We have created something new for this week. A 4-minute YouTube video that recaps almost all of the major points from week 7. This is NOT a substitute for watching the whole of week 7 but is meant as a quick reminder.

We would love to know what you think. Please leave a comment and like on the video in YouTube and tell us if you like the recap videos. If you enjoy them and we get some comments then we might go back and create them for every single week!

💥 TL;DR – Week 7: Investing Part 2 💥

Investing is simple. Your brain is a drama queen. 👑🧠
You don’t need a fancy suit, a financial advisor, or a crystal ball. You need a global index fund, a bit of courage, and the ability to ignore the media and your own nonsense.

🧨 Fees are the silent killer 🧨

They sneak in like sneaky things and steal your compounding.
1% doesn’t sound like much? IT’S A FREAKING FORTUNE OVER TIME.
Larry paid high fees and lost £416,000 compared to DIY Gloria.
Don’t be Larry. Be Gloria. 💅

🎢 The stock market is a rollercoaster 🎢

It goes up. It goes down. It goes sideways.
You’ll feel euphoric, then terrified, then smug, then despairing.
Stay on the ride.
You only get hurt if you jump off mid-loop.
Ignore the headlines. Ignore the panic.
Time in the market > Timing the market. ⏳📈

🧘‍♀️ Your brain is the biggest risk to your wealth 🧘‍♂️

Fear, greed, FOMO, overconfidence, paralysis by analysis, chasing crypto, listening to your mate Dave at the pub…
Your brain will try to sabotage you.
IGNORE IT ALL.
Have a simple plan. Stick to it.
Buy the whole market. Hold forever.
Never kill the golden goose. 🪿💰

🏁 Final Rebel Rally Cry 🏁

💸 Ditch the advisor charging daylight robbery fees.
📊 Buy a boring index fund.
🧠 Ignore your brain.
📆 Stay in for decades.
🍍 And for the love of pineapples… invest like a dead person!

💣 The Cost of Fear – A Personal Confession from Alan 💣

Let me kick this off with a confession.
Yes, I run Rebel Finance School.
Yes, I teach people how to invest.
And yes… I once let fear cost us £100,000. 😬

Back in 2016, Katie and I had just sold a property. We had a lump sum sitting in our account, ready to be invested. But instead of putting it to work, I froze. Brexit was happening. Trump was on the verge of getting voted in for the first time. The pound was wobbling like a jelly on a washing machine. The headlines were screaming doom. And I thought, “Now is definitely not the time to invest.”

So we waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Meanwhile, the market did what it always does: it went up. 📈

Then we sold a second property and had another lump sum. What did I do? Same thing. Full of fear worried about exchange rates, Trump, Brexit and more. So we sat on the side lines, our cash devaluing against inflation.

By the time we finally invested in December of 2016, we’d missed out on £44,000 of growth. And because we bought in at a higher price, we ended up with fewer units.

That mistake is still compounding against us today.

As of the last count, that fear has cost us £100,000. 😭

Let me say that again: £100,000.

That’s a good night out in the UK at the moment with the price of pints and petrol.

That’s a LOT of extra Lego and pizza we could’ve had. 🍕🧱 (And if you know me, you know how serious that is.)

But we’re not telling you this to beat ourselves up. We’re telling you so you don’t make the same mistake. That is the whole point of the course, telling you the mistakes we made helps you avoid making the same mistakes. You can go out there and make new mistakes and we can learn together!

• Fear is expensive.
• Fear is sneaky.
• Fear whispers, “Just wait a little longer…”

And while you’re waiting, your future wealth is quietly slipping away.

🎬 Video Intro – Week 7: Investing Part 2

Hey Rebels! This week, we’re pulling it all together.
All your questions from last week — lump sums, ETFs, ethical investing, and “what the heck do I actually buy?” — we’re turning it into one simple, badass strategy to build wealth and create passive income. 💸

But before we dive in, let’s tackle the question that’s been blowing up the Facebook group:

“What’s the [insert country here] version of the FTSE Global All Cap fund?”

