Some help needed please - Halifax Savings & Investments - could I be doing better?

Regularguy_3

Hi gents/ladies,

I'm new to this site - I thinks it's great that there are users out there helping one another - well done! There's so much information here and after flicking through 100's of pages, I thought I'd post a question to get some opinions.

I had been saving with the Halifax into a normal book style savings account for until 2007 - after finishing university, I sat down down with a Halifax FA and they took me through some options. Below are the options and their current value:

Savings:
Monthly Saver - £600
Guaranteed Saver - £5K
Investments:
ISA Investor - £15k
Collective investment - £6.3K
PHP - £6.8k

I stopped saving into them in Oct 2008, but kept the accounts open in order to monitor their performance - to date, my investments are currently just about breaking even (although they were really down in 2008/09) - I know the market has had a direct effect on the investments, but I just feel like my money could do better elsewhere and TBH, I have no faith in Halifax FA's!!

Has anyone had a similar experience or can anyone offer some advice? Some pointers would be greatly appreciated - I'm relatively young and as I have a baby on the way, I feel I need to tighten the ropes and increase the vigilance on my money...

Thanks in advance and apologies if this is something that has been hammered umpteen times.

Hope you're all having a great weekend.

debbie42

What is the interest rate on the two savings accounts?
Also, what exactly are the products you have invested in? e.g. is the ISA investor a self select option, or one of their managed funds?

Also, what do you want to do with your savings and investments?

dunstonh

TBH, I have no faith in Halifax FA's!!

You shouldnt do. They are there to sell their own product range and its a pretty poor selection.

I just feel like my money could do better elsewhere

Whilst you havent mentioned what your investments are, Halifax ones are mostly rubbish across the board. So, its a fair guess your feeling is correct.

its impossible for us to say to you what is best as we know nothing about you. Plus, investing is very much based on opinion. However, one thing we all agree on is that using Halifax is a bad idea.

Regularguy_3

Thanks Debbie, thanks Dunstonh... in response to your questions...

The savings accounts I opened to have some easy access funds and I was sold the investments as a better return on my money over a longer period of time (i.e 5 years) - however, the investments aren't looking great - I'm thinking that I may have had a better return with putting money in a Regular Savings account and switching year by year.

With regards to the % return on the savings, I believe they are as follows:

Monthly Saver - 0.5%
Guaranteed Saver - 5%

The investments are managed by Halifax Fund management and are classified as:
ISA Investor - Medium to Adventurous investor
Collective investment - Medium to Adventurous investor
PHP - Medium to Adventurous investor

I'm half inclined to go into my branch and withdraw my money while the going's good, and tell them how crap they are!! I've heard some horror stories with people losing thousands.

Moving forward, I'd like to get as much "bang for my buck" as possible...Your thoughts guys?

Thanks once again for your responses - greatly appreciated.

dunstonh

I'm half inclined to go into my branch and withdraw my money while the going's good, and tell them how crap they are!! I've heard some horror stories with people losing thousands.

Losing thousands is not grounds for anything wrong. Over the last few years people lost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands and there is nothing wrong with that. Investments zig zag in value. Always have, always will. You have to average out the good with the bad.

Your ISA, if you cash it in will be lost forever. It is transferable though and that would be a better option as you retain the ISA benefit. Also, if you keep invested and see a real adviser (as in IFA) or decide to DIY, then you can "bed & ISA" the unwrapped collective investment into an ISA each year so the whole lot ends up in the ISA.

JamesU

Regularguy wrote: »

The investments are managed by Halifax Fund management and are classified as:
ISA Investor - Medium to Adventurous investor
Collective investment - Medium to Adventurous investor
PHP - Medium to Adventurous investor

Halifax S+S ISAs are aweful (funds choice, high costs, no cash account for locking in gains, inlflexibility of transfer etc) and can be a pain to sort out. Have been helping to sort one out this year, and a thread here with some of the issues encountered with another OP in a similar position. Worth a read regarding choice of options on the ISA side of things. Post 17 a bit of a summary.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2376521

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=31465905&postcount=17


JamesU

frapptree

JamesU wrote: »

Halifax S+S ISAs are aweful (funds choice, high costs, no cash account for locking in gains, inlflexibility of transfer etc) and can be a pain to sort out.

Hi James,
after reading this thread, I would be interested in your comments on my situation.

I have a Halifax stocks and shares ISA Investor.
I invested as follows:
Oct 08 £7,200
Dec 09 £7,200
April 10 £3,000

The ISA is currently worth £20,174 (Aug 10) so has made £2,774.

I also have a Personal Investment Plan Med/adventurous.
I invested as follows:
Feb 09 £5,000
Dec 09 £20,000

This investment is worth £27,174 (Aug 10) so has made £2,174

I'm no financial wizz, so i thought that these investments were doing ok, bareing in mind the current economy. What do you think, should i have got a better return?

When I hear all these negatives about the Halifax, I wonder if my money would have been better placed elsewhere?

Do you think that it is worth transfering now, to someone else?
I find all this very confusing as there are so many different places to invest and so many people with different advice!

I look forward to your reply and thanks for reading.

Lokolo

The first one is OK. Not great. A simple return is 13.7%. Which is OK. depends how much risk you wanted to put in. Currently my simple return is 19.5% and I started investing in Jul 2008 (£100 a month) until August 2009. Although one of my investments hasn't been doing too great (I still have faith though!), if I hadn't had that then my return would be up into the 30%s.

The second one is a bit better. But its quite hard to determine how well given the short space of time from the investment periods.

So, you could do better, but the funds could have done a lot worse.

Do you know the costs involved? Initial cost and AMC?

alanq

Regularguy wrote: »

With regards to the % return on the savings, I believe they are as follows:

Monthly Saver - 0.5%
Guaranteed Saver - 5%

According to Halifax the current rates are 2% and 0.5% respectively.
http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/comparealloursavingsaccounts.asp

dunstonh

I find all this very confusing as there are so many different places to invest and so many people with different advice!

Correct. There are so many different places to invest. However, Halifax only offer a very limited selection and operate under a sales process to sell their rather poor quality investments. You basically eliminated the whole of market options to go with investments that have a similar position in the market as Tesco value products have for food quality.

You will always get differences in opinions over advice because how to invest is about opinion. However, a good generalisation most will agree on is that you should never invest through a bank or building society (unless they work for a bank).

No-one can predict the future and what will be best. However, generically, you wouldn't expect Halifax to ever be up there consistently.