How DIY investing helped me go from council flat to coastal cottage

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hen a cabinet minister (in this case Liz Kendall) predicts that “tomorrow’s pensioners will be poorer than today’s”, it is time to paddle away from what she called the “tsunami of pensioner poverty” and become a do-it-yourself investor. Relying on the kindness of strangers is a recipe for disappointment, whether they are paternalistic employers or kindly politicians recycling other people’s money.

So this DIY investor is jolly glad that I began buying shares more than 30 years ago, when, in the 1980s, millions of ordinary people enjoyed making money out of the stock market. Privatisations were priced to go — do you remember, Sid? — and the flotation of financial institutions such as Abbey National and TSB delivered windfall profits that helped to turn small savers into serious shareholders.

The work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has sent out an SOS message over pension saving

THOMAS KRYCH/ZUMA PRESS WIRE/ALAMY