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Our net worth fell by £183,167 this month.
Yes you read that right. We, the Donegans, are worth £183,167 less than we were last month. Is that just market volatility? Are our investments crashing?
It is a 7.3% drop from last month’s total of £2,513,116.
You might be wondering “Are you going back to eating rice and beans?” or “Will you move to Thailand to reduce spending and ride out this market storm?” or even “Are you cancelling all future spending?”
First Published: 31st March 2026
Updated: 12th April 2026
UPDATE: The market has since bounced back strongly. Read what happened next (and why that creates a different kind of danger!)
None of those.
- We sold nothing.
- We changed nothing.
We didn’t even have an emotional reaction.
How is that possible?
Nothing permanent happened. We still own exactly the same number of units in the Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex UK fund and Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap.
The market simply repriced the units we, and everyone, owns.
If you are new to investing, I can see why that might feel like a baptism of FIRE.
When you first start, a falling market does not feel like a normal part of the journey. It feels like danger. It feels like uncertainty. It feels like something has gone wrong, badly wrong.
But if we zoom out, we are personally still up around 10% over the last 12 months.
That is why perspective matters.
Short term, this feels dramatic.
Long term, this is just another wobble on the markets never ending march up and to the right of the chart!
Katie is now shouting “charts, did someone say charts?”
She has spent the last 2 hours creating an amazing chart to help bring perspective to this current minor downturn…
The chart shows the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Accumulation Fund over four different time frames.
- Over one month it is down –7.3%, which feels horrible if that is all you can see. This is the red that most people are focused on at the moment.
- Over six months it is roughly flat at +0.4%.
- Over one year it is up 15.5% (not shown in the chart)
- Over five years it is up 56.9%.
- Since the fund started in November 2016 (about 9.5 years as of March 2026), it is up 151.0%.
Same investment. Same underlying fund. Completely different emotional experience depending on where you zoom in.
This is what people are trying to say to you when they say “just zoom out”.
Chart shout out! This chart was inspired by our friend Jeremy at Personal Finance Club who creates the most amazing charts on his Instagram.
We have seen this before…
We look at our net worth once a month as part of our monthly finance meeting which we’ve been doing every month for 10 years. When we did our March 2026 meeting, we saw the biggest fall in net worth ever. But it is not the biggest percentage drop.
Back in March 2020, during the Covid crash our net worth fell from:
£1,521,331 to £1,384,731
That was a drop of £136,600, a fall of 9.0%. (Remember, this month’s drop was “only” 7.3%).
Global stock markets were falling sharply as coronavirus spread and markets dropped by around 20% in March 2020. The Times even ran a feature on what had happened to FIRE savers during the Covid crash and included our story.
That period matters to us because we did not just learn about volatility from a chart in a book.
We lived through it.
We watched six figures disappear from our net worth in real time.
We sat in the uncertainty.
We saw the scary headlines.
We heard people questioning whether early retirement still worked. The Times even made up that we were forced to move back in with my Mum because of the losses!
We stayed invested anyway.
The reason we feel calm today is not that we are special. It is that we have done real life volatility training.
- We have watched the market go down before.
- We have kept our nerve before.
- We have seen it recover before.
We did not start out this way. We ended up this way by riding the stock market roller coaster over and over again.
The First Drop Feels Different
If you have just started investing, I want to say this clearly:
The first big drop can feel really unsettling.
It can feel like maybe you timed it badly. Maybe you made a mistake. Maybe everyone else knew something you did not.
So when calm investors say, “This is normal. This is volatility,” I get why that can feel irritating.
- You are scared and they sound sooooo relaxed.
- You want reassurance and they sound like robots.
But the calm investors are not usually trying to be dismissive.
They are trying to tell you something useful:
This is part of the deal. This is what stock market investing feels like sometimes. You do not get the long term growth without the temporary drops.
This is the price of admission
Volatility is the price of admission to one of the greatest wealth-building tools ever created. You do not get stock market returns without stock market volatility.
That is the trade.
If the stock market only ever went up in a smooth straight line, everyone would pile in, nobody would panic, and the returns would not look the way they do.
The discomfort is part of the package.
You are being paid for tolerating uncertainty.
That does not mean you have to enjoy it.
But it does mean you need to understand it and not overreact to it.
How Did We Feel About The £183,167 Drop?
