In-laws £30k savings - can anyone help please?

margaretclare

innovate wrote: »

S&S ISAs should only be considered if you have a medium- to long- term investment horizon (5+ years, I'd say). Not sure I would recommend to 65+ year old people, with no apparent prior investment experience, to do anything other than exploiting the best savings accounts. They'd probably check any investment daily and could be suffering from huge anxieties if things go down for a few months - - as they can easily do.

If nicknameless is convinced the money should get invested, perhaps you can give them a guarantee, using your own money, that they won't lose anything of their initial £30K?

Given that anyone aged 65 can expect to live another decade or two - living to 80+ is now commonplace and achieving one's century is not impossible - it seems likely that they DO have a medium-to long-term investment horizon. Certainly I look at it in that light, also that experience has taught me that we just do NOT know what is around the next bend in the road and a little extra money is always useful to 'oil the wheels'.

Well, I'm glad I didn't take your recommendations on board, innovate! The only advice I've taken used to be from someone called FancyFree or FF50 who used to post on here and on the MotleyFool site (she died). I don't get hysterical if funds are losing, I tend to buy more then, as does my DH. We're not below the tax threshold so ISAs are fine for us.

I do all my investing through Hargreaves Lansdown. They don't advise, or recommend, but they do talk an awful lot of sense and give accurate information.

darkpool

some of the infrastructure funds are low risk.

have a look at hsbc infrastructure or 3i infrastructure. i think they yield about 5 or 6%.

nicknameless

innovate wrote: »

If nicknameless is convinced the money should get invested, perhaps you can give them a guarantee, using your own money, that they won't lose anything of their initial £30K?

Exactly what i was considering doing for a portion of the funds as reassurance for them. I'm not convinced the money should get invested, just want to see them make the most out of what they've got, after a very hard working life. They haven't got masses and we'll very happily supplement what we can if they need it, but it would be good if they could get a few extra quid out of this reserve.

nicknameless

margaretclare wrote: »

I do all my investing through Hargreaves Lansdown. They don't advise, or recommend, but they do talk an awful lot of sense and give accurate information.

Thanks - i will have a look for them.

nicknameless

darkpool wrote: »

some of the infrastructure funds are low risk.

have a look at hsbc infrastructure or 3i infrastructure. i think they yield about 5 or 6%.

will do - thanks a lot

margaretclare

nicknameless wrote: »

Thanks - i will have a look for them.

http://www.hl.co.uk/

qpop

margaretclare wrote: »

http://www.hl.co.uk/

It's worth noting that HL do sell advice (telephone based), and that their terms with the fund houses are not very transparent.

They also have a worrying history of recommending some questionable funds in their "Wealth 150".

That said, their platform is probably the easiest to use and most accessible, if not the cheapest.

rwgray

Has anyone used the term "annuity" yet?

You could keep a small part of the total for rainy days, and fritter away the rest on a permanent income for a pair of healthy retirees. No idea how much you'd get for £30k though.

Rich.x

ceegee

Just for another point of view(for what it's worth:o), I have to admit to being just like nicknameless' in-laws.

I am 56 (on Tuesday!) and have about the same amount of cash stored away but it is to fund early retirement. I am hoping to retire at 62 (it would have been 60 once, but then the government upped it to 65 and then to 66....I feel like a dog chasing it's tail:mad:).

I have a personal pension of £2.19 per week (every little helps!) and my wages cover my bills and all day-to-day living costs, with nothing left over.

So, this "nest egg" is my emergency fund and also my "early retirement" fund. One third of it is in an instant access account paying 2.5%, some is in a 5 year fixed rate ISA at 4.25% and some is in a 2 year fixed rate bond at 3.5%.

I absolutely could not put it anywhere other than cash. I would not sleep at night and would be panicking every time there was a downwards whiff on the share prices.

I am satisfied that I have got the best rates/terms on my cash deposits and even if I could get an extra 1%, say, from the stockmarket I could not risk my peace of mind.

So, I'm with the in-laws on this!

Linton

nicknameless wrote: »

Dear All,

I'm a little bit clueless about these things so would appreciate any advice around possible avenues to investigate (very willing to do the research but don't know where to start).

In short both my mother and father in-law are now retired (both 65). They do not have a massive income - 2 state pensions plus a couple of very small private pensions. They do have £30k savings as well.

Speaking to my mother in-law this is currently in an instant access savings account paying 2.5% per annum tax free. I was pretty sure that they could do better with this money, but have no idea where to start looking for them.

Criteria would be - level of risk very low, ideally with quick access to a portion of this (they have no immediate intention to spend this, or need to do so, but want some access if an emergency pops up). So maybe a portion of this (5-10k) with quick access.

Are there any options that fit those criteria which would help them make the most of this money? Anything with the words stocks and shares in it would make them run a mile by the way.

Many thanks in advance for any pointers or suggestions.

Cheers,

N.

Suggestion:

1) 7K in best instant access account for emergencies
2) 7K in 1yr fixed
3) 7k in 2 yr fixed
4) 7k in 3 yr fixed

As each fixed account matures if they dont need the money put it in another 3 yr deposit. In this way they establish a ladder providing access to 7K + interest each year but get the returns of a 3 year account.

Put the remaining 2 K in a suitable stock market fund - perhaps a higher return dividend based one.

In this way even in the event of a market crash as bad as 2007/2008 in the first year they still should not lose any money. After 2 years they could lose all the stock market investment and still just about be in profit.

If they dont want any stock market involvement, even a low risk one, simply up the deposit figures to £7.5K.