25 years old investing for the first time

TallFox89

My current employer does not have any kind of pension scheme and I want to start making a long-term investment to help me out either later in life (deposit on a house perhaps) or for when I retire. I have a reasonably well paying job (though nothing amazing) and emergency cash put aside and would like to start with an initial investment of £500-£1000.

I was initially looking at getting individual shares in tech companies (this is the sector I work in so know it quite well) however after doing some initial research I believe this isn't the best to go for unless you have a lot more to invest. Any advice will be really appreciated so thanks in advance.

jimjames

How big is your company? They will have to offer a pension scheme very soon.

You need to separate out money for long term pension and that for near term things like emergency fund and house deposit.

For amounts under £50k you are likely to be better using finds than individual shares.

black_taxi_2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4392271

vanguard life strategy

http://monevator.com/the-simplest-most-effective-investment-decision-you-will-ever-make/

http://monevator.com/vanguard-lifestrategy/

Totton

For Tech you could consider Herald http://www.heralduk.com or the Axa Framlington Global Technology fund http://retail.axa-im.co.uk/funds/axa-framlington/axa-framlington-global-technology-fund-r-gbp-422

TallFox89

Thanks for the replies and sorry about my own late reply. I'm interested in looking more deeply into the funds you recommended. I'm a bit lacking in some basic knowledge on how these work however, is there any resources you could recommend? Could the savings be covered by an ISA, and if so how would that work since I wouldn't actually be buying any shares myself? Again it's appreciated.

Archi_Bald

Tim Hale Smarter Investing

http://monevator.com/category/investing/passive-investing-investing/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/isas/10924607/How-to-pick-Isas-to-match-your-life-goals.html

xylophone

How big is your company? They will have to offer a pension scheme very soon.

https://www.gov.uk/workplace-pensions

TallFox89

The company I work for is small enough that it will be one of the last to have to start offering a pension scheme, so 2018.

BarrBru

It's best to put it in a fund. There are two types of funds Unit Trusts and Investment Trusts. The latter tend to perform better because they've got an independent board that can sack or take acting against bad managers.
If you like IT then Herald Investment Trust has great long term performance, as has Polar Technology and RCM Technology.
Here's a review of RCM Technology manager and an interview he gave too:
whichinvestmenttrust.com/rcm-technology
whichinvestmenttrust.com/iphone-6-bigger-screen

If you want to learn about investing the aic.co.uk which is the trade body for investment trusts has loads of investor information, and WhichInvestmentTrust.com is kind of a small investor community but they write guides and stuff in easy to understand English.

Also, the forums on Moneysavingexpert are helpful when you're starting out.

Smithy101

I've got shares in both RCM Technology Trust that BarrBru recommended and in Herald Investment Trust.

They're both very different from each other. Herald invests in smaller UK tech companies whilst RCM invests in mostly US tech.

Both been great performers though with really good management.

If you had to choose one at this point in the cycle I'd go for RCM.