We are currently sat in a café having breakfast in Iceland. It is the last working day of the month and that is the day we always do our monthly finance meeting. This is how we know our net-worth went down this month. We don’t check between meetings.
Katie: “How do you feel about the £183k drop this month?”
Me: “I don’t feel anything” (shrugging a little and wondering if I had turned into a Volcan!). “This is volatility”
Katie: “Yeah I feel pretty ambivalent about it.”
That is probably a healthier and more human answer than “nothing” and pretending to be made of stone.
We were not born chilled investors. I didn’t pop out of the womb shouting “buy, buy, buy, stocks are on sale! Volatility is a normal part of the stock market”
We became calmer by seeing this happen again and again and learning what it actually means.
That is one of the biggest hidden lessons in investing.
You do not become resilient by reading a sentence on Instagram that says “zoom out”.
You become resilient by living through market volatility. And if you just started investing what better education than to experience this market decline right now?
Even After Volatility Training, People Still Go Wild
This bit fascinates me. No matter what we do in Rebel Finance School, people still go wild in a dip.
We built and ran volatility training this year on Rebel Finance School for this exact reason. We talk about market drops in advance. We explain that prices can fall sharply. We tell people this is normal. We try to prepare them emotionally as well as practically.
And then the downturn comes and plenty of people still panic.
- Maybe they thought they did not need the volatility training.
- Maybe they understood it intellectually but had never felt it in their own account.
- Maybe the theory made sense until the numbers turned red.
If you are panicking and this feels like a telling off, it’s not supposed to! We’re trying to make that point that investing is behavioural, not just mathematical.
You’re not panicking because the maths changed.
Our guess is you’re panicking because the feeling changed. You feel scared, you feel uncertain and that drive for certainty makes people do things that can’t be undone like selling when the market is down…
Why The Finance Industry Handles This Differently
This is why financial advisers do risk questionnaires and ask whether you are comfortable with your investments falling.
They know many people say they want growth right up until the moment growth comes with volatility.
And if you say you aren’t comfortable seeing your portfolio fall, the traditional finance industry answer is usually to put more of your money into bonds or lower-volatility assets.
In other words:
Protect you from the feeling.
The finance industry tends to think education is:
- Not enough.
- Too hard.
- Too behavioural.
- People will panic anyway.
- Better to build a portfolio you can emotionally tolerate.
I understand why they do that AND I hate it because people trust these advisors to make their money work for them and they don’t understand that by saying they have a low risk tolerance they are commanding their financial advisor to damage their long term financial future!
Katie and I still believe education is the better long-term answer.
At times like this, when the market drops, we see panicked posts in the Rebel Finance School Facebook group. When we, and other members offer reassurance, they say they don’t want to be told not to panic. It makes us wonder if the education is working…
But I truly believe that they are the vocal minority not the silent majority. Most people realise this is just the volatility of the stock market and get back on with living their lives, spending time with their families and the people they love.
This is my plea to you… to accept this is part of the volatility of the stock market, to acknowledge it and to go back to living your life.
We still believe the real solution is not to shelter people from volatility. It is to help them understand what volatility is, why it happens, and what it means.
Because if you never learn that lesson, you may avoid the discomfort of dips, but you WILL miss a huge amount of long-term growth.
The Real Choice In Front Of You
When markets fall, you have a choice.
You can listen to the voice in your head that says:
“This is bad.”
“I need to do something.”
“I should stop the pain.”
Or you can listen to the investors who have been through multiple crashes and are still standing.
The first group reacts to price. They react to the stories of doom and gloom in the media, they react to the panic in the market.
The second group reacts to history, data, and lived experience.
Choose carefully whose voice you follow.
What Helps When The Market Falls
If you want market volatility to hurt less in future, here are a few things that help:
- Expect drops before they happen. There is always another drop coming.
- Track how many units you own, not just what they are worth today. The number of units you own has probably gone up this month if you are investing regularly.
- Write your investing rules while you are calm. Write an Investor Policy Statement that clearly tells you what to do when the market drops.
- Zoom out to one year, five years, and ten years. If you have to look at charts DO NOT only look at the daily, weekly or monthly charts!
- Stop checking the number every five minutes if it sends you spiralling. Every single person panicking in the Rebel Finance School Facebook group right now is checking their numbers too often.
