Finally, I have done it. (S&S ISA)
- Thread starter SpokeyDokey
- Start date
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Eric Olthwaite
Guest
When you say "the returns seemed so minor" are you referring to a Cash ISA or a Shares ISA? Returns are on average far better on the latter than on a savings account - but of course that comes with volatility, which not everyone wants.
Just curious: you mention property, but only 8% in the stock market sounds very low to me: where is the
Cash savings accounts? a sure fire way to lose buying power over anything more than short term! I speak through the experience of us being daft enough to to lock into some cash ISAs a few years back....a lot of stock market growth missed out there, even bearing in mind the wild last 12 months.
Now at the point of stepping away from the day job: my main advice to the younger me would have been to have made more of S&S ISAs 20+ years ago. Gives a certain flexibility to access.
My other advice to people would be to take an interest in this stuff. Failure to plan is planning to fail
Sure, many ‘outsource’ their long term finances to advisors. If so, please be sure they are Independent, if you do that, & I personally have great cynicism for any company with “wealth management” in their name....always feels like it is their wealth they are managing. Remember that their fees will be taken regardless of how well your money grows (or shrinks!).
Whilst I realise not everyone has time or interest in finance, I still maintain that you will never have anyone as vested in your financial well-being as yourself.
There is a wealth of information available nowadays compared to even 20 years ago. Peruse MoneySavingExpert forums....browse MrMoneyMustache, hop onto the Finance sub forum at Pistonheads....ask questions.....
As to what to invest in: a decent starting point would be “the World at the lowest cost”.
Have a browse at the videos by Lars here for some wise words
For basic stuff, Vanguard LifeStrategy are decent, very low cost if you do them direct. Our offspring have LS100 running along. I suspect their future selves will thank me for helping encourage it (I view our regular donations as them getting inheritance money early
)
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
The latter.
OP
OP
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
I will do my best @Drago
In around 3 weeks it has risen approx' 2.1% or around £440.
Really it's too short a time period to get excited about and obviously it will bounce around as these things do.
I am encouraged that the US economy (like the UK economy) is also now predicted to grow rapidly in the near future as some of the underlying holdings are US.
Very easy platform (A J Bell) to set up - won't take you long if you fancy it. PM me if you go for it and need any help setting it up.
Nice App' too - open and use your fingerprint on your phone to get an instant update.
OP
OP
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
Just curious: you mention property, but only 8% in the stock market sounds very low to me: where is the
Cash savings accounts? a sure fire way to lose buying power over anything more than short term! I speak through the experience of us being daft enough to to lock into some cash ISAs a few years back....a lot of stock market growth missed out there, even bearing in mind the wild last 12 months.
Now at the point of stepping away from the day job: my main advice to the younger me would have been to have made more of S&S ISAs 20+ years ago. Gives a certain flexibility to access.
My other advice to people would be to take an interest in this stuff. Failure to plan is planning to fail
Sure, many ‘outsource’ their long term finances to advisors. If so, please be sure they are Independent, if you do that, & I personally have great cynicism for any company with “wealth management” in their name....always feels like it is their wealth they are managing. Remember that their fees will be taken regardless of how well your money grows (or shrinks!).
Whilst I realise not everyone has time or interest in finance, I still maintain that you will never have anyone as vested in your financial well-being as yourself.
There is a wealth of information available nowadays compared to even 20 years ago. Peruse MoneySavingExpert forums....browse MrMoneyMustache, hop onto the Finance sub forum at Pistonheads....ask questions.....
As to what to invest in: a decent starting point would be “the World at the lowest cost”.
Have a browse at the videos by Lars here for some wise words
For basic stuff, Vanguard LifeStrategy are decent, very low cost if you do them direct. Our offspring have LS100 running along. I suspect their future selves will thank me for helping encourage it (I view our regular donations as them getting inheritance money early
You make some good points.
The reason the stock market investments are so low is that I am ultra-cautious! Probably too cautious if I'm to be totally honest.
We have a Vanguard LS80 plus two private pensions that are the stock market element.
The rest of our savings are in Cash ISA's and Fixed Rate Bonds - these used to return a very good income but, as you know, are pretty poor value these days. We currently average a (slowly declining) 2.11% across the board with them. Some are locked at 3 -7 years which I am comfortable with re lack of instant access.
We also have some business investments that we are in the process of unwinding after serving us very well. These will need a new home hence the toe in the water S&S ISA project.
Like many people (I guess) I was too busy with work to properly attend to maximising the potential of our finances - sounds a bit feeble retrospectively but hey-ho!
Also when we were first together (my wife and I) we were both newly divorced and had a mortgage to clear that we didn't really want to have hanging over us at that age (thirties/forties) and we initially concentrated our efforts on killing it asap - that was more important than saving and investing then.
Without wishing to be crass I had a high salary by the end of the 90's and into the noughties when I finally called it a day with 'corporate'and my wife was also earning well and to be blunt we are not strapped for cash and it will not be possible to spend what we have. I guess this position didn't exactly necessitate us to seek the best returns possible especially with my risk adverse nature. Sounds daft writing that down but there you go.
Really the S&S ISA foray is driven by the irritation of the extremely low (artificially so imo) returns that we are currently receiving.
Whatever we make (or even lose although I doubt this long-term) is, in effect, what will one day be the kids money; although they are lousy money managers and I daresay not all of it will be well spent.
Chap sur le velo
Über Member
- Location
- @acknee
Finally got my Daughter to do what I should have done years ago.
