Some Investment and Savings advice needed....

elstimpo

Hi Everyone,

When it comes to saving and investment, i'm pretty much a novice and like to keep things simple. I have quite a lot of property investment which will act as my pension and inheritance for my children.

I am currently looking to do two things;

1)
a) Put £12k into either an easy access investment fund / savings account.
b) Put the same £12k into an investment fund / savings account for a fixed 6 month or 12 month period.

2) Start an account where i place £100 per month into it, that i won't touch and will grow and provide me children with money for their higher education when they are 18.

Could anyone please kindly take the time to offer some advice as to what the best options are for the above. I've looked at a company called Hargreaves Lansdown but i'm afraid it's not my forte.

Many Thanks

Lokolo

1) If you have no emergency funds, do a)

2) Good idea.

HL do investments, but they are a DIY company, you pick the investments. So a mistake can be costly. But your only other option is an IFA, who will obviously charge. We can obviously help you learn about investing but there is a lot to learn.

Svenena

I agree that 2) is a good idea. If you want advice on 1), we need a bit more info. What is this money for? Do you need access to any of it? How long can you leave it untouched for? You mention both savings and investments, which are two different beasts. Generally, if you need the money in the short-term (say within the next 5 years), savings are better, as investments can fluctuate, and if you need access to them early, you may not get all of your capital back. However over the long term, investments beat savings hands down. You mention 6 months to a year. Is there any particular reason for this?

Have you thought about NS&I Index-Linked Certificates? They are guaranteed to beat inflation if you can hold them for at least a year, which is better than most savings accounts available, and you're not putting the capital at any risk.

jimjames

1a/b

6/12 months is far too short a period to put money into investments unless you are running an extremely high risk strategy. There is no reason why you can't do it as most investment have no minimum holding period but the chance that the fund may have dropped is much higher than holding an investment for 5 to 10 years.

For this type of requirement a savings account is the only real option. Be careful specifying a fixed term, there are a number of people who post here after doing so and need their money before that time is up.

Geopulse

I think option no.2 is the best one, only if you prolong the time period. As you are a novice in th field of investment, so in such a short period of investment, you will not be able to make some good earnings out of the investment.