions and more. When we asked her how much someone needs to get started, her answer was refreshingly straightforward.
“No, you can do it with a tenner a month,” she says. “If you have £25 that is best but really, you don’t need to have more than that to become a successful investor.”
A tenner. Ten pounds. The cost of a couple of coffees and a sandwich.
This isn’t a gimmick or a marketing line. It’s the reality of how modern investing platforms work, and it completely dismantles one of the most persistent myths about investing in the UK.
Why do people assume you need a lot of money?
Partly it’s history. For most of the twentieth century, investing really was something that required either significant capital or access to a stockbroker. The barriers were high, the costs were steep, and the world of investing felt like a private club with an expensive membership fee.
That world no longer exists.
Today, anyone with a smartphone and a spare £10 a month can open an investment account, buy into a diversified fund, and begin building wealth in the same vehicles used by serious long-term investors.
The platforms are free to open, the funds are accessible in tiny amounts, and the process takes less than half an hour to set up.
Jasmine is direct on the point: “Firstly, the idea that you have to be rich to invest is wrong. You can start investing with a tenner a month, and you should!”
But won’t such a small amount make no difference?
This is the follow-up question that usually comes next, and it’s a fair one. What’s the point of investing £10 or £25 a month when the sums feel so small?
The answer is two things: time and consistency.
When you invest regularly over a long period, something remarkable happens. Your money doesn’t just grow, it compounds.
Your returns generate their own returns, which generate their own returns, and over years and decades the effect becomes genuinely powerful. A small amount invested consistently from your thirties looks very different by the time you reach your fifties than the same amount left in a savings account.
Jasmine puts it simply: “Be regular. Set up a standing order every month so that you put a certain amount in regularly to build up your pot.”
That word, regular, is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It’s not about the size of each individual contribution. It’s about the habit, the consistency, the fact that month after month your money is going somewhere it can grow.
The standing order is the secret weapon of ordinary investors everywhere.
So what should you actually do with that £25?
Jasmine is characteristically practical on this. When asked about the easiest way to get started, she doesn’t waffle.
“Set up a free account with one of the investment platforms like AJ Bell, Fidelity, XTB or Interactive Investor and pick an index tracking fund that tracks the FTSE 100 or the FTSE All Share,” she says. “Make sure it is wrapped in an ISA to stop you paying tax and then set up a standing order to put money in it every month. That will get you started.”
Let’s break that down:
An investment platform is simply the account you use to buy and hold investments. Opening one is free and straightforward, think of it like opening a bank account, but for investments. The platforms Jasmine mentions, AJ Bell, Fidelity, XTB, Interactive Investor, are all well-established, regulated, and beginner-friendly.
An index tracking fund is one of the simplest and most effective investments a beginner can make. Rather than picking individual company shares, which requires research, experience and a fair bit of nerve, an index tracker simply follows the performance of a whole market.
A FTSE 100 tracker, for example, invests in the 100 largest companies on the London Stock Exchange in one go. You get instant diversification without having to pick a single stock yourself.
An ISA wrapper (Individual Savings Account) means that any growth or income your investments generate is completely sheltered from tax. You can invest up to £20,000 per year into a Stocks and Shares ISA, and everything that happens inside it, dividends, capital gains, interest, is yours to keep. It is, as Jasmine says, how you stop yourself paying tax on your gains.
The standing order is what turns a one-off action into a wealth-building habit. Set it up once, point it at your investment account, and let it run. You’ll stop noticing the money leaving your current account, but over years you’ll very much notice what’s accumulated on the other side.
What about the risks?
It would be dishonest to talk about investing without acknowledging that yes, there are risks.
Unlike a savings account, the value of your investments can go down as well as up. Some months your pot will be worth less than it was the month before.
But here’s the perspective Jasmine brings to that, drawn from her own decades of experience.
“Yes, investing is risky, but putting your money in savings accounts is definitely going to lose you money as it doesn’t keep up with inflation. With investing, if you diversify your portfolio and keep the money in there for a good few years, many of the risks are smoothed out over time.”
That last part is crucial. Time in the market is one of the most powerful tools available to any investor.
Over short periods, markets are unpredictable. Over long periods, ten, fifteen, twenty years, they have historically trended upwards. The investor who stays in through the bumpy patches is typically rewarded for their patience.
This is why starting small but starting now beats waiting until you have more money. The clock is your greatest asset.
The one thing that trips most beginners up
Beyond the money question, there’s one other barrier that holds people back: not knowing what to do next.
Knowing that you should invest £25 a month is one thing. Understanding how to choose a platform, what an index fund actually is, how an ISA works, how to think about risk, when to review your investments, and how to build from a small beginning into a serious portfolio — that’s quite another.
This is exactly the gap that Jasmine built the MoneyMagpie How to Start Investing course to fill.
“I decided to set up an online investing course because I’ve had so many people saying to me that they really want to start investing but they didn’t know where to start,” she says. “This course takes people from zero knowledge to becoming a confident investor, no jargon, no difficult terms. I hold your hand through the first and ongoing steps to becoming a confident investor.”
The course is packed with instructional videos, articles and quizzes designed to take a complete beginner and give them everything they need to invest with genuine confidence. It’s built for people who want to set up investments for their future, not for traders chasing quick wins, but for ordinary people who want to grow their money steadily over time.
And it starts from just £27.
You don’t need to be wealthy to start investing in the UK. You don’t need thousands sitting spare, or a financial advisor on speed dial, or a detailed understanding of global markets.
You need £10, or ideally £25, a month. A free account on a reputable platform. A simple index tracker wrapped in an ISA. A standing order. And enough knowledge to feel confident you’re doing the right thing.
That last part is where we come in.
As with all investing, your capital is at risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.
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