Here’s the deal:
If you’re not in the UK, don’t search for that exact fund.
Instead, look for a global tracker — it’ll have a different name where you are. 🌍
And whatever you do, don’t fall into the home country bias trap.
(Unless you’re in the US — you lot get a pass because your companies basically are the global market.)

So if you’re in the UK, start with something like the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap or FTSE Developed World ex-UK. If you’re in the US, go with VTSAX, VTI, or VT.

(And yes, in week 8 we have Ruth the Happy saver doing a NZ session and Bob Haines doing a USA session that will break it all down. Hold your horses. 🐎)

Let’s get into it.

Week 7 Course. Here is the video for Week 7

💸 The Impact of Fees – Larry, Ellie & Gloria’s Wallet Smackdown 💸

Remember our old friends from Week 4 — Early Ellie, Late Larry, and Gappy Gloria? Back then, the moral of the story was: start investing early to let compounding do its magic.

This week, we brought them back for a rematch — but this time, it’s not about when they invested. It’s about how much they paid in fees. And spoiler alert: the results are jaw-dropping.

Here’s how they played the game:

• 🧓 Larry went full traditional — high-fee financial advisor, actively managed funds, the whole shebang. He paid through the nose and got mediocre results.
• 😬 Ellie understood the power of index funds (go Ellie!) but still clung to her advisor like a safety blanket. So she got a passive fund… wrapped in expensive fees.
• 💪 Gloria? She went full Rebel. DIY investor. Low-cost platform. Passive global index fund. Boom.

They all invested the same amount:
£25,000 upfront + £400/month for 30 years.
Same contributions. Same market returns.
The only difference? Fees.

🥁 The Results:

• Larry ended up with: £436,000
• Ellie: £612,000
• Gloria: a whopping £852,000 💥

That’s a £416,000 difference between Larry and Gloria.
All because of fees. We kept the market returns exactly the same between the three of them.
Let that sink in.

🧠 The Lesson:

Fees quietly destroy your compounding.
They don’t shout. They don’t crash.
They just nibble away at your future wealth until it’s a shadow of what it could’ve been.

And yes, even Ellie and Larry are still better off than Never-Bothered Ned, who never invested and has a big fat £0 to show for it. But if you’re going to invest, do it the smart way.

👉 Read more in our full article:
The Impact of Fees on Your Investments
Katie did the maths, Alan wrote the words, and Ninja Laura sprinkled her magic on it.

🛠️ Use the Impact of Fees Tool to compare different funds and platforms.
Plug in your numbers. See the difference.
Then go full Gloria. 💥

We have met many people over the years who have kept their money in cash rather than invest because they're worried about losing money. Well keeping your money in cash is a way to GUARANTEE a loss. The value of your money is being eroded by inflation. We whipped up a short article to explain this. ​Check it out

🎩 The Buffett Bet – How a Boring Index Fund Beat Wall Street 🎩

Let’s talk about one of the most legendary mic drops in investing history.

Back in 2007, Warren Buffett — yes, that Warren Buffett, the billionaire with the Coke can and the cardigan — made a bold bet (paraphrased by the Donegans):

“I’ll invest in a simple, low-fee S&P 500 index fund. You — Wall Street — can pick any hedge funds you like. Let’s see who wins over 10 years. $1 million says I do.”

The finance world laughed. “Sure, Warren. You and your boring index fund.”

But here’s what happened:

• The hedge funds had the smartest people in the room.
• They charged high fees.
• They traded like mad.
• They underperformed. 📉

Meanwhile, Buffett’s index fund just… sat there.
Quietly. Calmly. Compounding. 📈

🥇 The Result:

• Buffett’s index fund returned 7.1% per year.
• The hedge funds? Just 2.2% per year.
• Buffett won. By a landslide.
• The charity Girls Inc. of Omaha got the $1 million prize. 💖

💥 The Lesson:

You get what you don’t pay for.

• Low fees win.
• Simple wins.
• Passive investing wins.

Even against the best and brightest in the business.

So if you’re still thinking, “But surely I can do better than an index fund?”
Just remember: Wall Street couldn’t. And they had private jets.

