Investing with Santander Portfolio - have i wasted money? (long post)

royal23

thanks a lot.
so your suggestion then is get out of it definitely asap, right?
then do research and invest it myself (or via IFA).

grey_gym_sock

if it's too late to cancel (and especially if you can't get the initial charge back), then i'd leave it where it is until you've worked out where you want to move it to.

when ppl say it's a bad fund, they mean it might cost you, in high charges + poor performance, perhaps a few % per year. over many years, that really adds up. but if it takes you (say) 1 month to work out what to do, on average you'd only lose a fraction of a % in that short a time.

i would cancel the extra monthly contributions, though. (unless you're the kind of person who will spend it if they don't invest it.)

royal23

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

if it's too late to cancel (and especially if you can't get the initial charge back), then i'd leave it where it is until you've worked out where you want to move it to.

when ppl say it's a bad fund, they mean it might cost you, in high charges + poor performance, perhaps a few % per year. over many years, that really adds up. but if it takes you (say) 1 month to work out what to do, on average you'd only lose a fraction of a % in that short a time.

i would cancel the extra monthly contributions, though. (unless you're the kind of person who will spend it if they don't invest it.)

i'm going to call them today and find out what my options are.
especially regarding ISA allowance, that's what i'm mostly worried about. transfered 7K from cash into this S&S ISA.

no, i'm good with money, i wouldn't spend the monthly contribution; prior to my investment decision it would have just gone into an e-saver (as my cash ISA is maxed out). i.e. any money i don't spend in a month just stays on the account.

sabretoothtigger

Some stocks isa pay interest on cash I think.

crittertog

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

Some stocks isa pay interest on cash I think.

It's taxable though...

royal23

OK so i just spoke to santander
while i'd be able to cancel still (only just, though), the issue is:
the money will NOT go back into the cash isa, and this year's S&S Isa contrbution I made will NOT be "reset".

cancelling this investment now would mean i'll get the charges back, but then all the money will go into my bank account;
and if i want to invest with a platform instead, i wound't be able to open a S&S isa with them, as i've already used that for santander.

so what i'll do is i will leave the money in there for now, but definitely cancel the monthly instalment.
then i'll open an investment account somehwere else and request a transfer.
what do you guys think?

also, i am still confused about charges... on the phone they told me that the fund's price (which i can see on e.g. ft.com or trustnet etc) already has the charges factored in!?
so on the statement i got from them for the cash ISA portion that i transferred it said:
investment: £7,000
units purchased: 3501.264
price: 1.962
charge: 130.52

but if i look at the 7K divided by the number of units, the price would be 1.9992.
and they tell me that the AMC is also already factored into this price?

srcandas

royal23 wrote: »

OK so i just spoke to santander
while i'd be able to cancel still (only just, though), the issue is:
the money will NOT go back into the cash isa, and this year's S&S Isa contrbution I made will NOT be "reset".

I really wouldn't get too hung up on losing a years ISA allowance. If you actually look at the figures you'll find over ten years you are looking at virtually nothing. You have a CGT allowance to play with.

Just my view but best out while you have that option. But I'm a happy DIYer so :beer:

royal23

yes i do have the CGT to play with.
but would still like to keep it in the ISA wrapper. so i'll cancel the non-isa part of the investment now, but keep the ISA part while i figure out what to do with it. i.e. transfer it.

scrandas, what platform would you recommend if i simply want passive investments (incex trackers, maybe ETF later, or ideally even just the Vanguard LifeStrategy, which sounds the simplest cheapest option of all)

royal23

ok actually, you're right, the ISA for S&S will really only be important further down the line.
so i've mailed cancellation letters for the whole thing now...

royal23

update:
i cancelled the whole thing, and santander has already paid back in full.
sent the cancellation letter on thursday, and today (saturday!) i check my online banking and can see £18K was paid in.
so i got exactly back what i put in; not one penny less or more.

only big downside is: i had transferred £7K from cash isa into the santander SS ISA, so i can't get that back into cash now...
so i lost out on interest for about two weeks and going forward.
(actually thought i would get the investment cancelled at the most recent fund's price, and would have made some money)
and i've already fully used my SS ISA allowance for this year, can't use it again till next year.

now i want to invest the 18K into the Vanguard LifeStrategy Fund.
I don't have a platform account yet.
where should I go and open one? Hargreaves Lansdown?
would cost me £24p.a. (£2pm fee per fund, but only one fund).

any quick advice would be great