---
title: 'I Invested $5 a Day for 1 Year, This Is How Much I Made'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=hEreQRqY334'
video_id: 'hEreQRqY334'
date: 2026-07-22
duration_sec: 1154
channel: 'Mark Tilbury'
---

# I Invested $5 a Day for 1 Year, This Is How Much I Made

> Source: [I Invested $5 a Day for 1 Year, This Is How Much I Made](https://youtube.com/watch?v=hEreQRqY334)

## Summary

This video documents a one-year experiment where the creator invested $5 per day using a tax-advantaged account and automated investing in an S&P 500 index fund. The final result was a 43.8% return, turning $1,505 into $1,972, demonstrating the power of consistent investing and dollar-cost averaging.

### Key Points

- **The $5-a-Day Challenge** [00:00] — Skipping daily Starbucks and investing $5/day could yield nearly $1.6 million in 45 years. The creator addresses common doubts and sets up a one-year test.
- **Platform Requirements** [01:22] — Key features: low fees, simplicity, FSCS protection (up to £85,000), low minimum deposits, automatic investing, and fractional shares.
- **Choosing Trading 212** [03:28] — Trading 212 meets all criteria. The creator uses it for the challenge, emphasizing the importance of account type (tax-advantaged vs. general).
- **Tax-Advantaged vs. General Account** [04:09] — Account B (ISA/Roth IRA) shields dividends and capital gains from tax, while Account A (general) is taxed. For long-term investing, tax-advantaged accounts are superior.
- **Setting Up the Account** [07:18] — Steps: open account, use promo code TILBURY for up to £100, fund with £35 initial deposit (to cover a week).
- **Picking Investments: Index Funds** [09:21] — Instead of individual stocks, the creator chooses a Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (Acc) for diversification and automatic dividend reinvestment.
- **Automating Investments** [12:53] — Set up autoinvest of £5 daily into the pie. This removes emotion and leverages dollar-cost averaging.
- **One-Year Results** [16:22] — Total invested: £1,505. Final value: £1,972. Profit: £467.03 (43.8% return). Despite early losses, consistency paid off.

### Conclusion

The $5-a-day challenge proved that consistent investing, even in small amounts, can yield significant returns over time, especially when using tax-advantaged accounts and automated investing. The key takeaway is that time in the market beats timing the market.

