Advice needed on 60k investment! DIY ISA or IFA?

BLB53

Why this fund is so popular on the forum?

Vanguard have a very good reputation in the US and more recently in the UK market.

The LS range are simple to understand, low cost, globally diverse, auto rebalance - not surprising they have gained in popularity since launch. I think they are a perfect solution for those who decide to go for diy passive index route.

dunstonh

Whilst the VLS have some advantages, they also have disadvantages. The asset allocation is not as wide as many of the similar multi-asset funds out there. The allocations are also rigid.

They are a valid option for consideration but they are not the be all and end all that they are made out to be.

bigfreddiel

Don't bother with an ifa, all they know are rules and regulations which in most cases is info you already know.

The rules are simple

1 keep costs low
2 acknowledge the fact you don't have an edge (and nor does anyone else)
3 don't get sidetracked that your plan is too simple

And that's it

Good luck but you don't need it if you follow the above

Cheers fj

xylophone

You mention school fees and two children - have you checked out the current fees at the schools you are considering for your children?

Remember that they are likely to increase at rates far ahead of inflation and plan and save early accordingly.

Bastiat

Given your amount of money, I would advise a fixed fee rather than percentage fee broker: http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/
Invest in a well diversified set of cheap tracker funds and only rebalance once a year when it's time to use you new ISA allowance. Cheap and efficient.

gadgetmind

dunstonh wrote: »

That could be cheaper than DIY within a few years assuming its just an initial charge and the annual is fund and platform.

A DIYer would have to be pretty careless, and not at all MSE, to get stuck with 2% annual fees. For an investment professional to not be able to *significantly* better this is deeply troubling.

gadgetmind

dunstonh wrote: »

They are a valid option for consideration but they are not the be all and end all that they are made out to be.

True, but it would be very easy to do very much worse, whereas improving on them is quite hard and take a fair bit of effort.

I cast my asset net far wider, and keep my fees below that of VLS, but it involves a fair bit of work and it'll be a wee while before I'm satisfied that my fancy-pants approach is actually better. My SIPP is beating my FL "active allocation over mostly passive" fund, but this remains to be tested over a full market cycle.

bigfreddiel

gadgetmind wrote: »

True, but it would be very easy to do very much worse, whereas improving on them is quite hard and take a fair bit of effort.

I cast my asset net far wider, and keep my fees below that of VLS, but it involves a fair bit of work and it'll be a wee while before I'm satisfied that my fancy-pants approach is actually better. My SIPP is beating my FL "active allocation over mostly passive" fund, but this remains to be tested over a full market cycle.

Sorry, but it doesn't involve a fair amount of work. Don't go for the fancy-pants approach, keep your costs low, tax free where possible or use your cgt allowance, monevator will give a few ideas.

Accept that you don't have an edge so don't speculate on individual shares.

Don't over trade, buy and hold till you need to rebalance

Mr Buffet trades maybe once or twice a year, rarely sells and it seems to work for him.

So let's reiterate, low cost, low trading, hold, don't panic if your portfolio loses say 20%, in the long term 10+ years you'll beat everyone else on this forum! except me of course ;-)

fj

gemma.zhang

bigfreddiel wrote: »

Don't bother with an ifa, all they know are rules and regulations which in most cases is info you already know.

The rules are simple

1 keep costs low
2 acknowledge the fact you don't have an edge (and nor does anyone else)
3 don't get sidetracked that your plan is too simple

And that's it

Good luck but you don't need it if you follow the above

Cheers fj

Thanks! What do you mean by 'don't have an edge'?
'Dont sidetracked that your plan is simple' - does it mean to stick to simple portfolio( one or a few ) instead of complicated ones?

gadgetmind

bigfreddiel wrote: »

Sorry, but it doesn't involve a fair amount of work. Don't go for the fancy-pants approach, keep your costs low, tax free where possible or use your cgt allowance, monevator will give a few ideas.

Agreed, and I run a balanced portfolio of low(ish) fee ETFs myself across three portfolios. However, the effort involved is far greater than just starting VLS and lobbing money into it every month. A multi-asset fund would be easier, but then you need to find one that's got a proven approach to asset allocation and that has low fees.

If the choice was between VLS, use an IFA to access (seemly inevitably in the real world, I'm afraid) high fee funds, or do nothing our of paralysis, then the choice seems fairly clear to me.