Tonight she opened an ISA with Vanguard. It took 20mins. All she needed was her NI number and her bank details. Last year her inheritance from her Maternal Grandparents earned her 24p from the bank. She's very cautious by nature but she has time on her side and agreed to invest in shares. This way profits wil be tax free. (NB be ware that it's highly unlikely that enough profit will be earned in one year to reach Tax levels but long term this is the way).
NB I am NOT a Financial Adviser but she went to Vanguard because Dad told her that Warren Buffet said that's where his wife should put the money he left her as it had the lowest cost for tracking shares. Buffett said go with the US stock market as a sure bet, but wise girl said she'd diversify a bit on the world stock markets. An accumulator fund meant Dividends will be reinvested. Thankfully Vanguard have limited choices so it was easy.
PS I say again I'm NOT qualified to give advice I'm just passing on what my daughter decided today. Other excellent providers are mentioned above.
Good luck.
Tonight she opened an ISA with Vanguard. It took 20mins. All she needed was her NI number and her bank details. Last year her inheritance from her Maternal Grandparents earned her 24p from the bank. She's very cautious by nature but she has time on her side and agreed to invest in shares. This way profits wil be tax free. (NB be ware that it's highly unlikely that enough profit will be earned in one year to reach Tax levels but long term this is the way).
NB I am NOT a Financial Adviser but she went to Vanguard because Dad told her that Warren Buffet said that's where his wife should put the money he left her as it had the lowest cost for tracking shares. Buffett said go with the US stock market as a sure bet, but wise girl said she'd diversify a bit on the world stock markets. An accumulator fund meant Dividends will be reinvested. Thankfully Vanguard have limited choices so it was easy.
PS I say again I'm NOT qualified to give advice I'm just passing on what my daughter decided today. Other excellent providers are mentioned above.
Good luck.
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OP
OP
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
@Drago
Vanguard Life Strategy 80 - 5 weeks return on £20k / 2.75% / £550
A J Bell Ready Made - 5 weeks return on £20k / 3.08% / £616
***
Since opening these have done well so far although we realise that these investments will bounce around over the years and that they are a long-term investment. Ergo we are not exactly mega-excited more like encouraged.
Over the course of the next year we will, subject to performance and holding our nerve (!) we have decided to increase our exposure to 20% of our total non-property assets in these S&S ISA's - this will be a big step for us.
The ball is rolling with Vanguard we now have a monthly drip set up.
And with A J Bell we will start the ball rolling re further investments with 3 increases to current funds (7 in total) in the Portfolio and by adding a US biased fund in the light of current Stateside optimism re economic growth post-pandemic. We'll be doing this next week.
***
I am not an IFA and your money may be at risk!
***
Have you set anything up yourself yet?
Vanguard Life Strategy 80 - 5 weeks return on £20k / 2.75% / £550
A J Bell Ready Made - 5 weeks return on £20k / 3.08% / £616
***
Since opening these have done well so far although we realise that these investments will bounce around over the years and that they are a long-term investment. Ergo we are not exactly mega-excited more like encouraged.
Over the course of the next year we will, subject to performance and holding our nerve (!) we have decided to increase our exposure to 20% of our total non-property assets in these S&S ISA's - this will be a big step for us.
The ball is rolling with Vanguard we now have a monthly drip set up.
And with A J Bell we will start the ball rolling re further investments with 3 increases to current funds (7 in total) in the Portfolio and by adding a US biased fund in the light of current Stateside optimism re economic growth post-pandemic. We'll be doing this next week.
***
I am not an IFA and your money may be at risk!
***
Have you set anything up yourself yet?
OP
OP
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
We selected a ready made Stocks & Shares ISA portfolio based on our risk profile (fairly adventurous) that contained 7 underlying funds.
You can then add cash to your a/c and it will be automatically be distributed across the underlying funds according to the original proportions upon opening (as determined by A J Bell) or you can apportion it as you wish to each fund.
You can also add funds or bin funds ie buy or sell. There is plenty of fund advice on the site plus it is easy to find fund advice online too.
Much easier than it may sound.
I also like the ease of account access too on Mobile - just open the App and use your biometric of choice to open the a/c.
I was panicking a bit last March also, I was weighing things up and knew that if I did pull out of equities, it would be really hard psychologically to go back in again in such a turbulent market. 2 days before NYC called a state of emergency and Italy was in a VERY bad way, I moved my entire fund into cash. Then about 3 weeks later put it back into equities (this was a VERY hard thing to do as I knew I wasn't going to sleep well for a while).
I was lucky, very lucky and I do not recommend what I did to anyone. I did sleep better while my fund was in cash, but I did summon the courage to re-invest in what was a very scary time - who knew how bad it was going to get?
All told my pension fund is about 2% higher than it would have been had I just left it (I know this as my wife's fund is with the same company so I was able to use hers as a control). Would I do it again? Nope, leave it be. If I had not been so lucky (being careful with my language here - I DID NOT TIME THE MARKET, it was luck) it could have lost a lot more than 2% through missed opportunities as the markets recovered.
Thanks for that. I'll have a proper look over the weekend.
Kajjal
Guru
- Location
- Wheely World
This is a very difficult decision for anyone with so much invested and not used to making this type of decision. A very honest description of the situation most face in any investment where capital is at risk.
Being so close to retirement I had quite a lot at risk, I knew the minimum sum I needed and that was the figure I didn't want to drop below, so that's why I did it. Still highly not recommended (both from a risk POV and health!)
