Money and investing: my approach as an under 30
My relationship with money
In Italy, talking about money is still taboo. People talk about everything except how much they earn, how they invest, and what relationship they have with money. I decided to write this article not because I have answers for anyone, but because sharing my journey seems like the most honest thing I can do. I wish I had read something like this when I started.
I started getting interested in investing when I realized that keeping money sitting in a bank account meant watching it lose value year after year. I knew nothing about personal finance, but I wanted to understand how things worked before making any moves. So I did what I always do when I tackle something new: I studied. A lot.
One of the first things I did was write myself an Investor Policy Statement, which is essentially a personal document where you put in writing how you want to manage your money, why you’re doing it, and what rules you set for yourself. It sounds formal, but for me it became a sort of compass. It’s the document I reread when markets drop and my head tells me to do stupid things.
Writing my rules when I was clear-headed was the best gift I could give to my future panicking self. Not because the rules are perfect, but because having them written down prevents me from making emotional decisions I’d later regret.
The ideas that guide me
I don’t have a sophisticated strategy. In fact, I believe the best thing that happened to me was accepting that I don’t need one. My approach is intentionally simple because I’ve learned that the more I complicate it, the more I risk doing damage.
These are the ideas I hold onto when I need to make decisions about my money.
Buy and hold, but don’t forget
I invest long-term and don’t sell based on market fluctuations. But I don’t just buy and forget about it either. I keep an eye on things regularly and rebalance when needed.
Diversify as much as possible
I have no idea which country or sector will explode next, and I don’t try to guess. I expose myself to the global market and let the entire world work for me.
Pay as little as possible
I discovered that fees and fund costs, even when they seem small, eat up a huge chunk of returns over time. So I use low-cost instruments and try to minimize every expense.
Don’t try to time the market
I gave up on the idea of buying at the right time and selling at the right time. I invest regularly regardless of what’s happening. It’s less exciting, but it works much better than my intuition.
Focus on how much I earn
The thing that had the most impact on my investments wasn’t choosing the right ETF, but increasing my income. The more I earn, the more I can set aside. The rest is math.
I don’t try to beat the market. I try not to get beaten by my own emotions.
How my approach has changed
The way I manage my money today is very different from how I started, and it will probably be different again in a few years. It’s a journey that evolves with you, and I think that’s normal and healthy.
When I started I did the simplest thing possible: a monthly investment plan on the SWDA, the iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF by BlackRock. It’s one of the largest ETFs in the world with over 100 billion dollars in assets, it tracks the MSCI World index covering about 85% of developed market capitalization across 23 countries, has an annual cost of 0.20%, and automatically reinvests dividends. One instrument, one operation per month, no complications. I mention this because at the time it seemed almost “too simple” to work, and yet it was the perfect approach for someone starting from zero. It let me enter the market without the paralysis of having to choose between a thousand options.
Over time my situation changed. The business, new goals, a different awareness of risk. So I invested in a one-time professional consultation that helped me structure a more diversified portfolio with more asset classes. Not because what I was doing before was wrong, but because I needed something more suited to the phase I was in.
100% SWDA
Everything in the iShares Core MSCI World, the ETF tracking developed markets across 23 countries. Monthly investment plan and that’s it. The simplicity I needed to start without overthinking.
More asset classes
Equities, bonds, commodities. A more structured portfolio that better reflects my current situation.
When I started I thought diversifying meant buying many different instruments. In reality I learned it means combining assets that react differently to the same events. It’s not the quantity that matters, but how they behave together when things go wrong.
If there’s one thing I learned from this evolution, it’s that there’s no perfect portfolio that’s valid forever. There’s the right one for the phase you’re in, and it’s fine for it to change over time. The important thing is that every change is reasoned and never made on the impulse of emotions.
The rules I wrote for myself
These are the rules I wrote in my IPS. I’m not sharing them because I think they work for everyone, but because for me they made the difference between acting with clarity and making gut decisions I would have regretted.
Follow the plan without exceptions. If the plan says buy, I buy. If it says wait, I wait. It seems easy to write, but it’s incredibly hard to follow when the market is crashing and everyone around you is selling.
Rebalance without selling. When an asset is underweight relative to the target, I buy more of it with new savings instead of selling what’s over. It’s a small thing, but it saves me a lot in capital gains taxes.
Don’t try to buy at the right moment. I gave myself this rule after spending weeks staring at charts waiting for “the perfect moment” to enter. That moment doesn’t exist. I buy regularly and that’s it.
No strategy changes more than once every 2 years. This rule exists because I know myself. If I hadn’t written it down, I probably would have changed my approach every six months chasing the latest financial trend.
Check the portfolio once a month, no more. I discovered that looking at the portfolio every day just gave me anxiety. A monthly check is more than enough and keeps me informed without making me obsess.
Only low-cost, accumulating, physically-replicated ETFs. This isn’t a rule based on some sophisticated analysis. It’s based on the fact that I want simple, cheap, and transparent instruments with no surprises.
What I do and what I avoid
Rather than “right rules” and “wrong rules”, I like to think about what works for me and what I’ve learned doesn’t work. It’s a list that was built over time, sometimes by intuition and sometimes because I made the opposite mistake and got burned.
- Invest consistently every month
- Use simple, low-cost instruments
- Rebalance with new savings
- Keep personal expenses under control
- Dedicate most of my energy to income
- Write everything in my IPS
- Betting on individual stocks
- Chasing trends or hot sectors
- Trying to predict market movements
- Selling when the market drops
- Changing strategy on emotional impulse
- Listening to those who promise easy returns
My risk tolerance is something I’m still learning to understand. I think I have a fairly high one, but at the same time my portfolio is more conservative than my head would want. I’ve kept it this way because with a business in its launch phase I need stability, not adrenaline. Maybe in a few years I’ll recalibrate it, but for now it works.
What I’ve learned about my own head
If there’s one thing I didn’t expect when I started investing, it’s that the hardest part isn’t the technical side. It’s not choosing ETFs, understanding fees, or reading charts. The hardest part is managing what happens in my head when markets move.
Panic is my worst enemy
The first time I saw my portfolio in the red, the temptation to sell everything was overwhelming. I didn’t do it only because I had the rules written in front of me. That was the first time I understood what an IPS is for.
I think in decades, not months
I had to train my brain to think on long time horizons. It’s not natural. Our instinct wants results now. But wealth is built with patience, not speed.
Noise doesn’t help me
I stopped reading financial guru predictions and catastrophic newspaper headlines. Not because they’re not interesting, but because they led me to do exactly the things my plan tells me not to do.
I write for my future self
The IPS isn’t a document for others. It’s a letter to myself who six months from now will be panicking about a market crash. That future me will need to reread why he made certain decisions and stick to them.
My greatest enemy in investing isn’t the market. It’s myself in moments of panic.
The most important thing I’ve learned
I’ll close with what for me was the most important realization of the entire journey. The real lever for building wealth isn’t investments. It’s income.
I realized this by doing some simple math. If you earn little and spend almost everything, the amount of money you can invest each month is so small that even an exceptional return doesn’t change your situation much. If instead you work to grow your income and keep expenses under control, suddenly you can invest amounts that actually make a difference. And compound interest starts working seriously in your favor.
That’s why in my IPS I wrote “dedicate less focus to investments and more focus to income”. My portfolio runs almost automatically with the monthly investment plan and periodic rebalancing. My time and energy go towards growing the business and my earnings, because that’s where the real game is played.
I don’t know if my approach is the right one for everyone. It probably isn’t. But it’s what works for me at this point in my life, and it seemed right to share it for what it’s worth. If you’re starting your journey with money, the only real advice I feel comfortable giving is: don’t overcomplicate things too soon. Start simple, be consistent, and focus on earning more. The rest follows.
Investments are the vehicle, but the fuel is what you earn. Without fuel, even the best vehicle stays still.