What would you do?

kazwookie

Option one, the garden does it for me,.

Good luck

Jim_B_3

I would hold onto that money and invest it in something not very exciting (my investments are pretty dull and at the moment they outstrip not just rent but also house price inflation). Rent somewhere close to your parents or other such good location (should be able to pay most if not all of the rent out of investment income) and keep the pot of money whole with an eye to using it for their education or other such development.

I expect this option, rejecting as it does buying a house, will not be popular

solidpro

something not very exciting

Trying to think of what you mean....Examples?

Jim_B_3

Trying to think of what you mean....Examples?

Sure. Money where my mouth is; this is where mine is at the moment. Your question was "What would you do?" This is essentially what I did do! You did ask

I have considered buying a house instead of investing (or rather, I have considered getting a mortgage); I have found that once my savings reached a certain point, which was less than the 100000 you're talking about, they covered rent and more, which made going into debt and paying my housing costs out of salary (i.e. having a mortgage) much less attractive. I would view buying a house as a long term punt, hoping that over twenty years the value of the house goes up enough to cover all the interest I'd have paid on the mortgage AND to exceed the investment income (needless to say, I don't think that's the case, so I'm staying renting). Obviously, my situation is different to yours (not least because you need a place suitable for more people to live in). I only have to worry about myself, you have children to worry about. Some people would say that because you have children you should buy a house, I would say that having a hundred thousand in cash prepares you very well for looking out for children and going into debt ties your hands significantly. Opinions vary!

Anyway, my examples, which is actually just what I've done with my savings; I think it's pretty diverse, and whilst there are some exciting punts in it, they're pretty balanced. The best individual stock I hold at the moment did about 80% in four months, the worst is down 40% over 15 months, the best fund is up about 30% in the last year, and the worst fund is pretty much exactly where is was three damn years ago. On the whole, I think it's pretty diverse and it does pretty well at the moment; over 25% per year at the moment, but we are in good times for the market.

I've got about 15% in cash making frankly laughable interest (I keep meaning to deal with that).

About 15% in a very dull AXA fund that keeps chugging along.

About the same in a diversified fund aimed at global growth.

About another 20% is in a fund investing in global smaller companies (I believe that coming out or recessions, speaking in horribly general terms, smaller more agile companies tend to get themselves together and chase profits faster than bigger companies). This has done well over the last year.

A bit under 10% in a fund focussing on the more established companies in emerging markets. This was doing very well, and took a bit of a tumble recently when the US started wobbling, which was interesting. It's still ahead of cash, and to be honest I suspect that once the future becomes a bit more predictable, it'll sort itself out. Even if not, I still think it's a good diversification and has a shiny future.

Somewhere around 5% in solid, dividend producers (Astra-Zeneca, BAE, Resolution, that sort of thing) and another 5% in my pet sector, individually chosen tech funds (did very well with ARM and Nokia, not so well with Imagination Technologies) and another 10% or so in sectors I don't know much about but suspect are going to do well (recently bought some Taylor Wimpey shares on the back of the gov's latest attempt to reinflate the housing bubble, for example, and I bought some shares in a US rail industry grower, Wabtec, who I think have a nice, steady growth ahead of them).

The rest roughly equally in funds covering Asia Pacific BigCorps, UK Smaller Companies, an agricultural fund; and then a few ounces of gold, as a totally different diversification and because it's pretty to look at