🎢 Section 2: The Roller Coaster of the Stock Market 🎢

Strap in, Rebels. It’s about to get bumpy.
This is the emotional thrill ride you never bought a ticket for — but you’re on it anyway. Welcome to the stock market. 🎟️

🎡 The Emotional Loop-de-Loop

Investing isn’t just numbers and charts — it’s a full-blown psychological theme park. Here’s the ride:

1. Euphoria – “I’m a genius! I’m going to be rich!” 💸😎
2. Anxiety – “Hmm… that’s a dip. Is that normal?” 😬
3. Fear – “Oh no. It’s still going down.” 😨
4. Panic – “SELL EVERYTHING. THE END IS NIGH.” 🏃‍♂️💥
5. Despair – “Why did I ever invest? I’m doomed.” 😭
6. Recovery – “Wait… it’s coming back?” 🤔
7. Hope – “Maybe I’ll be okay.” 🌤️
8. Relief – “Phew. That was close.” 😅
9. Euphoria – “I’m a genius! I’m going to be rich!” 💸😎
   Repeat forever.

Eventually after a few times around the loop you learn to ignore the media, ignore the noise and you start to realise that corrections, bear markets and crashes are a normal part of the economic cycle.

🧠 You Only Get Hurt If You Jump Off

The market goes up.
The market goes down.
But you only lose money if you sell at the bottom.
Jumping off the roller coaster mid-ride is how you get hurt.
Stay on the ride. 🎢🍍

📉 Crashes Happen. Always Have. Always Will.

Let’s talk about the recent big ones:

• 💥 Dotcom Bubble (2001)
• 💣 Financial Crisis (2008)
• 🦠 COVID Crash (2020)
• 🪖 Ukraine War (2022)
• 🧾 Tariffs (aka the “Donald Dump”)

Each time, the media screamed:

“This time it’s different!”
Spoiler: It wasn’t.
The market recovered. It always does.

🧘‍♀️ The Market Will Never Be Calm

Waiting for the market to “settle down” before investing is like waiting for the sea to stop being wet. 🌊
It’s never going to happen.
Learn to surf the waves. Don’t wait for still water.

📈 The Market Always Goes Up (Eventually)

Why? Because:

• Companies grow 📊
• Innovation happens 💡
• Inflation boosts prices 💷
• Populations grow 👶
• Dividends compound 🔁

But only if you stay invested.

🧠 Rebel Reframe:

“The market has crashed!”
Translation: “Stocks are on sale!” 🛍️
“It’s too high to invest!”
Translation: “It’s doing what it’s supposed to do — going up!” 🚀

🏁 Final Rebel Rally Cry:

• Don’t jump off the ride.
• Don’t listen to the news.
• Don’t trust your brain.
• Just stay invested.

Because the only thing scarier than a market crash…

…is missing the recovery. 💥📈

❓ Section 3: Index Fund FAQs – The Rebel Cheat Sheet ❓

You’ve got questions. We’ve got ideas, charts, and answers.
Let’s break down the most common index fund questions we get — Rebel style. 💥

💰 Q1: I’ve got a lump sum. Do I invest it all at once or drip it in monthly?

A: If you’ve got a lump sum, the data says:
💥 Lump it in. Do it now. Move on with life.

Why? Because the market goes up over time.
Waiting = buying at higher prices = fewer units = less growth.
Time in the market beats timing the market.
(And no, your brain doesn’t get a vote.)

But if you’re nervous?

We would say change your feelings, you can't change the stock market but you can deal with fear, learn more and make progress. Fear stopped me once and that mistake cost me £100,000 and rising. I am never doing that again.

If you really can't Drip it in. Just don’t wait forever.
Done is better than perfect.

🔁 Q2: What’s the difference between an ETF and an Index Fund?

Bottom line:
They’re both baskets of companies.
They both track the market.
They’re both great.
Just pick one and get going.

🌍 Q3: I’m not in the UK. What’s my version of the FTSE Global All Cap?

A:
Don’t look for the exact same fund.
Look for a global tracker in your country.
It’ll have a different name, but the same idea:
Buy the world. Own everything. Chill.