- If you are still earning then reframe a dip as “stocks are on sale” time to buy more. if you buy more today you are getting a 7% discount compared to last month.
- Remember the reason you are investing. Is it to see a return every month or to buy your freedom through long term growth?
Most importantly, do not confuse a falling price with a broken plan.
Final Thought
March 2026 has given us the biggest pound drop in net worth we have ever had.
And yet here we are.
- Still invested.
- Still calm.
- Still up over the rolling year.
- Still owning the same units.
We have lived through this before. That is why this does not feel like disaster to us. It feels like volatility. We look at the numbers and then go back to living out lives!
And if you are new to investing, maybe this month has been your first real lesson in what volatility actually feels like.
Welcome to the game.
It is uncomfortable sometimes.
It is uncertain sometimes.
But this is the price of admission. Are you willing to pay the price of uncertainty for long term growth?
And if you can learn not to panic every time the market throws a wobble, you give yourself a chance to benefit from one of the most powerful wealth-building tools the world has ever seen.
Katie and I are doing nothing at all about the recent volatility. We have just arrived in Iceland and are about to go out for a walk and explore in the cold before going for a hot chocolate to warm up!
How I would LOVE you all to react to volatility – tell the people you love that you love them and go back to living your life as the market will recover and you worrying about it doesn’t change anything…
Sending peace and pineapples from a frozen Iceland (I wish I owned more clothes!)
Tell us in the comments… what do you think of the article? How do you feel about volatility? What did you discover in your latest monthly finance meeting?
We just updated this article on 12th April 2026, read on beyond the photo for what has happened since….
It is now the 12th of April, 13 days since we wrote this article. We wrote the article because of the panic in the group and the messages we were getting from first time investors scared of a falling market.
It is interesting what has happened since that point. Katie created a little chart to show when our Monthly Finance Meetings fell compared to what the market was doing.
As you can see we had our February Monthly Finance Meeting at the high point of the market. This isn’t unusual because the market is often at an all time high!
Then we had our March Monthly Finance at the absolute low point of the market which had reacted to the Iran/USA War. We didn’t know that at the time. It was just coincidental timing.
Now the market is almost back up to where it was with Trump announcing a ceasefire with Iran.
This is volatility at work and if this is your first time through it, I can understand how it would have felt scary. This time the market has bounced back pretty quickly. It won’t always be that way.
When the market drops, most of the time you don’t need to do anything other than wait. One of my favourite quotes about investing is:
The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient – Warren Buffett
Your ability to do nothing whilst all those around you are panicking is your superpower in investing. Thanks fore reading our article!
Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Your comments mean a lot to us!
Peace and Pineapples
Alan and Katie
PS: We are not financial advisors, nor do we pretend to be. This is not financial advice, do your own research and you are 100% responsible for your own decisions. Read our full disclaimer here
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I recently did your course from 2025. What an eye opener! Thank you. I’m recently retired and wanted to invest to protect our funds from inflation. We already have a good retirement income. So last month I opened a Vanguard SIPP for me, and since then I’ve watched it drop! But I’m totally chilled about it, thanks to your course. I won’t need this money for many years. So I’m confident it will grow. I can’t thank you enough for the education. Vaftgag all the way!
Stephen, what a great message to get. Thanks for sharing with us and writing back. Sending you huge happiness. Alan
Very helpful – it is really healthy to take a step back and look at the big picture and not get caught up in all the noise and make short term emotional decisions. Deep breaths people!
Love it Steve! Thanks for reading! Alan
Morning from a grey UK. We are 62 and we have watched every episode of the RFS and all the bonus ones. I have made copious notes and once a week on our walk we go over them to ensure we really understand investing. The markets have dropped but thats what the course taught us to expect. I finally feel I know what my money is doing for us. Hopefully we’ll be around for many years to enjoy the journey. Thank you both for being so inspiring and genuine.
Suki! what a lovely message to get. YAY! the markets have dropped but you have a long time left! Stay healthy and look after yourself, that is key and yes over the long term markets always go up! Sending you happiness. .Alan
Hi guys
This is probably one of your most important posts you’ve ever posted. It’s easy when one’s investments are going up but people need reassurance such as this post when they are (temporarily) going down, especially if one is a very new investor.
Your idea of recording the number of units as opposed to their worth is a good one, as is the idea that if you decide to buy now you’re getting more units at a considerable discount.
