How are you doing compared to everyone else?

🔸 Plus: “What if you left it too late to start investing?” The classic question answered, again 🔸 Bar bosses can’t skim your tips anymore 🔸 A woman says she’s addicted to Rightmove 🔸

Your 2-minute guide to demystifying money and making you richer

The markets, year-to-date

• S&P 500: 5,815.03 ⬆️ 22.61%

• FTSE 100: 8,253.65 ⬆️ 6.89%

• Bitcoin: $63,126.50 ⬆️ 41.81%

• GBP to USD: $1.3067 ⬆️ 2.67%

• GBP to EUR: €1.1957 ⬆️ 3.69%

• As of market close on Friday

Comparison is the thief of joy. But let’s do it anyway!

Back in 2012, the UK government changed the law around pensions in a way that offered every employee in the country a chance to start gaining serious personal wealth.

The law introduced “automatic enrolment” in workplace pension schemes. From 2012 onward, every worker now receives the tax breaks and matching payment benefits of a pension plan — unless they affirmatively opt out.

The law was introduced because fewer and fewer employers were offering pension plans, especially the kind of “defined benefit” (DB) pension that paid you a percentage of your salary for life after retirement. Only one in 10 private sector workers is now in a DB scheme. DB plans now barely exist outside the p…