## Transcript

by skipping your daily Starbucks, or resisting the temptation and instead invested it
in 45 years you'd have nearly $1.6 million. and while many people are amazed
can grow into a fortune, The first is, "I don't want to save. The second, "I don't wanna be a millionaire
And the third, "What kind of investment After hearing these doubts time and time again, to the test once and for all?
to show you that investing $5 a day and can lead to real measurable returns. how I'm setting up my investments.
to reveal my results one year later. a whole year will have passed, Before we start, remember, I'm not a financial advisor.
to become a millionaire investor. For this investing challenge, when it comes to what I'm looking for in a platform,
these are the things you'll want to keep in mind too. The first thing, of course, is low fees by unnecessary charges.
Although I'm confident with complicated investing terms, that wanna try out this challenge will be put off So we need something that's simple to understand.
What's the point of investing if my money isn't safe? by the financial services compensation scheme. This compensates you for up to 85,000 pounds in the UK
However, bear in mind this protection doesn't protect you that accepts pretty low minimum deposits Next, we need some kind of automatic investing feature
to invest $5 every single day without automating it. but my boomer brain is getting pretty old. Finally, we'll need access to fractional shares.
without needing to fork out hundreds of dollars For example, Apple is, as of August, 2023, which clearly doesn't work with our $5-a-day budget,
we can invest any amount we want, no matter how small. However, these things are my non-negotiables. feel free to use whatever platform has these features.
and one of my favorites is Trading 212, as it ticks all of these boxes. for this challenge.
which is to open and fund an account. there's one key decision that many people overlook, or break your long-term results.
And if you are taking on the $5-a-day challenge like I am, of account you choose will determine how much Let me explain.
For now, let's call them account A and account B. Now, let's imagine we've got $2,000 to invest.
So $1,000 goes into account A, At first, everything looks the same. but here's where things start to change.
your profits aren't entirely yours to keep, First, he takes a slice of your dividend earnings. Now, not all companies pay them, but many do.
depends on your income and tax bracket, Next, he takes even more for capital gains tax. for more than you paid for it.
In the UK capital gains tax is typically 10 to 20%. range from naught to 20% based on your income level. Well, this account has special protections
and taking your profits. That's because account B is known Meanwhile, account A is just a general investing account.
you shouldn't even be looking at a general investing account of everything a tax-advantaged account has to offer. Well, it depends on where you live.
are called stocks and shares ISAs, Both of these special accounts come but there are a few things to keep in mind.
to 20,000 pounds per year into an ISA. are capped at $6,500 each year
or $7,500 if you're over 50. allowing you to build your future The ISA allows you to withdraw money at any time tax free,
isn't necessarily a bad option, it often falls short when it comes to maximizing your money. isn't available where you live,
a general investing account. because when we pull the money out of this box As I mentioned earlier,
but for this challenge, That's why I've asked my son Curtis to step in If you also want to set up an account
or download their app from the app store. The only part you might need a bit of clarification on You'll be met with four options like this.
we spoke about earlier. Underneath is a CFD account for short term trading, At the bottom is the cash ISA.
This is the account I'd open if I were you. head over to this tab and select use promo code,
and enter T-I-L-B-U-R-Y, TILBURY, worth up to 100 pound when you fund your account. but they're offering this
to see if they'd be interested in sponsoring this portion So next, let's fund the account. You'll see a few options including instant bank transfer,
If you're using the iPhone app, I believe you'd also have the option of Apple Pay as well. and deposit 35 pound from my son's bank account
for the next seven days. for an entire week ahead in one go. and yes, I know the title says $5 a day,
which is actually just a little bit more. is assuming that once they put some money their money will automatically start to grow.
This box only protects your money from tax. That's why step three is to pick some investments.
This is all about deciding what actually goes into the box. So we could fill it with individual stocks, like Amazon, Meta, Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia.
putting all your money into a handful If one of these companies doesn't perform well, That's because your money is tied up
and that increases your risk. and you might have guessed it already. This will give us exposure to loads
of picking individual stocks and praying for a winner. sometimes even thousands of different companies at once.
of companies all at the same time, Now, here's the best part. What makes this even more powerful is that it's going right
So not only do I get the benefits of diversification but I also get to avoid paying taxes on dividends This is perfect for my $5-per-day challenge.
that stocks can go up as well as down, and your capital is always at risk when investing. in an index fund like the S&P 500,
of the top publicly traded companies in the United States, no one has lost money when they've bought Past performance isn't a guarantee of future results,
but long-term investing in diversified funds like this Let's head over to Trading 212, you can see this option to create a pie.
like copy and model pies, and creating your own custom pie. how your investments are divided between different stocks.
and split it equally between four individual stocks, your pie would have four equal slices of 25% each. and click Add Instruments.
I'm gonna search for a simple Vanguard S&P 500 index fund. One has Acc in brackets, are reinvested back into your investments.
but has Dist in brackets at the end, that you are given a dividends reinvested into your account.
So for me, I want this challenge to be as easy as possible, Now, I'm gonna click Add to pie. and decided what to invest in,
investing a fiver every single day. of the hate towards this challenge comes from people imagining the effort it takes to do this every day,
That's why step four is to set up auto investing. It's essential for any investor,
This is because it takes your emotions out of investing Let me explain. is that it's completely unpredictable.
Sometimes the market will be going up. and then there are times it'll be going down. because prices are lower.
letting me pick up more shares at a discount. And when the market is up, my $5 buys fewer shares these ups and downs balance each other out,
It's been such a reliable and stress-free strategy for me to time the market perfectly. by investing the same amount every single day,
and still see the same results. Let's go back to Trading 212 and click Next. to invest manually or use the autoinvest feature.
and then click Next. The first one is our initial deposit. so I'm gonna set this to five pounds.
As you can see, you can do this every two months, but we're gonna select the daily option and press Update, and then we're gonna change this to five pound, too.
And as you can see, which shows us what we can expect 1,970 pounds may not seem super impressive
but if you move that slider all the way to 40 years, This value projection says our could be worth 5.52 million
from an investment of only 73,000 pounds. and if I were you, I'd take this with a grain of salt, with these compound interest value projections
So let's bring it back to one year and click Next. So I'm gonna call it Coffee a day,
Now it's time to fund the pie. and as we've already funded the Trading 212 account, This isn't free money.
So as long as we top this account up every now and again, Then, I just need to press Confirm, So a year from now, hope I'm still alive.
(upbeat music) I know I'm about five months late on this. You just forget it's investing in the background.
They're really interesting. I started this challenge back in August, 2023, two pounds and 37 pence,
Not bad, but then September came along, I was actually sitting at a loss of 79 pence,
This right here is why so many people give up on investing. I had almost nothing to show for my consistency.
when they don't see immediate results. with my dollar cost averaging strategy, because things really started to turn around.
and I was up 83 pounds and 70 pence, Not too shabby. I'd made 161 pounds and 34 pence in profit
That's where the autoinvesting feature stopped, Now, it's jump to today. In total, I've invested 1,505 pounds,
but my investment is now sitting at 1,972 pounds. of 467 pounds and three pence, and that works out at $576.59,
which is a staggering 43.8% rate of return. that time in the market beats timing the market. after losing some in a second month
I'd never have reached this point. It's down to the wild year the stock market has had. that these results are not typical,
I'm thinking about continuing this challenge long term If that's something you'd like to see, If you wanna learn more about how I pick my stocks,
but don't click on it just yet. Okay, I'll see you over there.