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That sounds pretty awesome. I had to dig deep to get all of this information and it took a couple of months of research. I'm 100% sure you will help A LOT of people with this That at the end of the day is the goal. This platform as one purpose and that is to become the educational hub for South Africans interested in finance and the Average Joe, because one way we can make a major difference in the future of this country is by enabling more and more people to get into a position of knowledge where they can take control of their own finances. Like you say this will take some deep digging, I am by no means a financial expert. I am a educator more than anything else so I will have a lot to learn and learn and learn and research, but I am determined to create this guide and with the help of EasyEquities and Magda just a message away I am confident that it would be something worth while to put out there once completed. I will probably bounce a few questions of existing members here on the forum as well as part of the research. For example slightly unrelated but on the Wills thread that Mr Yellen pointed out one thing started to stand out to me and that is the POLL, that poll its a small demographic but even in this small community the results is still shocking seeing that the majority does not have a will in place. That is the sort of things I want to address as well with the investing and savings aspect. Especially this thread (What do you use to manage your finances) and this thread (Budgeting) it touches on something that I also quickly realized not many South Africans are on top of their expenditures and just general "Where has my money gone" so something I want to address in this guide is sort of "The Fundamentals of Household finance" practical examples of how to track and save money how to know what money goes where and how to build up an emergency fund. All in all, A lot of work ahead.

I think the best would be to rush 1 through 3 so you can start with 4 as soon as possible so you can take advantage of the power of compounding. For example, if you invest R1,000 and earn an average 10% return annually, your investment will grow to R1,100 after the first year. After the second year, you won’t just earn another R100 but R110, for a total of R1,210. And the third year you will earn R121 for a total value of R1,331. On a small scale, this doesn’t seem like much, but assume you invest R1,000 per year for 30 years and average a conservative 8% return. Instead of having R30,000 in a checking account, you will have accumulated more than R132,000. Compounding returns are critical to investors because they allow you to turn small principal contributions over a long period of time into large nest eggs. Keep in mind that Albert Einstein called compounding interest “the most powerful force in the universe.” So in essence how to start investing rush till 4. Maybe we should have some beginner course on how to invest similar to what we have going here: https://www.platinumwealth.co.za/forum/Thread-Part-1-Wills-and-Testaments-101-Gather-information with the guide on how to create a will by creating a scenario for a dummy user. With the likes of easyquities making it available to start out really small it would be ideal to create a tutorial for new comers perhaps bundle it up for a more diversified offering by including an Unit Trust from the likes of Sygnia, after reading what @Magda Wierzycka had to say I realized it’s time to move my unit trust across from my existing broker. @Platinum Wealth perhaps you can contact easyequities and ask them to allocate a dummy account for you or a member willing to do this then you take screenshots and guide the user step by step through the process. Seems Sygnia is willing to engage on the forum so same to them ask them if they are willing to help mainly by demonstrating what the process would be to open an account and what sort of account access you will get and how the “dashboard” looks like and create some form of balanced scenario for the average joe who does not earn top 1% figures. I see 22seven being mentioned here on the forum perhaps that should be included if Sygnia can be synced up with 22Seven like easyequities can. Perhaps the beginners guide should be focused around a core etf portfolio since the etf in itself would be more diversified and less prone to fluctuations compared to a single stocks portfolio the idea here being to get average joe in the right mindset since a lot about investing is a mindset as well and he has to be trained shown what swings can happen.