Thanks Martin, I really appreciate that. When you get used to it it doesn’t affect you that much but as a new investor I can understand this can be terrifying to see it going down! Thanks for replying. Alan
A great article. Really encouraging. I did last year’s course (2025) which was a revelation to me. I’m already retired, but my finances had always owned me – never the other way round. I learnt such a lot and like a lot of Rebels, wish I’d had this knowledge years ago. April 6th this year I opened my S&S ISA with Vanguard and will be dripping money in throughout the year. My internal dialogue swings from ‘spend it now – enjoy yourself’ to ‘invest it! It’ll be a bit of fun and in 10 years time you may have enough for that round the world cruise!’ So I’m fully understanding the volatility angle but I’m in it for that 10 year run! Thanks for all you do Alan and Katie. I’ll be signing up for this year’s course too.
Thanks for a great article. I did the course a couple of years ago and started to track my runway, I.e. if I stopped earning tomorrow, how long would my money last. Based on the drop we all experienced I lost 0.2 years off my runway and now it’s back up again. Perspective is everything.
Hey Jon, that is an interesting way of looking at it. Runway instead of actual pound amounts. Love that thought and it does give you some real perspective. Brilliant. Alan and Katie
Absolutely fantastic article. So clear and thoughtful and kind to those who need reassurance. You guys are the best.
LOL! If you *really* want to get comfortable with volatility, invest some money in Tesla :-D
I’ve been invested since 2020 and ridden it up, and down, and back up again (and down and up, and down and up…..you get the idea).
Like you say, seeing your portfolio drop by 10s or 100s of thousands over a relatively short period is scary at first, but provided your investment thesis hasn’t changed (whether that’s individual stocks or index trackers), and you don’t need the money now, just ride it out. If in doubt, zoom out.
Great article guys xx
Gordon, Loved your reply. Tesla is basically a masterclass in emotional regulation 😂
You’ve nailed it though. Whether it’s individual stocks or index funds, if the thesis hasn’t changed and you don’t need the money right now, reacting usually just makes things worse.
“If in doubt, zoom out” is timeless advice.
Thanks for commenting and the fun. You are fabulous.
Alan & Katie
Thanks guys, great article, nice to see a graph as they say a picture (or graph) paints a thousand words! keep up the good work
David graphs are Katie’s love language! thanks for commenting. Alan
Great article. It reminded me that during the Covid drop, when I was still investing via an IFA, my portfolio fell a lot, and the IFA simply shrugged, blamed the market and took his fee anyway. And yes, he had sold me a “low risk, approaching retirement” portfolio.
I feel so much better this time because I have now prepared for the volatility (my cash reserve), did nothing when everything came crashing down, and keep all my hard earn cash working for me, not someone else. Win-win. Looking forward to repeating the course again this year, especially the sessions about managing retirement.
Penny, this comparison says so much. Thanks for writing back to us!
That old experience — “markets fell, adviser shrugged, fee taken anyway” — is depressingly common and incredibly disempowering. And it’s exactly why we bang on about understanding what you own and why.
Having a plan, a cash buffer, and knowing that volatility is normal changes everything. Your comment made us so happy. THANK YOU
So glad this time feels calmer and more in your control. That’s the whole point.
Alan & Katie
This is such a great topic and thank you for your encouraging article! Like many, I lost 20% of my retirement investement back in 2022, and I made no changes but it took more than a year to recover to where I had been the prior year. I was still employed then… I live in dread of a repeat of that now that I’m retired and the recent downturn shook me. Any calming words of wisdom given the volatility we should expect given world events? Thanks for all you do!
Hey Lisa, I think the article is my calming words of Wisdom! lol. Although did you see the new ending to week 10 of the course last year that showed what if you retired at the worst timing ever, right before 2008 crisis? The punch line is you would have been fine living off 4% and still have more than you had at the start now! Did that help? Sending happiness. Alan
PS you didn’t loose anything in 2022 as you didn’t sell!
Hi Alan and Katie, the feedback and your responses to it have been fascinating.
I did the whole 2025 course, a few months before I retired at age 62, I learned so much and was somewhat overwhelmed by how much I needed to sort out my finances. Luckily I had started to put much more of my salary into my pension (if only I knew 10 years earlier etc…) I then switched everything over to a SIPP once I had completed your course (the urge to do something after half way through your course is irresistible! Hold your horses lol).
