Rock safe investment?

Thanks for considering us all a bunch of crooks. Every industry and profession has duff or dodgy people. It doesnt mean you should tarnish everyone with the same brush. Based on my recent experience, if i was to take you view, that would make every mechanic, shop assistant, doctor, nurse and teachers a bunch of crooks.

Rock safe? Stick 100k of 20s in the bank safe and insure it.

Nat Savings is almost as safe but be wary that some of their savings are paid gross of tax but will have to be declared on your tax return giving you a bill at the end of the tax year.

I do not want to buy an annuity because it would really annoy me were I to buy it one week and die the next.

If you are dead, I doubt your annoyance about money will last long.... ;D

I suppose index-linked gilts might be an option (anyone know if these are still available)?  Safe, and protected from inflation.  Not a great return, but rock-safe doesn't give great returns.

Use your mini-cash ISA allowance (and your spouse's, if married).  Abbey Postal ISA has the best rate of return right now.

You don't trust IFAs but you trust a bunch of people on the internet?

Ask everyone you know if they know of any good, trustworthy IFAs.  There are some out there.  No, I wouldn't trust any one that comes along.  But it is not unlikely that someone you know knows a good one.

Alternatively, you can take the time to really educate yourself.

Another option is to set up appointments with four different IFAs to see what they recommend.  If their recommendations differ, ask them why.  Ask each one what is wrong with the advice the others gave, and why their advice is better.  Chances are good that you will be able to tell who is stringing you along and who is being straight with you.

Then, post back here and we can put in our comments as well, if you want.

But eventually, you are going to have to make your decision.

For even better advice look up the article on this site:

Making your savings maximise their earnings
and open the link
'the savings fountain'

I completely disagree with Paul666.

A SIPP is the last place most people should put their money and certainly someone who doesn't understand investments, given that most funds and investment are accessible through personal pension or stakeholder policies for lower fees. It also ties him into buying an annuity which he says he doesn't want. Also he cannot contribute that much to any pension (including a SIPP) because it will breach the contribution limits, so would have to contribute over a number of years.

SIPPS are only useful for very specialist portfolios, and I am not convinced that most of those few people who have specialist portfolios actually need them. A normal personal pension or a stakeholder usually allow you to invest in cash/bonds/property funds and so on if that is what you want to do.

Finally, hanging around on fool.com is not a good way for people to learn investments. While some of the people there are intelligent (I pop in from time to time ;D) most obviously do not have a clue what they are doing. This is not a critism of fool particularly, as the same applies to most investment information boards. They attract people who are looking for an easy buck and those that believe that they can choose investments by studying past company or fund performance information. They also do not represent a reasonable sample of results because people tend to post when they are ahead but very few people post when their chosen investments are performing badly, misleading the casual reading into believing that selecting your own outperforming investments is easy.

If anyone is interested, if you ever want to see real idiots pretending that they know about investments, pick up a copy of "Professional Adviser" magazine, a magazine that caters for the "investment advice professional". If that doesn't start you questioning your IFA's recommendations, nothing will.

By all means hang around fool for the general advice provided, but don't touch the investment related boards.

I completely disagree with Paul666.

Gosh!
I didn't think my comment was too far off target given the thin information available. I tend to regard SIPP's as a more flexible retirement vehicle for people with large amounts to invest. I'd not suggest it if I thought the original poster was going to use it to buy 100k's worth of a single company share. However, I'd suggest that since most people don't have 100k to invest, that they investigate stuff that most people wouldn't use. I've got a nice little stakeholder myself but if and when the pot is huge I'll investigate the SIPP option more thoroughly. There's nothing to stop a SIPP investor investing in 'safe' stuff like fixed income or cash which are often more difficult in a high street stakeholder.

As regards the fool, yes there are some complete muppets on there but the main purpose of the site is to educate and inform and as a source of balanced information I think it has no equal. The chat boards are lively and often amusing and the articles are often thought provoking. There is also good advice about styles of investing

I'd agree that anyone visiting the fool for only a short period of time might get some very bad advice but as with most open conferencing systems you need to visit often and ask a few questions before you start getting a general feeling about the site and the ability to to make up your own mind about where the quality information is.

I'd regard this board as more unreliable than the fool since posting a message here doesn't require any kind of signup.

I'd like to hear any suggestions about alternative forms of money planning/investement advice you know of apart from IFA's (let's not go there eh?) or books (that tend to go out of date pretty quick)