Help with stock and shares isa

Coombies

Hello,

I would be very grateful for some help. I currently invest my money half in a fixed rate cash isa (santander) and the other half in a stocks and shares isa (natwest). I don't think I am getting the best deal on the stocks and shares Isa. I want to invest in this long term as I currently don't have a pension at my place of work. I currently invest £50 per month into the stock an shares isa. I get charged 5% of anything I invest (so £2.50 per month) and there is a charge of 1.95% on the shares themselves (which apparently I don't need to worry about according to the advisor). Can anyone suggest a better Stocks and shares Isa for my type of investment or another investment system that may be more suitable.

Thank you

colsten

You are right, that Natwest ISA is massively expensive. You should not have to pay a %age initial charge, and you may even be able to buy some funds without any charge. The annual charge is about 5 times higher than it could be, depending on what you invest in and with whom.

What have you invested in? You might be able to do an "in specie" transfer to a better platform. There is a list of brokers here: http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

Also of use: http://www.comparefundplatforms.com/, as well as the "snowman" spreadsheet which you can find by searching this forum.

jimjames

If you don't have a pension then it may also be worth looking at that. What size is your company as most will have to offer employees a pension very soon?

Losing 5% on every investment is a crazy amount of money and totally unnecessary when almost all fund platforms have no initial charges.

delmar39

Look at the fidelity index trackers https://www.fidelity.co.uk/investor/funds/find-funds/moneybuilder/index-tracker-funds.page

puk999

Coombies wrote: »

I get charged 5% of anything I invest (so £2.50 per month) and there is a charge of 1.95% on the shares themselves (which apparently I don't need to worry about according to the advisor).

:eek:

Do you have a list of the shares/funds that your S&S ISA is invested in? Do you know why those particular shares/funds were selected?

Coombies

Thank you everybody for your help! I am generally good at money management-the stocks and shares isa is the only bit that confuses me and I can't really get my head around it I did it so as not to put all my eggs in one basket but I need to understand it better really. When I phoned up Natwest to discuss it (because I want to move my money somewhere else) they said they were not a platform. puk999 I'm pretty sure I do not have a list- i am going to search through my paperwork though to make sure. jimjames yes my company will be paying a pension soon which is good, I set up this account 5 years ago when there was not talk of compulsory pensions.
I am going to look through the spreadsheets/attachments you posted and see if I am get my head around it all. I'm sure I will be asking for more advice soon though.
Thank you all so far

Archi_Bald

Coombies wrote: »

When I phoned up Natwest to discuss it (because I want to move my money somewhere else) they said they were not a platform.

They sold their retail investment arm to TD Investing http://personal.natwest.com/personal/investments/natwest-stockbrokersaccounts.html.

But it appears that you can still get a valuation, which would include details of what you are invested in, from Natwest: http://fundprices.natwest.com/home/interactivechart?lb=True

If you want to transfer, you need to instruct the new provider to make the transfer, otherwise you lose your ISA wrapper. However, before you do this, you need to confirm that the new provider offers the same funds/shares you are invested in. If they don't, the only way to transfer without losing the ISA wrapper is to sell what you have in Natwest, but leave the proceeds in the ISA, and then the new provider can transfer the cash. Bottom line is, before you can do anything you need to get the details of what you are invested in.

EDIT: Looking at that valuation page, it very much looks as if all investments are some concoction of Natwest-selected bits and pieces, and no other provider would offer these. So it is most likely a case of sell (even if that's at a loss) and then request a transfer of the cash to a sensible platform. Then invest the cash in some low-cost funds, such as the Fidelity ones mentioned. There's a list of other low cost funds here: http://monevator.com/low-cost-index-trackers/