Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
If I Could Tell My Younger Self Three Things About Money
Jasmine Birtles
13th Mar 2026
I’ve been thinking about 22-year-old me lately.
She was pretty good with money, actually. Careful. Sensible. Saved when she could. But she also had absolutely no idea what she was doing when it came to making that money grow, and it showed.
Her first proper financial decision? Being talked into a savings scheme with life insurance attached by someone who called himself a financial advisor. He was, in reality, a salesman. She didn’t need that product. She didn’t understand that product. But she bought it anyway because it sounded official and he seemed to know what he was talking about.
Not her finest hour!
It took years, and a lot of learning, a lot of mistakes, and eventually a stint working at the BBC Business Unit where I finally understood what investing actually meant, before things really clicked into place.
I went on to pay off my mortgage in nine years. To invest in stocks and shares ISAs, gold, silver, property and more. To build a financial life that works for me, and supports my future.
But, in hindsight, none of it needed to be that complicated. The foundations were always simple. I just didn’t know them yet.
So if I could sit down with that 22-year-old and give her three pieces of advice, here’s exactly what I’d say.
1. Start now, and be boringly consistent about it
Not when you get a pay rise. Not when life calms down. Not when you feel ready. Now.
The most powerful force in investing isn’t picking the right stock or timing the market perfectly. It’s time. The longer your money is invested, the harder it works, and every month you delay is a month of growth you’re quietly giving away.
We speak about this more in our guide on compound interest in investing!
Even if you can only spare £10 or £25 a month, set up a standing order and automate it. Make it invisible. You’ll be amazed what consistent, regular investing adds up to over five, ten, twenty years. I’ve seen it in my own portfolio and it still surprises me.
The best time to start was yesterday. The second best time is today.
2. Never put all your eggs in one basket
This sounds so obvious when you say it out loud. And yet it’s the mistake I see people make over and over again, including, at various points, me.
Putting all your money into one type of investment, one company, one sector, is a gamble. And not the fun kind. When that thing has a bad year (and at some point, everything has a bad year) your whole financial picture takes a hit.
Spread your money around. Stocks and funds. Maybe some gold or silver. A pension. Eventually, perhaps, property. When one part of your portfolio dips, another part holds steady. That’s not a complicated strategy, it’s just common sense.
Diversification is one of the few genuinely free lunches in investing. Use it.
3. Never invest in anything you don’t understand
Hand on heart, this single rule has protected me from more bad decisions than I can count.
If you cannot explain, simply, in plain English, how an investment makes money, you should not put your money into it. Full stop.
This is exactly how scams work. They dress up something complicated in exciting language, show you impressive-sounding numbers, and rely on the fact that you won’t ask too many questions. The moment you do ask questions, the moment you say “but how exactly does it make money?”, the whole thing tends to fall apart.
I’ve invested in a few peer-to-peer projects over the years that didn’t deliver what they promised. I’ve dipped into cryptocurrencies that went nowhere. In each case, if I’m honest, I didn’t fully understand what I was getting into. I learned from that, and you can too, without having to lose money first.
Before you invest in anything, do your research.
Talk to people you trust. If it still doesn’t make sense, walk away. There are plenty of straightforward, understandable investments out there. Start with those.
We have a useful guide on how to research stocks that will help you here!
The reason I built MoneyMagpie’s How to Start Investing course
These three principles, start early, diversify, understand what you own, sound simple. They are simple. But simple isn’t the same as easy, especially when you’re starting from scratch with no one to guide you.
I spent years piecing this knowledge together through trial and error, through working at the BBC Business Unit and the Motley Fool, through expensive mistakes and happy accidents. And for a long time, I wished someone had just sat me down at the beginning and explained it all clearly.
That’s exactly what this course does.
It takes you from zero knowledge to confident investor, no jargon, no overwhelm, no assumption that you already know the difference between a fund and a stock. Just practical, honest guidance from someone who has made the mistakes and learned from them.
If you’re ready to make your money work as hard as you do, I’d love to show you how.
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