• 🇺🇸 US? Use VTSAX, VTI, or VT.
• 🇳🇿 NZ? Wait for the Ruth special.
• 🇮🇪 Ireland? Look for accumulating ETFs.
• 🌎 Anywhere else? Just avoid home country bias. Don’t only invest in your own country unless it’s the US (because US companies are global).

🧠 Q4: What if the market’s at an all-time high?

A:
Of course it is. That’s what the market does.
It goes up over time.
All-time highs are normal.
In fact, the market has been at an all-time high 30% of the time.

“But what if it crashes tomorrow?”
Then stocks are on sale. 🛍️
Stay in. Keep buying. Ride the roller coaster.

🧘 Q5: What if I’m scared?

A:
That’s normal.
Your brain is trying to protect you.
But it’s also trying to sabotage your wealth.
Ignore it. Follow the plan. Stay invested.

🏁 Final Rebel Rally Cry:

• Buy a global index fund.
• Keep fees low.
• Ignore the headlines.
• Ignore your brain.
• Invest. Chill. Repeat.

🎉 Index Investing – Week 7 Quiz

To get the most out of this course you must do the homework (plus homework is fun! Or that's what Katie tells me....)

So, here is the homework for week 7...

1. Reviewing any existing investments you have. This could be pensions you have with current or previous employers or it might be through other accounts like ISAs, SIPPs and more. Bring the information ready to week 8 so you can apply what you learn to what you already have

2. Last year we did a bonus workshop called Deciphering Fund Fact Sheets. A lot of you are asking us how to understand your existing investments, and this workshop will help you understand the paperwork your pension provider, IFA, or fund manager sent you. Your homework is to get out your existing paperwork and watch this video to help you translate it into plain English!

We are always happy to give you extra homework! Here's the keen bean homework for week 7 which is completely optional and you should only do once you've done the first part.

1. This week with the awesome help of the Rebel Ninjas, we have been producing a lot of updated content for you!

Pick one of these pages and have a read!

• The impact of fees on your investments
• Risk vs volatility and how the entire finance industry has it backwards
• Everything you wanted to know about ESG index funds (ethical investing)
• Cash - a guaranteed way to lose money

2. Play with the impact of fees tool to see how much your fund is costing you in fees!

3. Previously on Rebel Finance School we had JL Collins talk to us about investing. It is a great video to watch to go through the fundamentals of index investing.

​The investing part of the course

This was part 2 of the 3 weeks we are spending on investing.

• Part 1 (week 6): The theory. Introduction to assets, diversification, and what are stocks and shares?
• Part 2 (week 7): Index investing in detail and building long-term wealth
• Part 3 (week 8): Putting it into practice. What type of account should you open? How do you actually implement this stuff?

Coming up in week 8

You might be thinking...

"This is all very well, Donegans, but I'm now sitting at my laptop, ready to invest, and wondering how to actually do it. What are the different accounts I can get? What are the different fees you have to pay, and how can I minimise these?"

Well, in week 6 we covered some of the theory of investing. This week, we explained more about index investing and building long-term wealth. Next week (week 8) we're going to talk about how to implement all of this! Stick with it, we're building week on week. We have one more week of content to cover this investing stuff. Hang tight. You don't need to implement anything yet! Be patient. We have more to tell you.

We will go through platforms, accounts (ISAs, SIPPs, and other versions), and how to actually get your first investment going. We also have a whole series of YouTube videos coming for you to show EXACTLY how to open a SIPP and an ISA, step-by-step.

Disclaimer

We are NOT financial advisers. The content of this course, the articles on this blog, and these articles are NOT financial advice. This is our opinion and we are just sharing what we are doing. DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK.

This is not an exhaustive list of the course. Also, you don't have to read/watch/listen to all of these. Just pick ONE and start!

• Check out the keen bean homework above for a list of additional resources you can read or watch
• We have a whole series of articles that go into more detail than we have time for in the live sessions.
• "What is an index fund?" - Watch the video we made that answers the question.

Ask for help

Remember to reach out in the Facebook group with any questions you have or if you get stuck. Don't let confusion be an excuse for not progressing with this stuff. We are here to support you!

You can also submit a question here...

See you in week 8!

Alan and Katie