£28000 - what to do with it?

jasmine665

Hello there, unsure if in correct forum, but here goes! I have £28000 in savings placed in virgin instant saver ,but looking at investing the total in 2014.maybe another rental property, have 1 already, but now thinking instead of placing on monies away for another 20 years in a 2nd rental, maybe purchase a catering van to work the weekends, as I work full time. Or invest in my niece as a qualified hairdresser in premises etc or stocks and shares? Any advice would be greatly received! As been saving for 5 years and wanting to do something with it this year! Many thanks!

scaredofdebt

How risk averse are you?

jasmine665

Thanks for reply, it wouldn't be life or death what I lost really...

scaredofdebt

OK.

Stock and Shares - do you have experience of this? It can be very high risk, or it can be fairly safe if you buy "boring" stocks, but what's the point of that?

I made around £20k from stocks and shares, mainly mining and oil exploration companies in about six months in early 2009. However, I then lost about half of that in ONE MONTH as market conditions changed rapidly so I got out whilst still ahead. Be very careful! Happy to give more advice if you pursue this option.

BUY TO LET

I doubt you'll get anywhere for £28k (which part of the country are you in?) but this is a fairly safe option but returns may not be great. Better than a savings account probably though.

Catering Van is interesting, any experience of this? Have you priced one up? I doubt you'd need £28k for one.

Investing in your niece sounds like a good idea but how would that work exactly?

Other ideas include looking at having solar panels installed (I don't think this is as attractive as it was though due to government changes)

Paying off debt is boring but most cost-effective if you have any debt/mortgage etc.

jasmine665

Thank you so much for your reply, stocks sounds very appealing, little to zero knowledge in that field though. I think I still have a lot of research to do in my ideas..

scaredofdebt

I'd recommend mining stocks as they are safer than a lot of other small companies (small companies offer the biggest upside) as their assets are in the ground, ie safe compared to other companies.

If you spread the risk by buying into several small companies you can limit your exposure, you can also set stop/loss limits so if a price falls quickly you can exit before it's too late (although this isn't guaranteed).

Good place to do research is https://www.iii.co.uk but watch out for "rampers"!

PM me if you want a chat about my own experiences and what I learned from them.

I don't trade at the moment due to lack of funds but I would if I had some spare cash, the money I made back in '09 went to pay off debt and my divorce!

jasmine665

Thank you so much, Advice really appreciated! I will bother you again for more details in the future if I may!

Kayalana99

Personal opinion but I'd get another house - if you build up 10 100k houses with say £400+ rent that's your retirement sorted.

My life goal though so perhaps I'm abit biased.

Might I suggest if you go into stock market to start with the 'boring stocks' untill you know what your doing abit :-)

droopsnoot

Or if investing, consider funds (amalgamations of shares in multiple companies) so that you're not trying to make a specific choice of which companies are good to invest in - the fund manager does that. Depends on whether you are hoping for income and capital gains from your investment (passive, basically) or whether you want to make money frm buying and selling shares at the right time (active).

jasmine665

So much to learn in the stocks and shares world...! Many thanks for replies!

lessonlearned

I think you need first to actually pin down your attitude to risk.

It could be a 50/50 strategy or 70/30 with 70% being safer stocks and shares through managed funds and then have a bit of a gamble with 30%.

After all you did say it took you 5 years to save so perhaps you might not want to risk the whole lot in one go.