Pensions / Saving / Investments

atush

Just open a DC plan for her too, so she can wait to take her NHS pension a few years.

Notfarfromtheborder

Hi All

Thanks for the advice to date.

Wondering what I should be doing with increased pension contributions that kick in on Friday.

Will be contributing £1800 + £250 employer contribution through SS per month, question is should I be leaving this in the two default funds mentioned below with Aegon, or looking to spread the risk into different funds they provide?

In addition, I plan to put away annual bonus into this scheme as well, should be somewhere between £8K and £11k (touches wood....!)

Current plan is with Aegon with £23K in at present but will increase substantially with above contributions, invested as follows.
75% UK Equity
25% Pacific

Other DC pots as follows
Aon with 25k invested as follows:-
L&G Consensus index Fund £15K
L&G UK Equity Index Fund £5K
L&G 70/30 Global Equity Fund £5K

Standard Life with £9K invested as follows:-
Standard Life Managed Pension Fund £9K

Barclays Life £25K invested as follows:
BL Pensions Managed Series 2 £25K

Any advice welcome.

Thanks.

kidmugsy

Notfarfromtheborder wrote: »

Any advice welcome.

Financial assets seem overvalued to me at the moment so I'd be looking at cash-like investments e.g. short-maturity bonds. Or even cash, plain and simple. (And a little bit of precious metals perhaps.) See

http://blogs.ft.com/andrew-smithers/2014/08/long-term-investing/

atush

You are too UK centric. More eposure to Europe/USA etc required.

And you seem to still have no liquid assets, so putting all your spare cash into pension (like putting it ALL into mtg before) is not wise.

It isn't all or nothing, you should split your cash.

Notfarfromtheborder

atush wrote: »

You are too UK centric. More eposure to Europe/USA etc required.

And you seem to still have no liquid assets, so putting all your spare cash into pension (like putting it ALL into mtg before) is not wise.

It isn't all or nothing, you should split your cash.

Thanks
Europe / USA noted, what about far east?

That's why I find this investing bit so difficult, some say USA is overvalued, some say France is a disaster waiting to happen....

Liquid assets being worked on at £600 per month separately, in addition still have £100K flexible mortgage that I can use for liquidity until 2035.

As per 'putting it all into mortgage', my position was maybe not made clear, yes I was overpaying, however, I used the facility for buying cars etc so it could be viewed that it was not all mortgage but car loans etc if that makes sense.

I also extended this mortgage facility some time ago to accumulate on a separate deal which has just been repaid which is why the mortgage is 'paid off'

I suppose I could recycle more cash into pension from mortgage, up to £40K per year I believe by not taking much pay home and living on the liquidity I get from the mortgage facility and pay this down at a later date.

Or buy extra pension on NHS scheme for OH, £60K now get her £5k pa on retirement, seems a good deal to me.

Decisions, decisions...

Only ones I have made is to increase SS from my £225 pcm cont to £1800 (plus any bonus this year) pcm and set up savings of £600 pcm (plus £750 on mortgage that will be clear in 3 months) so treating this as cash savings too. I will start syphoning off any positive balance to a 5% current acct when the amount we have in offset accts by month end is +ve.

I can not change ss amount now for 12 months so if I did decide to put in £40K and 'live off the mortgage', this would not be for 12 months when we will have built up £7500 cash savings.

atush

As per 'putting it all into mortgage', my position was maybe not made clear, yes I was overpaying, however, I used the facility for buying cars etc so it could be viewed that it was not all mortgage but car loans etc if that makes sense.

yes that makes a bit more sense, but still lol.

I think Asia has had a bit of down time, and so I think having exposure now going forward is a good idea.

But that is me, and I am not a professional.

I also think if you are holding long term, then having balance in your portfolio is far more important than trying to 'time the market'. Esp if you are drip feeding into the market.

Linton

Notfarfromtheborder wrote: »

Thanks
Europe / USA noted, what about far east?

That's why I find this investing bit so difficult, some say USA is overvalued, some say France is a disaster waiting to happen....

........

I dont see how a well balanced portfolio can fail to have a significant investment in the Far East. Apart from being a distinct geographic area, it provides access to a range of industries (eg consumer electronics) that are not readily available elsewhere. I would say that the Far East is more important than the FTSE100.

As to overvalues and disasters waiting to happen: you are investing for the next 10-15 years, much longer if you propose to drawdown your pension over time. When you come to retire the world will probably look look rather different to now and there would have been several rises and falls in the meantime, what these will be is unpredictable. The situation right now isnt a major concern, more important is that you have good diversification with the major sectors and geographies covered.

Notfarfromtheborder

Notfarfromtheborder wrote: »

Hi All

Thanks for the advice to date.

Wondering what I should be doing with increased pension contributions that kick in on Friday.

Will be contributing £1800 + £250 employer contribution through SS per month, question is should I be leaving this in the two default funds mentioned below with Aegon, or looking to spread the risk into different funds they provide?

In addition, I plan to put away annual bonus into this scheme as well, should be somewhere between £8K and £11k (touches wood....!)

Current plan is with Aegon with £23K in at present but will increase substantially with above contributions, invested as follows.
75% UK Equity
25% Pacific

Other DC pots as follows
Aon with 25k invested as follows:-
L&G Consensus index Fund £15K
L&G UK Equity Index Fund £5K
L&G 70/30 Global Equity Fund £5K

Standard Life with £9K invested as follows:-
Standard Life Managed Pension Fund £9K

Barclays Life £25K invested as follows:
BL Pensions Managed Series 2 £25K

Any advice welcome.

Thanks.

Update,
Aegon plan now up to £28.5K with £2K per month going in, (plus hopefully £10K bonus in December)

£2.5K saved in cash so working on liquidity, don't want any more 'pay' this tax year as would lose child benefit which is why bonus is going into pension

I still only have the two funds where contributions are going in
75% UK Equity
25% Pacific

Have looked on Aegon site and can change existing plan as well as diverting new contributions to different plans, but there are so many.

How do I go about deciding which funds to buy to ensure diversification in far east / North America / Europe / elsewhere?

dunstonh

How do I go about deciding which funds to buy to ensure diversification in far east / North America / Europe / elsewhere?

Research and due diligence. Either yourself or use an adviser. Remember that not all funds in a sector are the same (at risk level, volatility level or asset make up).

Notfarfromtheborder

Thanks, trying to get all my funds into Trustnet to get overall weighting re assets / markets / equities, how do I get the right ones as some have many variants, it's doing my nut....

Do I just phone each pension co to see as I can't get them to balance v last statements?