DIY Tax-Free Investing was written in 2007 as a practical exploration of one simple idea: that tax efficiency matters more over time than almost anything else an investor can control.
At the time, tax-free investing was often treated as an administrative detail rather than a structural advantage. The book set out to correct that imbalance, focusing less on market prediction and more on process.
The central arguments were straightforward:
- fees compound negatively and quietly erode returns
- expensive platforms and intermediaries rarely justify their cost
- low-fee, simple structures outperform complexity over time
- patient investing inside tax-free wrappers often beats larger, taxed investments
The book also explored the advantages of investment trusts, particularly when purchased at large discounts to net asset value — a structure that allows patient investors to benefit from both asset performance and discount narrowing without increasing risk.
What the book got right was enduring:
- that fees, not volatility, are the long-term enemy
- that platform choice matters far more than most people realise
- that disciplined use of tax-free accounts can outweigh tactical brilliance
It avoided grand claims and focused instead on structural edges available to ordinary investors willing to think in decades rather than months.
Commercially, the book was modest. It was never written with scale in mind. Its real value was personal: it helped clarify my own thinking at a time when I needed coherence more than confirmation.
As with my other early work, I later removed the book from sale. Investing frameworks evolve, regulations change, and I didn’t want a novice investor encountering outdated material and acting on it without context.
The book served its purpose.
It fixed a way of thinking in place — one that has continued to shape how I approach investing long after the text itself was retired.
