new to investing - S&S ISA?

dunstonh

can't believe that no-one here has mentioned the Stakeholder Pension scheme to you. You should at least consider that as an alternative/addition to regular S&S ISA investments.

Mainly as stakeholder pensions are not usually the best option. They are not usually the cheapest option and dont contain a wide investment choice. Typically its only small amounts where they are still beneficial.

At £100pm a personal pension is likely to be more cost effective. Especially if using tracker funds.

momist

I've just noticed this is an older thread, but would like to hear if you did anything in the end? Also, this may help others reading here.

penny-counter wrote: »

I sought advice from an IFA a few months ago, and he did a risk profile with me, and we discussed options.
<snip>
To be honest the IFA didn't contact me again for months and doesn't really sound too keen to help me now for some reason, so I thought rather than find someone else I would post on here first to get some ideas.

And

penny-counter wrote:

If I go down that routeI think I would need an IFA (to explain it to me like you would to a 5yr old) - has anyone out there started from scratch and invested in this way themselves?

Now I may get shouted down here, but the IFA didn't get back to you because you never gave him business that he could get commission on, and couldn't see himself doing so in the future. If you volunteered to pay him, he'd likely charge you £250 an hour, but he'd really prefer the 5% commission out of your money AND the kick-back from the funds he sells to you. (Apart from dunstonh).

To answer your question, at least I have gone the DiY route recently, having invested in S&S ISAs for myself and my wife via Cavendish/Cofunds at a charge of £25 each. It was scary at first, and much slower to do than you might imagine for an internet based transaction, but now seems very good. I took 5 funds for each of us, to further diversify the managed OEICs we were putting the money into, and they've already gained £200 in the first two weeks! :T (I expect losses from that position imminently.)

Do some more research and go for it!