I am still keen to learn and re-inforce my learning so have signed up for the 2026 version, and encouraged my son and daughter (in their 20’s) to do the same.
thank you for everything you do.
Deborah, nice work taking control of your finances. Yes it is crazy isn’t it when you first find out about all this stuff how much needs sorting out. Then it calms down as most of it is a do it once and then leave it action!
We have to keep repeating hold your horses as we don’t want people to make changes before really understanding what they are doing! Thanks for putting up with us saying that!
That is amazing you are sharing it with the 20 year olds! WOW. Please say hi from us and let us know what they think and if it helps. We all wish we knew their age! Love Alan and katie
This is the Trump effect again and i’m sure it is not the last.
Take a paracetamol and leave the stocks alone.
There is plenty wealth present to just wait for it to come back.
Everyone’s will have also dropped proportionally.
Be gaffa tape and stick it out.
I retired last summer at 61, shortly after I had watched your 2025 course on YouTube. I had a lump sum from my teachers’ DB pension and from voluntary redundancy and, thanks to your course, I felt confident enough to put some of it into a S&S ISA and a SIPP. I’m going to put more into both this financial year, while still keeping some for my emergency fund.
I do also have a personal pension which I’m about to start drawing on, now I know how much extra I need over and above the DB pension to help fund my ‘gap’. When the dip happened, I watched both S&S ISA and SIPP go from green to red numbers and I did briefly wonder whether to carry on living on the lump sum/redundancy (aka emergency) funds but the dip has pretty well reversed on the private pension as (I am now aware) it has been somewhat cautiously invested over the past few years, so I will go back to the original plan and take some money out of it. Thanks to the course, I feel that I finally understand how my money is invested and, while I might have more if I’d found you earlier, I am also pretty sure that I have enough to last me and I’m very much enjoying the idea of investing until I expire rather than retire!
Thank you both and I look forward to watching this year’s course.
Ruth, I absolutely loved reading this, thank you for sharing it so openly.
That moment where you really understand how your DB pension, SIPP and ISAs all fit together is transformational. Once you can see the “why”, the fear around dips has nowhere to live. YAY!
What you’re doing now, intentionally drawing from the right pot at the right time, is exactly what we cover in the later weeks of the course.
The dip was an eye opening experience for some of the new investors. So I am glad you got through it and learnt from it! YAY
So glad you’ll be back again this year, things always land differently the second time.
Peace and pineapples
Alan & Katie
PS the investing till you expire line I am SO SO SO happy it helped . Took us a while to figure that out.
I like how you’ve tried to be understanding of people’s fears and human reactions to uncertainty
It’s a pretty long article and I think it could be shorter while still striking the same balance of acknowledging the fear new (and sometimes seasoned) investors experience
I appreciate how you both don’t give up your efforts to educate, increase awareness and share your valuable life experience, insights
Even when at times there some back lash, negativity from media coverage of your FIRE journey
You owe us nothing but you continue your enthusiastic and passionate mission to broadcast your RFS approach to investing, freely sharing your time and energy 🍍🫡
Have you ever considered politics? I’m sure you’ll do much better than most MPs!
Keith, thank you really appreciate you writing back to us.
The length of the article is a balance of can I say the same message in less words, do I need to repeat the message in different ways for those that are new! We know that the people who have been reading this and studying it for a while get it super quickly and then we write more for the people that is is their first time round.
We’re constantly balancing being human and reassuring with not overdoing it, especially when fear is involved. I will work on brevity although I feel I am failing in this response to your message! 😂
And thank you for noticing that we keep going even when there’s backlash or negativity. We believe this stuff genuinely changes lives, so we’ll keep showing up and giving it away freely.
Politics though?? 😂 I always had dreams of serving but I think I am better of helping people over here for now! You are awesome Keith!
Alan & Katie
Thanks, great article. Having done the course (several times) I don’t keep a close eye on my investment or stock market news. I was pleasantly surprised when I randomly checked mine last week. They had grown quite nicely thank you. It doesn’t surprise me there is great volatility at the moment with Trump doing his thing but looks like I have found a way to deal with down turns. I didn’t even notice! Haha.
