How to Start Investing: A Free 12-Part Series

Everything a first-time investor needs to know, in plain English, in one place.

If investing has ever felt like something other people do, people who grew up with the right knowledge, who had parents who explained it all, who just seemed to “get it”, you’re not alone. Most people reach their 30s and 40s without ever having had a single real conversation about how money grows. That’s not a personal failure. It’s a gap in what most of us are taught.

The fundamentals are learnable, and they’re not as complicated as the financial industry sometimes makes them appear. What most people need isn’t a complex strategy. They need a clear, honest explanation of how the pieces fit together, without jargon and without anyone trying to sell them something. That’s exactly what this 12-episode series delivers.

Below you’ll find every episode in one place, with a plain-English summary of what each one covers. Work through them in order if you’re starting from scratch, or use the jump links below to go straight to the episode most relevant to where you’re at right now.

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About the Series

Produced by a team of experienced investors committed to plain-language financial education, this series is built around one idea: that investing knowledge should be accessible to everyone, not just those who can afford a financial planner.

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The Full Series

• 1

  Foundation

  Why Investing Is for Everyone

  A compelling introduction to why the share market has historically been the most accessible wealth-creation tool available to everyday people. Unpacks the mechanics of compounding and makes the case for why investing matters beyond just money.
• 2

  Foundation

  Am I Investment Ready?

  Addresses the fears and doubts that stop most people before they even begin. Covers how much money you actually need to start and what a financially stable foundation looks like before directing money toward shares.
• 3

  Foundation

  Saving to Invest

  Explores Savings Rate as one of the most influential variables in long-term wealth building. Practical frameworks like the “Rule of Threes” show how everyday spending decisions connect directly to investing capacity over time.
• 4

  How It Works

  The Basics of Investing

  Unpacks what the share market actually is and what it means to own a small piece of a business. Draws the distinction between active and passive investing, a concept that underpins much of the later series.
• 5

  How It Works

  What Can We Invest In?

  A clear guide to the main asset classes: stocks, bonds, and property. Explains how all three can be accessed through the share market and how each one actually generates a return for investors.
• 6

  Getting Started

  How Do You Actually Buy Shares?

  Explains the mechanics of using a broker and the four key factors people commonly use when comparing platforms: fees, market access, available features, and security.
• 7

  Getting Started

  Just Get Started: Buying an Index

  Introduces the Index ETF and explains how it works as a low-cost way to participate in the broad performance of the market. Covers why many long-term investors find index-based approaches compelling compared to picking individual stocks.
• 8

  Building Wealth

  Building a Portfolio

  Covers the four foundational pillars of portfolio construction: setting clear goals, understanding your own risk profile, applying diversification (including the hosts’ “5% rule”), and thinking through asset allocation.
• 9

  Going Deeper

  How to Find a Great Company

  For those curious about moving beyond index funds, this episode introduces single-stock research: what to look for when evaluating individual businesses and the qualitative and quantitative factors experienced investors tend to pay attention to.
• 10

  Going Deeper

  Back the Professionals

  Explores Managed Funds and Listed Investment Companies (LICs) for investors who prefer delegating stock selection to experienced fund managers. Covers six factors to consider when evaluating whether a professional manager is worth the additional cost.
• 11

  Mechanics

  Tips for Buying and Selling

  Gets into the mechanics of placing a trade: the difference between market and limit orders, why most investors find it difficult to benefit from timing the market, and the three conditions experienced investors typically cite as genuine reasons to sell a holding.
• 12

  Mechanics

  Automate It and Get Out of Your Own Way

  The series finale focuses on behavioural finance: the ways emotion and inertia tend to undermine even well-informed investors. Covers how setting up an “automatic chain” of investing can remove friction, reduce decision fatigue, and maintain consistency over time.

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What People Commonly Do After This Series

Watching a video series is a great start. Knowledge only becomes wealth when it leads to action. Here are the steps people who’ve engaged with content like this commonly take next.

1. Audit their current financial position

   A common first move is mapping out what’s coming in, what’s going out, and what debt (if any) exists. Understanding savings capacity is foundational to everything that follows. The MoneySmart budget planner is a free tool many people use to do exactly this.

2. Define a simple goal and time horizon

   People who invest with a clear purpose tend to stay the course more easily during market dips. A common approach involves writing down a specific goal, which makes decisions easier and keeps the emotional noise down when markets become volatile.

3. Research ASIC-registered brokerage platforms

   Most investors use an ASIC-registered brokerage to access the share market. People commonly compare platforms on fees, investments available, and features. ASIC’s Financial Services Register allows you to verify a broker’s licence before opening an account.

4. Make a first small purchase

   Research on investing behaviour consistently suggests that starting small beats waiting to start big. Many investors make an initial purchase at a modest amount simply to learn the mechanics and experience the process first-hand. The amount matters far less at this stage than developing the habit.

5. Set up a recurring contribution system

   Behavioural finance research suggests that automating contributions tends to outperform manual investing in terms of consistency. People who set up a recurring transfer and investment schedule remove the need to make a fresh decision each month, and that consistency, compounded over time, is where most of the work actually gets done.