IFA - pay fees or commission?

Nine_Lives

jem16 wrote: »

Use a docx to doc converter such as this.

http://www.doc.investintech.com/




The amc is one of the main questions plus the total initial fee. You might also ask about costs for annual reviews but until you get your fund to at least around £20k it's probably not needed.

You might want to think about how much you feel you would need in retirement and ask about what it would take to get you to that goal.

I've tried a few websites, including that one. They either don't return to my E-address as they say they would, or the site times out (like the one you gave) or if i download a converter program it just doesn't work.

As for how much i'll need - that's something i've been thinking about, but i don't know the answer to. I earn £18500 (approx) at the moment. It's enough for me to "get by" on. I don't have the life i'd like, as far as spends go, but i can get by like many other people do.
But as i'm 28, i'll be retiring in around 40 years time. In 40 years time, £18,500 will be worth a much different amount than what it's worth today ... which makes my answer to that question even harder.

Hopefully the IFA would be able to calculate what my answer would be in 40 years time (i.e. if i said £14k, then it may be £14k if i retired today, but in 40 years time, it'd surely be more than this).

I hope that makes sense.

gadgetmind wrote: »

I do wonder as so called professional organisations that send documents out in closed proprietary formats that don't work for many people.

PDF, guys, PDF, or if you can't manage that, RTF.

Agreed. PDF would've made things so much easier. The first file format was .doc, so this would've worked also, but across the board PDF is what i would expect.

jem16

K_P83 wrote: »

I've tried a few websites, including that one. They either don't return to my E-address as they say they would, or the site times out (like the one you gave) or if i download a converter program it just doesn't work.

I'll convert it if you like. Send me a pm with your email address.

Or use the official MS converter.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=3

But as i'm 28, i'll be retiring in around 40 years time. In 40 years time, £18,500 will be worth a much different amount than what it's worth today ... which makes my answer to that question even harder.

The IFA can work it out based on "today's money".

gadgetmind

K_P83 wrote: »

In 40 years time, £18,500 will be worth a much different amount than what it's worth today ... which makes my answer to that question even harder.

You need to work in "today's money" term. As the real return (after inflation) of equities/bonds tends to be about 4%, inflation tends to fall out of the equation.

However, at 28, you need to be making sure that whatever you can afford to invest (in pensions and ISAs) is invested wisely in balanced assets with LOW fees. The various layers between you and the companies that actually create the wealth want as much of that 4% as they can get their hands on. Perhaps I'm greedy, but I'd rather have this income in my pocket!

Nine_Lives

I've just re-read their response to me:

"the fee to complete a financial fact find and then produce the report wouldbe £300."

So to complete an assessment of me and produce the report this information generates me costs £300. I get that much.

However, what about the part where my cash money gets invested in [insert what IFA recommends here]? Would this be part of the £300, or would this be in addition to?

Meeper

I would imagine that this would be in addition, but you should ask them specifically to be sure.

dunstonh

£300 isnt a lot and is in the range of factfind and report only. You need to ask them what the cost for any implementation would be if you follow the advice.

property.advert

K_P83 wrote: »

The information i gave in my above post is the information i received via email. There were 2 documents attached. One was a "client agreement" which i could read, but the other was titled "SCDD direct investment & pensions" which i couldn't read as it was in .docx format.

http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Office_2010_Professional_Plus-details.aspx

£37.89 for 2010 Microsoft products and no, you don't have to be a student yourself.

property.advert

gadgetmind wrote: »

I do wonder as so called professional organisations that send documents out in closed proprietary formats that don't work for many people.

PDF, guys, PDF, or if you can't manage that, RTF.

Whilst you are right that .pdf would be the preferred form, a MS Word document is hardly an unheard of format is it ?

property.advert

Extrapolating out £200 a month over multiple decades to get to near a million after compound growth doesn't address the point which is that many people simply won't pay £600 for a £100 a month investment as per the OP.

Where is average Joe, the £25k a year guy, going to find £600 to pay someone to start a pension for him ? He's more likely to have a £600 car to get him to work and back each day only to wonder how he's going to survive rampant food and fuel increases and zero wage inflation. And he ain't trading in his car for a pension.

xylophone

"Average Joe, the £25k a year guy"- perhaps he can pay enough into his pension to become eligible for tax credits etc....;)