Ten years ago you could get more than 5% interest on your savings without trying too hard.
That's almost unheard of now, with the best instant-access account paying just 1.3%.
All this means that if you want to make money on any cash you're lucky enough to have been able to save, you have to take on some risk or get lucky with Premium Bonds .
But while returns on savings are at best tiny, the stock market has been setting new record highs .
And that's just the headline numbers. Because buying a share of a company also means you can get a share of any profit it makes.
And that means you could make even bigger returns.
If you'd put £100 a month in a cash account over the past 10 years, you'd now have £12,105.23.
If that had gone in the markets you'd have £15,837.37.
But if you'd also taken the share of profits issued by your stocks - known as dividends - and re-invested that as well you'd have now have £19,382.41, Fidelity International calculated.
10 years of saving £100 a month - what you'd have now
Source: Fidelity international, share figures based on £100 a month invested in the FTSE All Share
That difference gets even bigger the longer you hold the shares.
"Over very long periods, almost all the gains from investing in the stock market can be attributed to the reinvestment of dividends," said Tom Stevenson, investment director for Personal Investing at Fidelity International.
"The earlier you start, the more time you have to benefit from the returns on both the money you have initially invested as well as the returns and dividends you have earned on that starting amount.”
How to buy shares
The first thing you need is a share trading account. The good news here is that they're fast to sign up to.
Top UK brokers that let you buy shares include Hargreaves Lansdown , IG , Interactive Investor , the Share Centre as well as established banking brands like Halifax and Barclays .
Once you have one, there are two main ways of buying shares. You can either pick them yourself, or pool your money with others in a fund.
These let you choose to buy shares you pick yourself directly or put money into funds.
What fund to buy
There are two main sorts of fund.
Firstly, ones that employ managers who choose which stocks to hold based on what sort of fund it is - such as one that only buys UK shares, focuses on ethical companies only or shares designed to pay regular incomes.
Secondly, ones that simply track something else - for example the FTSE100 index, tech companies or small firms.
Tracker funds generally charge you a lot less in fees, but mean you don't have a person looking at each share before including it.
Of course, that isn't necessarily a bad thing - given people make mistakes - but you can generally check how well your fund and it's manager have done in the past before you decide to buy in.
While past success doesn't mean it will continue, it will at least give you more information about how they performed compared to their peers before.
Can't someone else do it for me?
If all that seems to hard, there are also platforms that like Wealthify , Moneybox and Nutmeg who do all the work for you.
You simply answer a couple of questions about things like how long you plan to save for, and how much risk you want to take with your cash and they do all the rest.
Of course, this service comes at a cost, but it's frequently not far off the cost of putting money into one of the more expensive funds.
Choosing shares yourself
You can avoid fund and money management fees if you pick the stocks yourself - but that doesn't mean it's free to do either.
Stock brokers charge a fee for carrying out a transaction, while some also charge for holding the shares for you (known as a platform fee).
You can compare the costs here .
Once you're signed up - and the process can be completed in a few minutes - most brokers let you start dealing straight away.
Where to keep the shares
You can choose to open a standard dealing account, or hold shares in an ISA.
The advantage of using an ISA is that profits from share price rises are tax-free.
If you don't need the cash anytime soon, you could also look at a Lifetime ISA or SIPP.
With a lifetime ISA you get 25% added to all the money you put in (up to a maximum of £4,000), but can only take it out to buy a house or after you turn 60.
With a SIPP (which stands for self-invested personal pension) the Government pays in an extra 20% in pension tax relief.
But - like any pension - you won't be able to get at the money until you're at least 55 - and you might be taxed on the cash you withdraw.
The 5 golden rules for investing
The only way to pick a perfect share or fund, is to go back in time. But, that doesn't mean you have to guess.
We spoke to Laith Khalaf, senior analyst a broker service Hargreaves Lansdown, for his top tips to investing successfully.
Here are his 5 golden rules to making money from shares:
1. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
If you invest all your savings in one company, then your nest-egg is entirely reliant on its performance, and if it hits the buffers, so will your wealth.
By investing in a number of different companies you reduce the impact of one poor performer on your overall portfolio, because hopefully the others should pick up the slack.
One way to achieve simple diversification is to invest in a fund, which itself places money into a number of different companies.
For instance the Legal & General UK Index fund is a low cost option which tracks the performance of the whole UK stock market, or more specifically the index known as the FTSE All Share, and so the fund invests in around 650 different companies to achieve this.
If you hold a fund like this as the core of your portfolio, you can them supplement it with individual companies of your choosing, while having your eggs spread across a large number of different baskets.
2. Think long term
In the short term the stock market can go in either direction, and so you should only be investing money that is to be tucked away for at least 5 to 10 years.
In the longer term the stock market is more reliable though, and a longstanding Barclays study dating back to 1899 shows that over 10 years the stock market has beaten cash 91% of the time, while over 18 years it has beaten cash 99% of the time.
It’s important to have a cash buffer as an emergency fund and for short term spending needs, but for longer term savings you should seriously consider investing in the stock market to build your wealth.
3. Accept the troughs and the peaks
Markets don’t go up in a straight line, and somewhere along the line there will be price falls, potentially dramatic ones.
It’s important to be braced for these if you are investing in the stock market, and not to panic and sell out when these happen, they are simply part and parcel of investing in the same way there are times when market prices increase very rapidly.
Indeed when stock markets have fallen its usually a good time to top up your investments- in most markets buyers flock in when prices fall to pick up a bargain.
4. Invest regularly
By investing regularly you can smooth out the ups and downs of the stock market because your money buys in at different price levels.
You can set up a regular investment plan by saving as little as £25 a month, and because this goes out of your bank account like clockwork, you don’t have to worry about market timing or overspending money that you intend to save for the future.
5. Invest tax efficiently
As ever the more you can keep the taxman off your savings and investments, the better. You can invest in the stock market through an ISA or a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension), both of which protect you from capital gains tax and income tax on profits and dividends, and are legitimate tax shelters which are recognised by HMRC.
This simply means more of your money is working hard for you, instead of falling into the taxman’s coffers.
