By Dr. Ndubuisi “Andy” Egwim – MBBS, former NHS Salaried GP, author of The Moneywise Doctor.
Moneywise Doctor provides financial education, not regulated financial advice.
One of the easiest ways to lose money is investing money that shouldn’t have been invested in the first place. The time horizon on your money, not just the investment itself, determines whether investing is the right decision. Money you’ll need within a few years carries different risks to money you can leave untouched for decades. After 21+ years of investing and teaching over 4,400 doctors about investing, I see this mistake surprisingly often. You can choose a perfectly sensible investment and still get the decision completely wrong.
This guide walks through why time horizon matters more than picking the “best” fund, using a real example from a doctor in our community.
A doctor’s £20,000 house deposit question
A doctor in our community recently raised a question about £20,000 he’d set aside as part of a future house deposit. The stock market had been doing well. He kept seeing people online talking about their returns. His friends seemed to be making money too. FOMO kicked in, and he felt like he was missing out.
His question was essentially this: why leave £20,000 in cash when investing it could bring a better return? It’s a fair question. But if he needs that £20,000 in 18 months and the market falls 30%, he suddenly has £14,000 just when he needs the full amount. The investment wasn’t necessarily the problem. The time horizon was.
Why the question “when will I need this money” matters more than which fund to pick
Money serves different jobs depending on when you need it. Money for emergencies has a job. Money you’ll need soon has a job. Money you can leave invested for many years has a different job entirely. Matching the money to its job comes before choosing where to put it.
There’s a flip side too. Money set aside for a newborn child’s future, or for retirement decades away, has a very different time horizon to a house deposit needed in 18 months. Keeping everything in cash avoids market volatility, but over decades, inflation and lost potential growth carry their own risks.
What this means for your own investing decisions
Investing isn’t simply about finding the “best” stock or fund. It’s about matching time horizon, risk, and liquidity to what you actually need the money to do. Sometimes the sensible decision is not to invest. Sometimes taking too little risk over a very long period carries risks of its own. Same money, different job, different considerations.
Where to go deeper on this
If this question, when to invest and when to hold cash, is one you’re currently working through yourself, I’m running a live Investing Masterclass this Saturday built specifically for doctors.
Moneywise Doctor Investing Masterclass + Live Q&A for Medics. 90 minutes, completely free.
We’ll cover:
- SCRUBS: the six foundational steps doctors should understand before investing
- Investing when you’re a busy doctor
- Risk appetite versus risk capacity
- Index funds, stocks, bonds, and diversification
- ISAs, SIPPs, and tax-efficient investing
- Building a long-term strategy you can actually stick with
I’ll also stay on for your questions afterwards. Places are limited to 150 doctors, and spots are going quickly.
Save your place: Moneywise Doctor Investing Masterclass
A free, live 90-minute session covering the six SCRUBS foundations of investing, risk appetite versus risk capacity, and how to build a strategy you’ll actually stick with, plus a live Q&A.
Register here: https://lnkd.in/gJAPcdFF
Related reading
Check your financial blind spots
The MEDSCAN is a financial diagnostic system designed specifically for doctors.
It helps you:
- Identify hidden financial gaps
- Spot risks before they become costly
- Uncover opportunities hiding in plain sight
Take the MEDSCAN here.
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