How do you make money.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Regarding investing: Unless you are already rich your immediate and mid term source of wealth will be whatever salary you earn. So you can invest some part of that for your retirement. I would recommend the book The Coffeehouse Investor. This book talks about investing in the (US) stock market in a way that is most likely to get you a good return based on the stock market average. Basically you invest in index funds that contain a very wide range of stocks such that the index funds approximate the investment return of the entire stock market. And since this, on average, has steadily increased for decades and decades your investment will grow. I'd imagine the British stock exchange has a similar record. Set this up with a mix of index funds and bonds per your risk tolerance and check on it annually, reevaluating and making small changes to keep your investments in line with your goals. Your risk tolerance will depend on your age, income, etc. Basically, when your young and invest the majority of your future wealth will still come from your salary, not investments. But as you get closer to retirement more of your wealth will be coming from your investments, so you'll want to invest in less risky things to reduce the chance of a recession eating 25%+ of your investment. Also work to minimize taxes and especially fees from the companies managing index funds - 1% in fees over decades and tens of thousands of dollars invested can add up to a LOT of money.

Regarding managing money: do not buy what you don't need unless you can afford it (see below). Keep track of your income, taxes, and expenses. Make sure you are saving money every month, and do this by budgeting how much your income is, what you need to pay for essentials (and try to lower this cost) like food and rent, some portion you put into savings (the higher the better), and some portion for buying things that make you happy. Do not buy things that make you happy with a credit card if you can't pay that card off in full every month. In fact, don't carry credit card debt over month to month. Remember; just because you can take a loan or sign some contract to pay some amount per month and 'buy' something doesn't actually mean you can afford it. Have savings for a rainy day in case you lose your job and cant find work for several months.

CR

[Fragony]

You can't get by with 500 pounds? That is more than enough to be able to eat well and have fun as well.