Kath, LOVE that you don’t check often. That makes me so happy. And over time it always goes up! YAY. Thank you so much for replying. Sending you happiness. Alan and Katie
Earlier in March I looked at our ETF performance (yes, I do look at this too frequently but it is fascinating) and saw it had dropped around 7%. What to do? Thanks to you guys – and The Happy Saver – I felt ok about this and invested another $100,000. Discount buying. Earlier this week I saw the fund had risen $11,000. It’s still a bit scary and new but we are only in our first year of investing like this. Thanks for the great article.
Hey Wayne, that’s awesome that you were able to leave it and let it ride out. The first time it is always scary so I understand completely about that. You are aweosme and thank you for commenting. Alan
Great read and thank you I watched RFS only in January 2026 and was impressed so got out or nearly almost got everything out of SJP them slippery little baskets still haven’t parted with everything I had with them but we are nearly there, pension,ISA, and children’s bonds put everything thing in to Vangaurd, took your advise not to keep looking but have had to keep going on to send different documents over and yep things were dropping like a stone so what I did was book a week break with the wife and kids and went to Gran Canaria had some beers and didn’t think any more about it. PS I wish I’d of taken less clothes 😂 had to go on today to send more information and it’s back to my original investment so if you have the minerals keep you cool and enjoy the ride thanks Kate and Alan
Nick what an awesome response. Congrats for getting away from SJP (BOOO) and taking control. What a rollercoaster start and you did exactly the right thing ignoring it and going away. It has bounced back quickly this time. Won’t always be that way but in general it always goes up over time! Thanks for commenting and telling us your story. it is so cool to hear that and hope to catch you for a drink somewhere around the world! Alan
Fab article and great reminder. My husband and I did your course 2025 and loved the Volatility session. We’ve been chilled seeing the drop in our last finance meeting. All prepared for the ups and downs. Keep doing what you’re doing. Some will listen and others won’t.
Alex and Peter, you are fab. Thanks for commenting. Volatility training was so much fun! Seems the S&P500 hit an all time high today so be interesting with the monthly finance meeting at the end of the month to see what has happened! Thanks for writing back! A&K
Thanks to you both my husband and I, although late to the rebel party have a realistic chance of escaping our jobs in the NHS early with more confidence. S&S ISA’s for both of us and a SIPP for me all since Feb when I did the training, We have a plan later in the year for one for my husband. Although risk averse he’s on more board now and agreeable to an end of month review. So that’s definite progress. I have been watching my funds during the volatility but just seen it as an extension of my training and been surprised by my shrug of the shoulders reaction. Certainly has been life changing and I have been spreading the word to friends and will be encouraging my 23 year old son to do the training too
Tracy, this made me ridiculously happy to read.
Late to the rebel party but CRASHING THROUGH THE DOOR with S&S ISAs and SIPPs since February; YES. That’s amazing. The fact that your husband is now “on board” (even a bit!) and you’ve got an end‑of‑month review planned is HUGE progress.
Also… shrugging at volatility?? I love that. That’s the training working right there. The volatility is the price of admission to the stock market.
Thank you so much for spreading the word and for nudging your son into this too. That ripple effect matters more than you know. We don’t have a marketing budget so it means the world to me that you share that! THANK YOU
Peace and pineapples
Alan & Katie
Great Article and Graphs! April and I have been investing for about 8 years now. Our mentor told us that he expected a 20 percent drop at any time. And that when that happens we should view that as an opportunity to buy our investments at a discount. We did RFS last year and we filled in some gaps in our knowledge. We really enjoyed the Volatility training. If it was not for one of my daily newsletters having a snapshot of the markets, I would not even know what the market is doing. We simply don’t worry about it. We keep buying. That strategy has worked well for us. Thank you for what you have done and continue to do.
Steve & April, thank you for writing back to us. This is exactly the mindset we hope people arrive at and I love what your mentor said to you about that. What a fantastic lesson early on!
the fact you have no idea what the market is doing makes me happy. We check once a month and miss most of the volatility. You can check even less than that in reality! Thank you for writing back to us. It means a lot. Peace and Pineapples. Alan & Katie
Did someone say sale!!!!
