Semi/Early Retirement at a young age

atush

Cancelled Sky TV. Don't miss it in the slightest. Wife does though. How will she get her Kardashian fix.

Try online?

C-dog

TheTracker wrote: »

I personally load my ISA with EM, Small cap.

So this requires me to do more research. You complimented my acumen previously. This is all very much a learning curve and everything is new to me. Small Cap? Lol I don't know what that is.

C-dog

What are your thoughts on Bond ETFs such as SPDR® Barclays 15+ Year Gilt UCITS ETF (GBP)?

My X-O account won't let me buy life strategy and whatnot so I'm looking at ETFs to buy. These are my current choices.

SPDR Barclays Capital UK Gilt ETF (IE00B3W74078) OCF 0.15%
SPDR Barclays Capital 15+ Year Gilt ETF (IE00B6YX5L24) OCF 0.15%
SPDR Barclays Capital 1-5 Year Gilt ETF (IE00B6YX5K17) OCF 0.15%
db x-trackers iBoxx £ Gilts 1-5 ETF (LU0429458978) OCF 0.2%

Or is there anywhere I can buy Lifestrategy in an unwrapped account?

TheTracker

C-dog wrote: »

What are your thoughts on Bond ETFs such as SPDR® Barclays 15+ Year Gilt UCITS ETF (GBP)?

My X-O account won't let me buy life strategy and whatnot so I'm looking at ETFs to buy. These are my current choices.

SPDR Barclays Capital UK Gilt ETF (IE00B3W74078) OCF 0.15%
SPDR Barclays Capital 15+ Year Gilt ETF (IE00B6YX5L24) OCF 0.15%
SPDR Barclays Capital 1-5 Year Gilt ETF (IE00B6YX5K17) OCF 0.15%
db x-trackers iBoxx £ Gilts 1-5 ETF (LU0429458978) OCF 0.2%

Or is there anywhere I can buy Lifestrategy in an unwrapped account?

You can see the underlying VLS holdings here.

TheTracker

C-dog wrote: »

So this requires me to do more research. You complimented my acumen previously. This is all very much a learning curve and everything is new to me. Small Cap? Lol I don't know what that is.

Small Cap means small capitalisation (Market value) companies. The FTSE 100 index holds the largest 100 companies by cap, the FTSE 250 the next 250, and the FTSE 350 is an amalgamation of the 100 and 250. There is also the FTSE Small Cap index, containing the 351-600ish companies. The FTSE 350 + FTSE Small Cap = FTSE All Share. I'm going on memory, but the 100 is about 85% of the total cap, 250 13% and SmallCap 2%. Many people forgo small and 100 and just go for the 250 (Mid Caps).

You can invest in specific funds that track small caps, or via a tracker.

Small caps tend to have higher returns over time, but higher volatility. Theory has it the return is reward for risk. Most balanced portfolios have between 5 and 15% of equities in Small Cap. You can read books such as Smarter Investing by Tim Hale to understand asset classes and diversification/allocation. MSE has a Savings and Investment forum, aside from the pension forum, which is worth reading. Monevator is a key website to learn about investment.

C-dog

Cheers for the info TheTracker. Makes great sense. I frequent the monevator site daily for their compound interest calculator. I'm really at the beginning of my investment career and all I've learnt has come from monevator, here and other personal finance blogs from the UK & abroad.

I'm in no hurry to make purchases right now, so I guess its best to DYOR and come back with specific opportunities.

Just last night finished Tony Robbins - Money Master the Game and it touched on asset allocations from some rockstar billion$$$$ fund managers. Pretty much called it an All Weather Fund. To me it seemed too risk averse. Something my dad might utilise.

I guess I see two things directing me at present.

1) I've never experienced a bear market.

2) I've only just begun this roller coaster and while I'm further on than most my age, with a view to getting off early, I don't really have to, if I don't fancy it or it doesn't suit.

Im nervous about the market, but only because its in my unwrapped accounts. Otherwise I'd be filling my boots with VLS100 ACC.

I think I've answered it....for now.

Thanks as always.

C-dog

So as if by some magical coincidence, monevators weekend reading linked their lazy portfolio articles and discussed fees being a major issue.

It has been a long week of conferences and travel for me and I hadn't really done the level of research I normally would. £8,050 invested in VUKE.L. I should have waited to get a clearer understanding of my chosen asset allocation, rather than just continuing with more of the same.

I'll wait until I have similar or more and start building my bond allocation out to 15% VGOV.L will be the bulk of it. Actually come to think of it, once the VUKE.L may be sold too (at a profit if possible) and reallocated.

On another note, my very first investment, Virgin FTSE All Share tracker came in with a whopping 0.91% growth over the last 6 month. I'll be transferring this to another ISA account and putting it to better use.

jamesd

Since you're worried about markets to some extent you might want to look at P2P. I'm in the process of shifting a fair part of my own money from some equity to P2P over the course of a year or so to reduce equity market risk, particularly from the US. One P2P firm I think is interesting is this one but the sensible amount of money that can be invested there is relatively low at the moment due to loan volume. Fortunately there are plenty of others and a decent prospect of returns matching or beating long term average equity returns, though not bull market returns.

C-dog

P2P lending gains are taxable right?

These current holdings outside the wrappers are to be low growth "balancing" attributes to my assets. I appreciate the first purchase wasn't in this, but I will address it.

Might be an option to look at p2p within next years ISA wrapper.

Thanks

jamesd

Taxable if outside a tax wrapper. Usual treatment if inside a pension or, not yet available, ISA. Even after tax the returns available from some P2P places are pretty decent and as of April bad debts can be deducted from income.

At the moment the cheapest pension place that I know for P2P has a flat £800 annual charge regardless of total asset value so it's not great just on charge grounds. Another has a £1200 annual charge, same all inclusive pricing. I might go for one of those because I'm looking to put £50-£100k of pension money into P2P over the next year.