Savers - a call to arms!

Cleaver

lostinrates wrote: »

Cleaver, I think you'd be surprised how unsavvy some people are. May parents? Their work pensions, a few Premium bonds,cash, one (or two?) of those endowment policy things, which would probably be better used to line a cat litter tray, their house. Not so much as an ISA.

My Dad is the same. He's recently sold his house and I would guess that with his savings he has around £400,000. Most of this is sitting in cash savings accounts. When I try and talk to him about it he says he 'doesn't understand all this fancy finance stuff'. What he actually means is that he can't be bothered to read up about it and / or pay someone to do it for him. He's really happy to moan about how he's being screwed over by low interest rates though and how someone should do something about it. Can't quite make him see that that person could be him though.

It's a bit like moaning about how you would love to eat some cake, but you don't have any cake to eat. Someone suggestes either making your own cake or going out and buying a cake. But this takes effort, you can't be bothered, so you'd rather just moan. The end result is that you don't get any cake, and it doesn't really matter whose fault that is.

I think I'm a bit harsh on this subject. But IRs are what they are, so either choose to do something about it or don't.

This time three years ago I was clueless on the subject of finance, but I read a few books, asked some people for advice (many through here) and set out a simple strategy. I'm certainly no expert on how to manage finances (probably below average in fact) yet my simple savings and investment plan has returned around 11% a year for the past three years. This includes money in very safe boring places, some boring funds, some not so boring funds and some stupidly risky and heart stopping AIM oil shares that sometimes make me sing with joy and other times make me want to weep tears of hate.

Cleaver

IronWolf wrote: »

£50 a month is a good SKY package!

Now there's a great oxymoron.

lostinrates

IronWolf wrote: »

£50 a month is a good SKY package!

A horse's keep, maybe even two good doers.

ILW

A thread last week suggested that if all those with deposit accounts decided to withdraw 20 or 30% of their savings, the whole banking system would collapse.

Cleaver

ILW wrote: »

A thread last week suggested that if all those with deposit accounts decided to withdraw 20 or 30% of their savings, the whole banking system would collapse.

If the financial world collapsed every time a thread on here suggested it would collapse then we would have more financial world collapses than a game of jenga on a bouncy castle.

System

If you rely on savings income aren't you.... bone idle and should get a job instead

*dangles rod*

lisyloo

Do we? We let people walk away from all manner of debts.

Please remind me of the responsibility we place on borrowers.

I am struggling to think of 1.

Fair enough CloudCukooLand.
I was really referring to the moralising I see on these forums and others, but I accept your point.

However I do think savers have to take responsibility for their financial decisions.
If they chose only one type of asset class and take shortfall and inflation risk then they have to accept responsibility for that.
The situation of low rates is not their fault, but many of them have done nothing to protect themselves from it.
They haven't gone for a balanced portfolio or bought an inflation-proofed product.
I appreciate that many of them have been brought up within a certain culture, have certain expectations and a certain education, but by the same token they live in a free democracy and are free to pick up a book any time they like.

LydiaJ

Cleaver wrote: »

This time three years ago I was clueless on the subject of finance, but I read a few books, asked some people for advice (many through here) and set out a simple strategy. I'm certainly no expert on how to manage finances (probably below average in fact) yet my simple savings and investment plan has returned around 11% a year for the past three years. This includes money in very safe boring places, some boring funds, some not so boring funds and some stupidly risky and heart stopping AIM oil shares that sometimes make me sing with joy and other times make me want to weep tears of hate.

Learning new stuff is a lot easier when your brain is young, like yours. You'll find acquiring new skills and knowledge a lot harder when you're over 80, Cleaver, especially if you can't see or hear as well as you used to, and your memory is not what it was.

Loughton_Monkey

Cleaver wrote: »

If you have a serious amount of money (let's say £100k+) then you wouldn't dream of having this as cash, you'd have it invested in something that protects it.

Or am I being a bit harsh? If you have £250k and you want to live off the income then cash savings is, and has never, been the correct route to take in my opinion. I'm not saying you should blow the money on AIM oil shares, but you have to take some risk.

Really? So imagine the uproar if an IFA went round to a 'woopie' [Well off old pensioner] with £750K of 'cash' to invest, and told him to put 100% of that in the Stock Markets (or even Bonds/Gilts etc.)

That's the trouble you see. The older you are, the more you need to keep to cash.

StevieJ

LydiaJ wrote: »

Learning new stuff is a lot easier when your brain is young, like yours. You'll find acquiring new skills and knowledge a lot harder when you're over 80, Cleaver, especially if you can't see or hear as well as you used to, and your memory is not what it was.

His dad won't be happy with you