Craig, lol! there was a 7% sale for a few weeks! lol. You rock. Alan
I’m so happy you wrote this article and specifically mentioned people on the Facebook group. I joined the group in November last year and for the first month it was amazing – clever questions, good suggestions. Then, so many people joined and 90% of the questions are now “is this the right fund”, “what this means on t212”, “omg i lost £12″… I think Alan, Katie and all ninjas are saints by calmly answering the same questions every single day instead of asking people to use search function or do the course. I remember watching your Q&A videos on youtube and thinking “omg, this is the third time someone asks this question (just slightly differently phrased)” and you so patiently were replying to all. For me, RFS was an education, it teaches people how to make their own decisions, it gives confidence, it gives clarity, it allows you to be in control of your money and life.
Erika, thank you. We work so hard to make sure no one feels like they are asking a dumb question, just calmly keep asking and working through it all. I really appreciate your feedback and the Facebook group can be incredible and can go panicky when the markets dive which then we work to help people feel calm. This article was our effort to clam things down this time and WOW it rebounded quickly. Who knows what will happen next. THANK YOU for commenting. it means a lot. Alan
“Volatility is the price of admission” – I absolutely love this train of thought.
Hey Lewis, thanks for commenting! it really is! Peace and Pineapples. Alan and Katie
Thankyou both for posting this, it really does help to have reassurance from your direct experience, and even though you have to say the same thing over and over again, it makes a difference here in the trenches! Signed up for and looking forward to RFS26! 🍍🍍🍍
Sharon, thank you for your message. it means a lot. We keep working on sharing that message to stop people from panic selling and doing things that can’t be undone. The hardest thing is to do nothing and that is the best thing to do in investing most of the time! you are fab. Thanks for commenting. Alan
Like many of your devoted followers, I took advantage of the sale and increased my investment last month. My thinking has changed and I look forward to the next sale.
Peter that is AMAZING, I love you took advantage of the sale. That one lone made my day! THank you for commenting and given the rise since it has been a good decision! Sending you happiness. Alan
Great article! Huge thanks to Alan, Katie, and the Rebel Finance team for your continued support and for sharing such insightful, real-time experiences. It’s incredibly reassuring—especially with all the political drama going on. We’re learning to stay patient like monks during market dips, keep accumulating, and trust the process as things grow over time. Really appreciate it!
Kannan what a great post. Yep just mediate link a monk, keep calm, breathe. My fav monk moment was stopping at a temple on the way up a mountain in Northern Thailand and there was a monk dressed in orange selling coffees made with an espresso machine. It was MAGICAL. Just forget about all the noise and focus on living life. Thanks for commenting. Alan
Thank you for this great article. I had the greatest of luck to win a lot of money last year which set me free from my painfully stressful law job. I went to my hubby’s FA as I had no clue what to do with this money! She set me up on SW platform but in cautious funds. I binge watched your 2025 course after a friend told me about it and I was fascinated suddenly with the world of finance! I got rid of the FA in January this year and took control of my own money and moved everythingto Vanguard. I also was under no illusion that my win was not substantial enough to retire fully and went back to work part time. I’m excited for the 2026 course! My psychology of money completely changed after watching RFS.
Sharni, WOW. Congratulations for taking control of your money and you have been on a rollercoaster since! WOW. I am so glad the psychology changed and you are in charge now. I love you are doing that. Thanks for commenting. it means a huge amount! Alan
The only thing I did differently when the market crashed was buy more units of my index fund, given they were “on sale”.
This is all down to the fantastic training you’ve provided me. I remember the volatility training well! I look forward to this year’s course as a refresher.
Thank you again for the brilliant work you both do to help us all, and I hope you enjoy Iceland.
Mark what an awesome message. YAY. And Volatility training was so much fun last year. Love that you used it as an opportunity to buy more at a 7% discount. That is Awesome! THANK YOU. Sending love. Alan and Katie
Thank you both – and all your rebels (building a dreamteam ;0) – so much for all your openness, the transparency, your work and support and the powerful and consistent mantra! It does the job: Helps to stay calm and serene so far… Oooom! Great article, great confirmation; So much from the “silent majority” you help to grow :0)
The most precious message I think is: Never loose sight of what really matters in your life! Live it & Love it! That’s what matters most!
Only scarry point is the concern about the impact all that harassment will have on our freedom… Hope the world is not closing in.
Enjoy Iceland, keep fresh and take care!
