Just opened a Scottish Friendly Junior ISA. Should I close it asap?

alan_partridge

hi all

a little bundle of joy has recently entered my life (6 months ago), and wanting to do the grown-up thing i thought i'd open a savings account for her.. after a bit of research, it seemed the general consensus was, for such long-term investment (e.g. 18 years) it's best to go for stocks & shares..

i know nothing about such things, so when topcashback happened to email me offering £84 to open a My Select Junior ISA with Scottish Friendly i thought it was serendipity, and i went ahead and opened an account..

however, i've since stumbled across a few threads on here that do not paint them in a very good light.. this prompted some frenetic googling, and there are quite a few articles which are less than flattering, so now i'm worried i've made a terrible faux pas!

i only opened the account a couple of weeks ago, so at the moment there aren't actually any funds in it.. are all these horror stories i'm reading a true portrayal of Scottish Friendly? should i close the account asap? a direct debit is due to whack £80 in there on the 1st November, so i need to act quickly..

and i suppose, leading on from that, my next question would be what is the best option for saving for my little one? i'm only able to afford about £20 a month, and was just going to stick it in a junior cash ISA, but thought this stocks & shares business sounded a better option.. are small time savers like me better off just sticking with cash ISAs, or would you recommend something else?

i just want the best for my little girl

thanks all

colsten

You are right, an S&S JISA is a great idea. You are also right that the Scottish Friendly is not the best one. For starters, your JISA will have to earn back the £84 they bribed you with. Further down the line, they'll withhold lots of management charges from you, and this will be done in a very intransparent way.

As you haven't yet deposited any money into it, and as you are still in the cooling down period, I would immediately cancel the entire thing.

Then do a bit more research and set up a JISA with a more transparent, flexible, and cheaper provider. Monevator has got a good article on kids investments: http://monevator.com/how-to-invest-for-children/