I really really want to be........mortgage free!

edinburgher

It depends. In my ISA, there are typically 3 funds (VLS80 for DD, VLS 60 for me, a bond fund as part of our mid-term (5 year) P2P and income pot. Bond fund will be replaced with boring retirement stability bond fund once we make our final house move/decide to stay put.

In my pension I also have 3 different funds, all index trackers, blended to try and copy the geographical weightings of VLS100 (there is no one fund that does what I need). No bonds available, so boring retirement stability bond fund mentioned above will offset pension equities.

ourcornercottage

edinburgher wrote: »

It depends. In my ISA, there are typically 3 funds (VLS80 for DD, VLS 60 for me, a bond fund as part of our mid-term (5 year) P2P and income pot. Bond fund will be replaced with boring retirement stability bond fund once we make our final house move/decide to stay put.

In my pension I also have 3 different funds, all index trackers, blended to try and copy the geographical weightings of VLS100 (there is no one fund that does what I need). No bonds available, so boring retirement stability bond fund mentioned above will offset pension equities.

Ill look at bonds, I need to do more research on them. I want a balanced portfolio but I need to research more. Don't trust FI's (theme going on here!) was a child in the 80's so don't trust any financial people/institutions TBH.

Advise please. I have both a income trust and a tracking trust with virgin money I've been putting a bit into each month for years which I don't know wether to keep going. It's built up to a few thousand now and overall they have gone up but I don't know whether sticking the money into my ISA in something simple like VLS 60 or 80 (I have 80 now) would be more effective. I'm not sure what to do with them as its not a lot per month I put in but I've been doing it for years not really thinking about it. Need to be more proactive with my investments and research more. Any top tips of opinions welcome although I might ignore them!

Edited : money with Virgin I consider part of my pension/retirement funding plans although it doubles as an emergency fund. Never been enough of an emergency to need to touch yet though.

ourcornercottage

Today I've recieved my fit payment of just over £115. Rounded up to £120 and overpaid this morning

That's dropped us under £128k woohoo another £1000 gone!

hiddenshadow

Woo! Very nice. I'm hoping to break £20 for our first FIT payment , we're estimated at £11.70 now (6 weeks in) and provide our reading at the end of January.

edinburgher

Are these unit trust funds? Could you provide a link? If so, they aren't held within a tax free wrapper, so there are probably more effective vehicles for your cash.

Ps. Solar question - do you track 'O's'? Spent 30-40 mins looking through the stickies, but couldn't find an explanation for the life of me, assuming it's something like stated installation size vs. actual amount generated?

ourcornercottage

Thanks I will add the links on later when i'm at home. They are not within a tax free wrapper at the moment.

O's is a made up phrase on MSE. If your system is 4kw and you generate 2kw in a day you have produced 0.5 o's if you generate 25kw you have produced 6.25 o's. I have had over 7 O's on a couple of occasions this summer and yesterday managed 0.42 O's! Its a way for those with differing size systems to compare output.

I generally use kw as my measurement as when it comes down to it thats what I use and thats what the FIT payment comes from.

edinburgher

You did have a bad day yesterday - I managed 0.64 O's despite only having the panels turned on from noon!

ourcornercottage

edinburgher wrote: »

You did have a bad day yesterday - I managed 0.64 O's despite only having the panels turned on from noon!

That 0.64 O's would have almost beaten my week last week!!!

I have received 3 FIT payments so far totally more than 10% of my expenditure on the panels so I'm well happy with the return to date. That doesnt include my reduction in electricity usage which has gone down dramatically

What size system did you manage to fit on your roof?

edinburgher

We managed 3.135kW (11*285W). It could have been 3.42kW, but the installer had concerns that our chimney would have shaded the 12th panel.

ourcornercottage

Hi ed, not shabby and the installer was right, chimney shading makes the extra worthless. Here are the 2 products I was telling you about, they're rubbish aren't they?!?!?


https://apps.virginmoney.com/virgin/assets/pdf/KIID_VUKITT.pdf

https://apps.virginmoney.com/virgin/assets/pdf/KIID_VIT.pdf