Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.
Bill Gates apparently said that once upon a time and for this ridiculously ambitious plan to work it will certainly have to be true.
Lifetime ISAs launched in April 2017. Open one and pay in £4000 per tax year and the government will add £1000. This can be done once a year from when you are 18 until you are 50.
As someone who turned 40 in 2019, I will be able to claim a maximum of £12,000 in bonuses by having a lifetime ISA and paying in the £4k maximum each year until 2029.
After that I can continue to add money but the government won't provide bonuses.
In addition I won't be able to withdraw until my 60th birthday.
OK, I suppose technically I can withdraw at any time but there is a 25% penalty so let's forget about taking money out before 2039.
As of December 2019 my LISA account has around £15,000 in it. £12,000 paid in by me, £3,000 by the government and a little bit of change due to dividends, interest and dealing commission. Of course, there is also some 'profit' but with the trades still being live, this is only paper profit until these trades are closed.
I have worked out that if I continue to pay in £4,000 per year until the 2028/2029 tax year and somehow manage to grow my LISA pot by 18% per year for the next 20 years, I will be a "LISA millionaire" by the time I am 60.
Hence this site.
Growing a portfolio by 18% in a year is no mean feat and is definitely not guaranteed.
Growing an investment portfolio by 18% every year for 20 years is pretty much impossible.
However I feel it is totally worth a shot as the prize is a £1,000,000 ISA balance - a tax free retirement pot.
Assuming by the year 2039 the interest rates on cash are around 4% or so, having £1,000,000 in an cash ISA can earn £40,000 per year without actually doing anything. Plus if I can do it all the money is mine - no fees to "money managers" and no tax.
There is not much to lose and everything to gain by attempting something like this.
The updates are unlikely to be very exciting and with the way I invest, not very regular.
Being forced to update this site will help me concentrate on the task at hand and also, most importantly, hold me accountable.
Now a warning - nothing at all on this site constitutes financial advice, it is simply a diary of my personal investments and investment ideas.
As such I have decided not to mention the names of the shares I am holding until I sell them. That way I can't be accused of offering specific investment advice.
Always take professional independent advice before investing.
June 2023
All of the above was written in January 2020 so I figured an update might be a good idea as it has been 3 and a half years since this site was launched.
First of all the LM experiment is a little behind where it should be. One problem is that it wasn't possible to add any money in the 2022/2023 tax year so there was no bonus either.
I did struggle with this as I knew I was losing out on £1,000 of free money. One idea I had was to borrow the money in the form of a loan which I would pay back over two years. I ummed and ahhed about it and then decided it was a bad idea. So the bonus for 22/23 was lost.
This puts all of the predictions out of line - the portfolio was supposed to be worth around £50,000 by April 2023 but the actual value was closer to £27,000.
In fact, the porfolio value has not moved significantly for well over a year.
Whilst it is very frustrating that it hasn't seen any growth in over a year, I have to remember that it also hasn't LOST any value. In the same time period the FTSE 100 has barely changed and the FTSE 250 has declined around 10.5%.
So I'm managing to keep up with the market and maybe even beating it a little.
If you are new to this site and want to catch up then the easiest way is to start with the very first update that you can find here:
Update Thursday 2nd January 2020
At the bottom of each update you will find a link to the next one. So it's really simple - read the update, get to the bottom, click "Next update", read the update, get to the bottom... and so on.
Once you are up-to-date please bookmark the homepage and revisit regularly to find new updates. Typically these are posted roughly every fortnight.
I have no social media presence so this website is the only way to keep up with my investment adventures.
Start here: