What is an ISA? A beginner's guide
ISAs explained in plain English: the £20,000 allowance, Cash vs Stocks & Shares vs Lifetime ISAs, and the cash ISA change coming in April 2027.
Learn · Save · Invest
Understand your money. Let time do the heavy lifting.
Simple, friendly guides to ISAs, Junior ISAs and the power of compounding, plus an honest look at the companies I invest in and why. Written by a fellow learner, not a financial adviser.
£200 a month for 30 years at an assumed 7% a year
Illustration only. Returns are not guaranteed.
≈ £244,000
from £72,000 paid in. That's compounding at work.Illustration only. Returns are not guaranteed.
2026/27 ISA allowance
Up to £20,000 a year tax-free across your ISAs.
Junior ISA allowance
Up to £9,000 per child, per year, separate from yours.
Lifetime ISA bonus
Pay in up to £4,000 and get a 25% government bonus (max £1,000).
Figures from GOV.UK, checked 18 October 2026.
Featured guides
All guides →Junior ISAs explained: saving tax-free for your kids
How Junior ISAs work in 2026/27: the £9,000 allowance, Cash vs Stocks & Shares JISAs, who can pay in and what happens at 18.
How compounding works (and why starting early matters)
Compounding in plain English: how growth on growth works, the Rule of 72, and why time in the market is your biggest advantage.
New
Go to Bonds & Yields Bonds & Yields
See UK gilt and US Treasury yields at 2, 10 and 30 years, and learn what yields mean in plain English.
What I'm investing in
See my portfolio →I invest in companies I see as pioneers building the future. Here's what each one does, the key numbers, and why I chose it, all in plain English.
NVIDIA Corporation
Designs the graphics chips (GPUs) and networking kit that power most of the world's AI data centres, as well as gaming PCs.
Tesla, Inc.
Makes electric cars and big home/grid batteries, and is working on self-driving software, robotaxis and humanoid robots.
Micron Technology, Inc.
One of the world's three big makers of memory chips (DRAM, high-bandwidth memory and NAND storage), now in huge demand for AI servers.
Alphabet Inc. (Google)
Google's parent company, covering Search, YouTube, Android, Google Cloud and the Gemini AI models, plus "Other Bets" like Waymo.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)
Builds and launches reusable rockets (Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Starship) and runs Starlink satellite internet; it also reports an AI segment.
My personal holdings are shared for education only. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Read the disclaimer.