Halifax ShareBuilder advice - do you use it?

jamescl

I have paid off all my credit cards and overdraft, I am left with 2 outstanding loans which I need to save to pay off.

I've decided that I'm going to save £100 per month in a cash ISA and £100 in shares each month via ShareBuilder to go towards ending loans early in about a years time.

I'm going to try and spread my investments to minimise risk.

***

Anyone else use ShareBuilder?

When it comes to selling the shares it says there is a fee of £5 for smaller stock. Is this per investment in each company?

If so I would be better off not having too many separate shares in different companies? otherwise I could end up paying a lot in £5 fees?

I guess it's striking a balance between fees and spreading investment to reduce risk?

Any advice on the whole scenario above appreciated:)

jimjames

jamescl wrote: »

I have paid off all my credit cards and overdraft, I am left with 2 outstanding loans which I need to save to pay off.

I've decided that I'm going to save £100 per month in a cash ISA and £100 in shares each month via ShareBuilder to go towards ending loans early in about a years time.

I'm going to try and spread my investments to minimise risk.

***

If you want to spread your investments to minimise risk then avoid buying shares directly. A better and cheaper way to minimise risk would be to invest in a fund or series of funds via an ISA from a fund supermarket then you don't have the cost of buying shares each time. I use Hargreaves Lansdown but Halifax may also offer funds.

When do you need to pay off the loans? It may not be the best option to invest to pay them off depending on timescale.

jamescl

Thanks for the advice, I've checked the penalties on the loan and it would benefit me to pay them off early.

1 has 24 months left (car loan) and the other about 28 months (personal loan). I aim to pay 1 off first in a year meaning I'd pay it off a year early and then the other 6 months later, taking roughly a year off the period of that one too.

I want to enjoy saving by having a bit of fun by doing stocks, but do it in a way which means I shouldn't lose much in the worst case scenario.

Half of my savings will be totally secure in a cash ISA at £100 PM

Half would then be put in to the Halifax sharebuilder at £100 PM

Saving money is hard, so I thought it I would be more willing to save if it meant I enjoyed it, and I like the idea of the challenge of seeing if I can make the shares outperform the ISA as an experiment.

Worst case scenario is I lose *some* money and have to wait a few more months before I pay off a loan!

Best case scenario I pay off a loan a bit early!

I'd be interested in opinions and experiences with anybody else that has done the same or that has experience of sharebuilder.

It does seem to miss out information in the tutorial and faq that I would like to know like:

It says there is a minimum of £20 deposit per month, but what happens if you don't do this 1 month?

Also detail on the costs of selling the shares.

Oh and by the way you can also invest in funds via sharebuilder too.

uptomyeyeballs

Halifax also offer a Self Select Stock ISA and you can buy for £1.50, same as Sharebuilder account. Sharebuilder investments can be suspended at will, and you don't have to invest the money you fund it with immediately. Selling shares costs £11.95 per trade. I use it all the time. It's very flexible.

jamescl

Sorry uptomy...

When you say £11.95 per trade, can you sell your stock in multiple companies for £11.95 or it is £11.95 per company you have invested in?

Thanks,

jimjames

jamescl wrote: »

Sorry uptomy...

When you say £11.95 per trade, can you sell your stock in multiple companies for £11.95 or it is £11.95 per company you have invested in?

Thanks,

A trade is a sale of one company shares regardless of how many, if you sell 2 companies shares it is 2 trades and therefore 2x £11.95

If its only £100 of shares you are selling then thats over 10% of the investment gone in costs

pqrdef

Isn't it £5 a trade?

pqrdef

jamescl wrote: »

It says there is a minimum of £20 deposit per month, but what happens if you don't do this 1 month?

Nothing. You can invest as irregularly as you like. You can vary the scheduled suck-in (by debit card), or you can skip that and fund the account manually.

ozzage

It's £5 to sell up to a value of £250 and £11.95 over that. You're going to eat away at any potential profits if you try to actively trade small amounts.

The idea behind the sharebuilder is really to do regular investments building up your portfolio, rather than actively trading (ie designed to just keep buying more and more for the long term, rather than buying and selling to make a quick profit on each share).

I use it and like it, but I'm not generally selling at all (just a couple of times per year).

sabretoothtigger

If you buy 20 pounds of share for 1.50 cost then sell it for 5 cost, it will have to rise over 66% just to break even. That would be like BP shares going from 487p today to 809p
Thats going to take a long time to happen and you'd make no money except from a dividend


See iii for a profit calculator gadget and it'll keep you realistic. Some shares can rise 66% in fact bp did that since june but not now in my opinion


Funds will let you buy for no cost on the other hand. Not really tradable though

jamescl

Great, sorry for the long delay getting back to the thread!

I'm planning to buy a minimum of £100 in each share, but some shares I will buy £200 or more. I'm going to fund every month and then sell some in about a year or so and then start funding again.

Thanks for all the help and I'm looking forward to getting started now as January payday approaches !