Hello and welcome to The ups and downs of an amateur investor. I'm a self-employed professional in my late 40s.

My aim with this blog is to chronicle my investments over the coming weeks, months and years in an entertaining and educating way, and hopefully make lots of money in the process! Well, I can dream, can't I?

My only previous experience with investing is with some bank shares my parents bought for me, which I think I sold after the stock market crash of 1987, when they were practically worthless. Ouch! The situation was very similar to the recent Irish banking crisis.

Fast forward to 2015 and I've been a loyal Bank of Ireland customer since 2006. In that time I have earned precisely zero cents in interest and to add insult to injury they are also now charging a number of nasty fees.

I opened an ICS Building Society savings account with Bank of Ireland a few years ago. In the beginning the interest was not too shabby but it deteriorated to a pathetic 0.25% in the end so I closed it earlier this year.

I had been wanting to open an account with RaboDirect (RaboDirect.ie) for some time, as they paid 1.5% in interest from the first cent, now reduced to 1.25%, and after submitting my ID a few times (they require a signed, stamped and dated copy), my application was successful.

Another thing I liked about RaboDirect was that they were offering easy access to funds. The great thing about funds is that they consist of a collection of shares, so you gain diversification, which is important in order to reduce risk. The not so great things about funds is that you are charged an entry fee, an annual management fee and an exit fee, typically 0.75% for entry and exit and 0.5% to 1.5% for annual management.

Nevertheless, I studied the funds on offer and invested 1400 euros in 10 different funds between the end of July and the beginning of September 2015. As of today, they're worth a little over 1300 euros. I've lost money on all of them. As I bought them as a long term investment I intend to hold on to them at least until I have recouped my money.

For some time I have also been interested in investing in shares but have always been put off by the fees charged by the brokers. That is, until I discovered DeGiro (www.degiro.ie), whose commission rates are a lot lower than the other brokers I have come across. Not only that, but they also don't charge any maintenance fees or fees if you don't trade every quarter, like some of the other brokers do. Finally, I had found a broker for the rest of us.