Ricky, what a lovely message. How are you? We will have to hang out again next time we are in town! We are doing well and living life and having fun. We will just focus on living life as you pointed out. At the moment we are enjoying setting up the new course and building. It has been so much fun! Sending you MUCH happiness. Alan and Katie
Hi Alan & Katie,
I have been meaning to write to you for a while and this article has made me want to finally do so,, as someone a little further down the road than many in your community.
I’m in my mid 60s, working part-time running my own café (very much a passion project, rather than an income stream), and most of my future sits in Stocks & Shares ISAs. Before doing your course, I would describe myself as financially aware but not financially at ease. I checked things very often, daily sometimes, and it could affect my mood straight away. I felt the dips deeply, and quietly carried a background anxiety about whether I’d “done enough.”
The course shifted that in a way I hadn’t quite expected.
The 4% principle, for me, was a genuine lightbulb moment. Not just as a number, but as a framework for thinking as suddenly my future felt more structured, more predictable, and, a big one, enough. The practical strategies around how to take that income (using cash buffers, being flexible in down markets, taking a little more in stronger years, thinking about when and how to withdraw once I retire had a level of nuance that I hadn’t properly considered before.
But the biggest change hasn’t been tactical, like many others it’s been behavioural.
I no longer feel the need to look at my investments every few days. In fact, I actively avoid it. I can see now how much unnecessary anxiety that created, particularly during market drops. The idea of “zooming out” sounds simple, but it’s incredibly powerful for me as when you genuinely take a 5-year (or longer) view, those short-term dips lose their emotional grip.
I’ll admit, even now, when there’s a big downturn and the Facebook group fills with understandable panic as it did recently I sometimes feel that flicker of doubt or “have I got this wrong?” But what’s been so valuable is the consistency of your messaging. The calm, rational responses, as others have said, over and over again bring me back to centre every time.
That consistency matters so much.
What’s also shifted is something deeper as others have said, an understanding that I may not need as much money as I once thought to live a good life and give back, make a difference to others. That’s been quietly liberating. I’m enjoying my life now, not just planning for it.
And perhaps most importantly, I’ve passed your work on widely. Friends of mine, many 20 years behind me, have taken the course and are making decisions now that I really wish I’d made earlier. Seeing that ripple effect has been one of the most rewarding parts.
So thank you very much, not just for the content, but for the tone, the integrity, and the absence of noise or upsell. It’s rare, and it shows
Hi Alan & Katie,
I did the course for the first time last March, then again when it was live later in the year. I think you drumming into people that you have lost nothing unless you sell in a dip has worked with me, because I have had no problem looking at it this way and instead try to invest as much as possible when prices are low and ‘on sale’. I do think though, that if my pot was massive like some people’s, perhaps seeing very big figures wiped out would be scarier than seeing my smaller pot decrease by smaller amounts (if you see what I mean.) My son has not done the course (so far only watched half an investing episode, despite me trying to kick his backside) and therefore panicked when he heard rumours of impending ‘crashes’ He asked me to take all his money out for him (we set a Vanguard ISA up for him and I manage it) and I explained why this was a terrible idea and refused to do so. He thanked me a few weeks later! I am determined to get him to watch at least all the investing episodes this year – I will prevail! Thank you for this article and I hope you had lots of fun in Iceland.
Fi, what an amazing comment and story. I am so glad the training has worked and you just invest more. That is super smart! especially when you see how it roared up this month again after last months drops! wow. I am SO HAPPY you protected your son from this and yes, bribe him with pizza and watch the course with him this year? it is so important as the fear that social media and the media spread is so real when it is happening that it leads people to make terrible investing decisions! THANK YOU for sharing this with us all. You are awesome. Alan
Whilst I watched the dip and rise with interest as this is my first year of investing, my only regret was that I didn’t have more to invest while the stocks and shares were on sale 🤔🤔😂
Christina, that is a wonderful reaction. LOVE IT. And congratulations on your first year of investing. Alan
There are ups and downs in life….Same difference.
hey James, that is a good analogy. Alan
Ya the butterflies in the stock is very un-comfortable BUT usual and will get used to the figures getting red. It requires shock absorbers lol and big figures to survive the volatility. With this war in Iran things are moving too fast volatility is at its peak and it’s time to buy when the stocks are down, never look at the weekly charts they can be deceiving.
Thanks for replying Edgar, shock absorbers is absolutely right! Alan