Ordinary people really can make a million from UK shares, provided they start early and stick at it. That means investing regularly throughout your working life, whenever you have money to spare, and leaving your portfolio to grow untouched for decades.
If you can do that, you can make serious money. You could make a million by investing £100 a week, but there is one more thing you must do. Ignore the stock market. Pretend it isn’t happening. Do something else. Binge-watch Netflix, read a novel, take the dog for a walk, anything.
I’m serious. If you want to make a million, you have to trust the stock market do the heavy lifting for you. You don’t want to be on its back, telling it to rise faster, pump out more dividends, fly to 10,000 and beyond… then getting frustrated when it doesn’t do what it’s told.
The stock market doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t clock in at 8am, put in a hard shift, and have something to show for its efforts at home time. Sometimes it wanders into work with a hangover after crashing the day before, and does nothing productive all day. Who would rely on that to make a million?
To make money from UK shares, look away
At other times, it falls through the floor the moment trading opens and can’t get back on its feet. On better days, it starts off with vim and vigour, then flops in the afternoon, exhausted. On the good days it will go gangbusters, and your portfolio could be worth thousands more by tea time. Then it will lose the lot next day. If the stock market was an employee, it would be fired in a month.
So please, resist the temptation to check your portfolio every day, and worry over whether you will ever make a million. Ignore it. And you know that segment near the end of the news, when they tell you how much the FTSE 100 is up or down in the last three hours? Just shrug your shoulders and wait for the fluffy piece about the cute kitten.
Make a million with your eyes closed
The best chance you have of making a million from UK shares is to invest over 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years. Over such a lengthy period, it doesn’t matter what the index did yesterday, or what it does tomorrow. So no need to fret.
Following share movements is interesting, if you are that way inclined. Just don’t overthink it. Especially in a stock market crash, when your portfolio could prove painful viewing. If you follow events too closely, you could be tempted to do something daft, like sell at the bottom.
The only thing you should do in a stock market crash is buy your favourite companies at the new lower price. Then when you have bought those bargain-priced shares, ignore them too. Let the market get on with it. That’s the easiest way I know to make a million.
