“Hi. I’m Toby Thomas. I’ll help you invest into the stock market, so you can retire early. I’ll help you save money, create multiple streams of passive income and use low-risk value investing to achieve 18% annual returns. Compound interest – and time – turns just £15/day into £180,000/year of completely passive – and potentially tax-free – income for the rest of your life. Just let me explain how… the EASY way. My advice is completely free.”

Small Business Ideas
you can run in your spare time

There are countless ways to generate additional income streams in your spare time. Whether you’re using digital services, offering local freelance gigs, or investing in property, creating diverse revenue sources can help build financial security. Consider exploring creative ideas, tech-based services, or event planning. Many side ventures, such as selling digital products or running small hospitality businesses, are easy to set up and scale. Start with what suits your skills and resources, and explore opportunities to turn hobbies or local demand into profitable part-time businesses.

I’m a pretty ordinary guy. I do not see myself as being especially smart, talented or qualified. However, I did find a way to achieve consistently high returns on the stock market, using just a few simple tools, which I’ll gladly share with you here. For free!

It genuinely upsets me how many people waste their money needlessly… not only by spending beyond their means, but also by saving and investing their money in the wrong places.

So, first let me tell you…

What NOT to do with your money…

(I have to say at this point I am not a qualified financial advisor! Please see the full disclaimer here.)

• Don’t waste it buying stuff you don’t need. It pollutes the environment and ends up in landfill.
• Don’t waste it on services and subscriptions you don’t need or use.
• Don’t put your savings in a bank account or cash ISA. They pay next to no interest. Inflation will devalue them.
• Don’t invest into bonds, premium bonds, gold, commodities or currencies. You’ll struggle to get decent returns.
• Avoid crypto, bitcoin and the like. Nobody knows when that bubble will next burst!
• Avoid trading, short-term buys and sells, options, CFD’s, etc. They are all too risky*
  *Unless you TOTALLY know what you’re doing or are a qualified, professional trader!

The FAANGs are Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google

Did you know that…

• Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google’s all grew between 20-35% per year between 2010 and 2020 (based on their Compounded Annual Return*).
• Over the past five years, Amazon stock alone has gone up 500% and Netflix has risen by 450%.*
• If you bought £1,000 worth of stocks in each of the five FAANG companies in 2010 (2012 for Facebook because that’s when it launched on the stock market), then your investment would be worth over £60,000 today*. That is far better than almost any index, tracker, fund, ETF, bond, commodity or currency.

* See links to all data and read more about the FAANGs (and FAMANGs) here.

You might think: “Great, so I’ll just invest into those then!”

Maybe. Better that than most funds, ETFs or index trackers.

Just to be clear…

Funds and index trackers, such as Vanguard ETFs can be excellent and highly-recommended ways to benefit from stock market growth… if you want to put in minimum effort.

However, I want you to do better than that!

If you follow my methods, you should easily be able to average 18% growth per year. It doesn’t even take much time. Once you’re setup it’s just a few hours every couple months checking your portfolio.

Investing Advice

I have a wealth of other investing advice, if you are buying stocks directly. Invest in what you know! If there is a particular tool, service or company you LOVE or friends, family or other contacts you know LOVE it too. Look into it… is it public and listed on the stock market? Is it regarded as a good value investment by the various stock research tools. Is demand for their products or services growing according to tools like Google Trends?

Investing Websites, Tools & Stock Screeners

There are so many to choose from and they are all great in their own ways….

However, I found the best stock picking tool yet!

Stock Trading Platforms

Again, there are so many to choose from! They all do the job, but they all slightly vary in their particular features, fees, charges, etc.

You’ll find great advice on which ISA and investment platforms to use at Money Saving Expert.

However, I have some supplementary advice of my own…

It may be worth using the stock trading apps to get started with, but be warned…

If you’re on a low budget initially and want to learn the ropes while keeping costs and fees down, then the simple and user-friendly trading apps like Trading212 (or “T212”), eToro and Plus500 can make a fun way to start and to learn, especially with their low fees and free practice/demo accounts. However, beware these apps do not usually offer ISA’s (although T212 does) and they tend to make most of their money from higher-risk/leveraged/short-term trading, so just make sure you stick to simple investing and avoid these temptations. If you have ever had any issues with gambling before, then avoid these like the plague… seriously! They all carry warnings that most retail investor accounts lose money when trading with them, usually this figure is between 70% and 95%.

Best share dealing platforms for the long term…

Once you are better established and have built up some knowledge and experience, then the established share dealing platforms are the far better long term option. If you have several thousand to invest, you can use them from the start, just know they often have monthly or quarterly custody fees (typically around £100/year) as well as trading fees around £5-10 every time you buy or sell shares.

Foreign Exchange (FX Fees)

I highly recommend investing in US stocks more than in UK companies. Sorry that’s not very patriotic, but just see the FAANG section above for five of the reasons! The downside of this is that the FX fees are a significant expense. When you buy and sell shares in a currency different to your account currency, the broker will convert currencies at the time of execution based on the best available bid / offer exchange rates, plus their own spread. which is often as much as 1% to 1.5%. For that reason, I highly recommend using IG, who offer a foreign exchange fee (or “spread”) of just 0.5%.