Need ideas how to build up long term savings for pension

shaquk

Hi, I have currently a share saving with HSBC worth around £10,000, but their Portfolio Managers have lost in the past 3 years about £1,500 of my cash i put in, so i am actually in negative equity. i just dont see this going anywhere, so i want to start saving the money somewhere more safely, where i get guaranteed returns.

I also want to start save regularly between £500-£750, so that i can build up some serious cash, when I actually retire.

I want to have some tips to save money. I must admit I havent sued my Cash ISA allowance in the past few years (part of the £10k with HSBC are in a share ISA), so i know that the cash ISA will be the first place i will want to fill up before April.

However, what do i do with the rest? How do i save best to build up some big pot without always having to worry to move funds. I would sacrifice 1% at this time to save myself the hassle to look for a new place to move my funds every 12 months. (This will change obviously once the 1% is worth more money).

I dont really want to go invest into long term pension funds, as they require a longer term view (10-20 years) and due to the nature of my job I might move to Asia or US someday.

Any suggestions? The key is safe place to put my money with good guaranteed returns without worrying about moving them every year. Easy access to money would be a plus, but not necessary.

opinions4u

See an IFA.

Seriously, this is what they exist for.

Don't see a bank.

CLAPTON

there are no good guarenteed accounts that you can leave for 20 years

savings (not investment) options give you a guarentee you won't loss the nominal value of your money but inflation will erode it unless you get an interest rate at least equal inflation

the government inflation linked savings gave 1% plus inflation but these are now closed.

no investment can guarentee a return

shaquk

I went to see an IFA (well thats what he was sold to me as) at my local HSBC branch and thats why i am in the mess with loosing money in low to medium risk Equities in past three years.

Does anybody has any good recommendations for who to see in the London area (ideally city)? I am not a millionaire with huge investment pot, but surely want to get somewhere soon as I am expecting my half year bonus soon (in Oct) which will be a good cash amount (around 10k).

[Deleted User]

if the financial advisor is linked to a bank he's not going to be independant. You should get in touch with one that is independant of banks and other financial institutions. A HSBC financial advisor is only going to aadvise you on HSBC products.

dunstonh

I went to see an IFA (well thats what he was sold to me as) at my local HSBC branch and thats why i am in the mess with loosing money in low to medium risk Equities in past three years.

HSBC IFAs are not indpendent IFAs. They have sales mangers, sales targets and when look at what they recommend it seems more panel based and they still recommend things like the HSBC world selection portfolios which no "independent" would touch. They meet the criteria to be called IFA but in reality, they do not work like one. HSBC also have tied agents who only sell HSBC products. They are not IFAs. Chances are that you didnt see an IFA.

It doesnt matter what type of adviser it is, you should never get advice from a salesforce.

See an independent IFA. Probably best to avoid city locations as they will likely be priced better for higher net worth clients and not lower net worth individuals. Plus, city locations will have higher overheads and costs which will be reflected in the charges.

thats why i am in the mess with loosing money in low to medium risk Equities in past three years.

Why is that a mess? That is to be expected. Equity investing is not for 3 year terms. You know its going to zig zag. You know you are going to be negative periods. You cant take all the good years without having some of the bad. This is why its a long term view where you average out the good and the bad.

bendix

shaquk wrote: »

I went to see an IFA (well thats what he was sold to me as) at my local HSBC branch and thats why i am in the mess with loosing money in low to medium risk Equities in past three years.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Where to start . . where to start?

jamesd

What are the investments that you have with HSBC? Their exact names.

There's a general rule for savings and investments: the greater the amount of up and down movement you're prepared to accept, the greater the expected long term gain is. So one of the first things to do is decide how much you're willing to compromise your gains to get the level of up and down movement that you're willing to accept. So, how much downward movement in a bad year or few years are you willing to accept, knowing that this i directly related to how much money you can expect to make? 0% (and losing money due to inflation), 10%, 20%, 30% (a common choice), 40%, 50%, more?

Mols

I also saw an 'Independant' advisor at HSBC and started my pension and S&S ISA with them.

I have been learning more about these types of products over the past few months, saw a few local IFA's and chose one I was happy with and it's all been moved across to products which are more flexible and hopefully will perform well for my future.

The most surprising thing I found with the HSBC products were the charges. I was paying 4% which explained why the products seemed not to be performing as well as I had hoped.

jamesd

One easy way to avoid the 4% initial charge is Hargreaves Lansdown online. They aren't always the best but they are easy to use.

DireEmblem

Is this thread not the kind of thread of people that dont get that shares should really be held for the long term to ride out the troughs?

Diversity/consistancy is usually the key is it not?

Myself, I am doing my own investment plan, i have a pension through work which I contribute to a lot, and I'm planning of saving more each month now, 40% Cash, 40% equity, and 20% bonds. The Equity investment is for long term, bonds for medium term, and the Cash will likely go in 12 month saving schemes, so that I can save up for a deposit when I eventually need it.

I dont think anyone can really advice/speculate if you should keep your funds where they are without knowing the names of the funds they are invested in, and even then people will be predicting trends to see if keeping oyur money there will be worthwhile.