Set up a new Pie in the Trading 212 SIPP today — and this one feels particularly satisfying because it's funded by cutting something I don't even miss. Two less coffees a week. That's it. The money I'd otherwise hand over for a couple of flat whites now goes into a diversified, automated ETF Pie every single week. Four funds, 25% each, working away quietly in the background while I get on with my day.
Let me walk through the Pie and the thinking behind each slice.
── The Pie Structure ──
Trading 212 Pies let you build a portfolio of investments with percentage allocations, then invest into the whole Pie at once. The platform distributes your money across the holdings according to your targets. It's essentially a DIY fund — you set the recipe, the platform does the cooking. For this Pie I wanted broad diversification across geographies, market caps, and sectors, with a modest tech tilt and a meaningful emerging markets allocation. The result: four ETFs at 25% each, auto-invested weekly.
── VWRP (25%) — Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF (Acc) ──
VWRP is familiar territory. It's the accumulation version of the FTSE All-World index, covering roughly 4,000 companies across developed and emerging markets — large caps and mid caps, from the US and Europe to Asia and Latin America. At 0.22% OCF, it's not quite as cheap as VUAG's 0.07%, but the diversification is broader. VWRP gives this Pie its global anchor. Whatever happens in any single country or sector, the VWRP slice means the Pie always owns a piece of everything. It's the boring, sensible, not-going-to-keep-you-up-at-night core. 25% feels right — enough to anchor the Pie, but leaving room for the more targeted slices to do their work.
── WLDS (25%) — iShares MSCI World Small Cap UCITS ETF (Acc) ──
This is the interesting one. WLDS tracks the MSCI World Small Cap Index — roughly 4,000 smaller companies across 23 developed markets. These aren't the household names. These are the companies that might become the household names in 10 or 15 years, plus a lot of solid, profitable businesses that simply aren't large enough to make it into the main global indices.
Why small caps? Historically, over very long periods, small-cap stocks have outperformed large caps — the 'size premium.' The academic research (Fama & French, and many others since) shows that smaller companies, on average, deliver higher returns than larger ones over multi-decade periods, as compensation for higher risk. Is that premium still there? There's debate about whether the small-cap effect has diminished in recent decades, but I'm comfortable with a 25% allocation. Even if the premium has shrunk, small caps provide diversification away from the mega-cap concentration that dominates the S&P 500 and even VWRP these days. When the top 10 companies in a global index are all US tech giants, owning a basket of thousands of smaller businesses from Japan, the UK, Germany, Australia and beyond feels like genuine diversification — not just more of the same.
── CNDX (25%) — iShares Nasdaq 100 UCITS ETF (Acc) ──
CNDX tracks the Nasdaq 100 — the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange. In practice this means: Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Broadcom, Tesla, and so on. It's a tech-heavy index, and that's exactly why it's in the Pie.
I already own the S&P 500 through VUAG and the whole world through VWRP. Adding CNDX at 25% tilts the Pie toward the companies that are, for better or worse, driving the global economy's digital transformation. I understand the concentration risk — the Nasdaq 100's top 10 holdings make up a significant chunk of the index. But I want this Pie to have a growth orientation alongside the broad diversification, and CNDX delivers that in a simple, low-cost wrapper (0.33% OCF). The Nasdaq 100 has outperformed the S&P 500 over most long-term periods, and while past performance doesn't predict the future, the structural trend of technology eating more of the economy feels like it has further to run.
── VFEG (25%) — Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets UCITS ETF (Acc) ──
VFEG tracks the FTSE Emerging Markets index — companies listed in China, India, Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea, South Africa, and other developing economies. The index covers large and mid caps, and the accumulation version reinvests dividends automatically. VFEG is relatively new — Vanguard launched it as a replacement for VFEM, with a broader index and more holdings.
Emerging markets have been a frustrating trade for most of the last 15 years. The US has dominated, and EM has underperformed — weighed down by China's regulatory crackdowns, property sector troubles, and economic slowdown. So why put 25% here? Because reversion to the mean is real. Because valuations in emerging markets are significantly lower than in the US right now — not a market-timing signal, but a long-term expected-returns tailwind. Because some of the fastest-growing economies on earth — India, Indonesia, Vietnam — are still underrepresented in global portfolios relative to their economic trajectories. And because the whole point of a diversified Pie is to own things that aren't all moving in the same direction at the same time. When US tech takes a breather — and it will, eventually — emerging markets might be doing something different. That's diversification working as intended.
── Two Less Coffees ──
This is the bit I genuinely enjoy. The entire Pie is funded by cutting two coffees a week. Let's do the maths: two coffees at roughly £3.50 each is £7 a week. That's about £30 a month — or roughly £365 a year. Invested weekly at a 7% real return, that becomes about £5,200 after 10 years, roughly £15,500 after 20, and about £36,000 after 30 years. From two coffees a week.
I'm not saying never buy a coffee. I still buy coffee — I enjoy a good flat white as much as anyone. But there's a difference between buying coffee because you genuinely enjoy it and buying coffee because it's a default habit you've never questioned. The two coffees I cut were the default ones — the 'I'll grab one because I'm walking past' coffee, the 'it's 11am and I'm bored' coffee. The ones I didn't especially want or enjoy, I was just buying them because I always did. Those are the ones funding the Pie. The coffees I actually savour? Still very much in the budget.
This is the Buy Less Crap philosophy in microcosm. It's not about deprivation — it's about being intentional. Cut the stuff you don't value. Redirect the money to something that compounds. Let time do the rest. Two less coffees a week, four ETFs, one Pie, decades of compounding. That's the whole game.
── Why a Pie? ──
A few reasons. First: automation. Once the Pie is set up and the auto-invest is turned on, I don't have to think about it. Every week, the money goes in, Trading 212 distributes it across the four ETFs according to the target percentages, and I get on with my life. No decisions, no second-guessing, no 'should I buy more of this or that today.' The Pie removes me from the process — and removing myself from the process is, historically, the best thing I can do for my returns.
Second: the percentages keep me honest. If CNDX runs up 30% and VFEG falls 10%, the Pie's auto-invest feature directs more of each contribution into the underweight slices to bring them back toward target. That's essentially automated rebalancing — buying low, selling high, without me having to make a conscious decision. It's a built-in discipline mechanism, and discipline is what investing success actually runs on.
Third: it's satisfying. There's something genuinely rewarding about watching a Pie grow week by week, funded by a small lifestyle tweak that cost me nothing in terms of happiness. Every time I open the app and see the Pie ticking upward, I'm reminded that wealth isn't built by grand gestures — it's built by small, repeated, almost boring decisions that compound over time. This Pie is that principle made visible.
── The Risks ──
CNDX is tech-concentrated — if the tech sector has a bad decade, that 25% slice will drag. WLDS gives small-cap exposure, which is more volatile than large caps and can underperform for long periods. VFEG carries emerging market risks including political instability, currency volatility, regulatory uncertainty (especially in China), and liquidity concerns. VWRP is the steady anchor but still carries equity risk — in a global bear market, all four slices go down together. This Pie is diversified but it's not a hedge fund. It's 100% equities, and equities are volatile. That's the deal — you accept the volatility in exchange for the long-term returns.
As always: this is what I did with my own money. Not a recommendation. All investing carries risk — you can lose money, and past performance doesn't predict future returns. Individual ETFs carry specific risks including market risk, currency risk for UK investors, concentration risk, and liquidity risk. WLDS is a small-cap fund — small companies carry higher risk than large caps. VFEG carries emerging market risks. CNDX carries sector concentration risk. Trading 212 Pies carry platform risk. Do your own research.