Hi, we're so glad you're here!

This book is an investment. An investment into knowledge, but more importantly, an investment into you and your future. We'd like to start by setting the scene: letting you know what we're about, where we have come from and what you can expect. As this book has been written by two authors, we have decided, for the majority of the book, to each write different parts rather than having just one ‘voice’. We'll tell you who wrote what before you read each section or chapter.

A note from Glen

Investing is easy. I'll show you how. You could download an investment app (popular ones are Superhero and Sharesies), open an account, transfer some money over to your account, buy the ETF IOZ and voilà! You now own 200 of the top Australian companies with only one transaction. You have some diversification so your risk is spread, and your record keeping and tax reporting is taken care of each year. You might want to do this with as much money as you can, as regularly as you can, for as long as you can. And you might try not to sell — consider reinvesting the dividends/distributions instead. Over time you'll build so much wealth you won't know what to do with it all!

That's one of the easiest ways to buy a diversified portfolio of Australian shares. But there's more you need to understand about building a diversified portfolio … and more about why you're even investing. You see, when it comes to all things money and investing it can be a trap to fall into solution mode right away. That's why we'll start with your ‘why’ — your reason for investing — in chapter 1.

I'll aim not only to get you invested fast, but also to help you understand everything you need to know when it comes to the basics of investing. Then my co-author, Nick, will take over and provide you with some more advanced strategies that might scratch an itch you have to get more involved in other investing strategies.

I've been an investor for around 20 years. For 13 of those I was a licensed financial adviser working with clients face-to-face and I have come to learn that the easiest part of investing is the investing itself. The hardest part is continuing to be invested and removing yourself from the week-on-week, month-on-month processes, fads and distractions. That is, setting yourself up financially so that once money is committed to your investing account, it stays invested and isn't withdrawn to pay for car insurance, holidays or other things.

I want you to be wealthy. I want you to be secure. But I want you to do it the right way. Like everything in life, there isn't actually ‘the way’ — there's ‘a way’ to arrive at a location or solution. We see this book as ‘a way’. Nick and I have a similar investing philosophy and we're both about building wealth for the long term. However, we do things differently along the way.

In my first book, Sort your money out & get invested, I shared the story of my first investment in shares, which was an absolute trainwreck. It resulted in a loss of 40 per cent of the capital I had invested after breaking every rule in the book! So, since the days of the 18-year-old Glen, my strategy has somewhat changed (I'll tell you all about that in the coming chapters). My new strategy allows me to focus on the income-generation side of wealth building and having a somewhat set-and-forget portfolio set-up.

You'll find with all the online noise in groups and on Reddit, that the chatter often lands in the area of brokerage fees, investment platforms and whether or not to invest in, say, IOZ or A200 (which basically cost the same and both track the top 200 companies listed on the Australian share market). In my own experience, getting into the weeds with such issues is like not being able to proceed with a dinner order at a restaurant because you can't decide whether to order tap water or bottled water — it's like majoring in the minor, if you know what I mean.

So why have we written this book? Well, I host a podcast — money money money — that has a large community of listeners, and ever since I started it in 2018 the number-one thing people wanted to know about is investing in shares. Since this topic was popular, I asked Nick to host a dedicated podcast. I'll be the first to say I'm not an academic — nor do I want to be. And I can't speak for my co-author — though I will! — but he isn't an academic either. So think of this as a street-smart guide to investing. We really wanted to write a book that's full of useful information, along with some prompts to challenge your thinking or to make you more focused.

Nick, who hosts our investing podcast — this is investing — is originally from Alaska and now resides in Columbus, Ohio in the United States. You might think that it's weird to have someone in the United States co-author an investing book for a predominantly Australian audience. However, it attests to the fact that the language of investing is truly international. Nick is a very close friend of mine whom I've known for many years and I trust him explicitly to speak to my podcast community. He has a lot of experience and curiosity when it comes to investing.

The cool thing is that while there are different accents to each language, it's all the same when it comes to investing. One product in Australia may give you access to an international index (language) and you can get the same product in, say, the United States with a different name (accent) and with the same exposure. This is akin to my current hire car while writing this part of the book in ‘the States’. It's a Chevrolet Cruze — the Australian version is the Holden Cruze. The world is truly becoming globalised when it comes to physical products. However, it kind of always has been when it comes to investing. An ETF with the ticker code IVV can be purchased on the ASX (domiciled to Australia), giving you weighted exposure to the S&P 500 index, which is the top 500 listed companies across all exchanges in the United States. This ETF is provided by the international investment powerhouse BlackRock and its iShares S&P 500 fund can also be purchased on the NYSE with the same ticker code: IVV: the same product, available in both the United States and Australia. (If some of the investing terms I'm using are making your head spin, you'll find definitions for the trickier ones at the end of this introduction.)

Another reason why I wanted Nick to be involved with this book is that we need to pay attention to the United States when it comes to investing. I'm reluctant to say this to my friend, but he can be, and is, useful to have around. Nick is on the ground in the United States. While we can get information about investing online, Nick is immersed in it day-to-day and has a genuine passion for investing.

To give you some more perspective, you've likely used a product today made by Apple or Microsoft, or scrolled Instagram or Facebook. You may watch Netflix or Disney+ tonight or google how to cook up some fava beans or where to buy a nice bottle of Chianti (extremely niche joke, for those who know!). These companies are listed in the United States and have true global reach.

To drive this home further, the total gross domestic product (GDP) of Australia is approximately $1.5 trillion US, whereas the state of California alone has a GDP of $3.5 trillion US! This is why I've always been inclined to ‘get off the island’ when it comes to investing and learning more — there really is a bigger world out there when it comes to money and investing than an island in the South Pacific.

Now, the truly unique thing about Australia is that though we're small, we pack a punch. We're part of the top 20 economies in the world. While this may be off the back of digging up most of the island and selling it overseas (namely iron ore and coal to China), there are many quality public companies listed on the ASX that have provided long-term stable returns.

Australia is a great place to start one's investing journey because it's relatively simple to get started here. You understand the brands and companies because you've grown up shopping at Woolworths, perhaps banking at the Commonwealth Bank, or you've had a Telstra mobile plan forever. This sense of familiarity can help you when starting out.

Whenever I speak or when writing my previous books, I've encouraged people to look for one thing to take away and implement. Generally, if you have a ‘penny-drop moment’ and change just one behaviour or start something new in your life — or even stop doing something that is negatively impacting you or not taking you towards your financial or lifestyle goals — that's a win. Don't get overwhelmed: look for the one thing you can start or stop and the rest is a wonderful bonus.

On a final note, Nick and I have an interesting dry and sarcastic sense of humour, which you'll pick up on as you read this book. We're very good friends with a robust friendship, so we have fun talking about serious topics in a way that may be different from the norm, including having a jab at each other along the...