Advice Please - How to best invest £2000 per month

Doylum

Hi all,

We have recently paid off our mortgage, are debt free, and have around 10k in savings. We are looking to use our free cash to save/invest - 2k per month.

We've been thinking of either buying a small property to let in Edinburgh city centre or start investing in shares. However, we're not so sure of buying and letting out a property while overseas, feels like it could be a lot of bother at times.

We don't really have a strategic plan as such, we just want to save and make our money grow while the going is good.

FYI - We are from the UK, but currently live in Denmark.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Doylum

kingrulzuk

Doylum wrote: »

Hi all,

We have recently paid off our mortgage, are debt free, and have around 10k in savings. We are looking to use our free cash to save/invest - 2k per month.

We've been thinking of either buying a small property to let in Edinburgh city centre or start investing in shares. However, we're not so sure of buying and letting out a property while overseas, feels like it could be a lot of bother at times.

We don't really have a strategic plan as such, we just want to save and make our money grow while the going is good.

FYI - We are from the UK, but currently live in Denmark.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Doylum

You must be kidding me right, do you know how must it cost to buy a good property in ECC

Totton

Property has made a lot of people very rich and could do the same for you but personally its not for me. If you were to invest the full amount each month then within 5 months your investments could equal or be similar to your savings, a 50/50 split. Therefore you might consider putting a monthly amount into savings and the rest into investments so as to keep the balance at whatever you are comfortable with.

For investments you can look at passives such as trackers & etf's or actives such as Investment Trusts, Funds etc.

My own preference currently is a portfolio of Investment Trusts, for choices you could do a lot worse than read the John Baron portfolios in Investors Chronicle, you can get an idea of what he has from here

I tend to hold less than the recommendations in the John Baron portfolios, usually around 10 IT's at most for me rather than the 20+ he holds. As a starter you could look to one of the global choices such as Foreign & Colonial (FRCL.L) or a flexible one such as RIT Capital Partners (RCP.L) If adventurous then Scottish Mortgage (SMT.L), Pacific Assets (PAC.L) or Finsbury Growth Trust (FGT.) are good ones to look at. If really adventurous then the market has taken its toll of UK Smaller Companies and Biotech, good ones there to consider are Henderson Smaller Companies (HSL.L), Worldwide Healthcare (WWH.L) and Biotech Growth Trust (BIOG.L)

All of the IT's have comparable funds if you prefer those.

If investing £1500 - £2000 a month then some of the online platforms will allow you to spread this amongst a selection rather than a single choice each month, perhaps a good idea if building a portfolio by monthly amounts.

My choice would be to open an account with an online platform and build a portfolio, start with a core and add spicy stuff later.

I'd also buy some Premium Bonds each month, they aren't flavour of the month but you get a chance of a big prize. you do lose value as there is no interest and inflation takes its toll but as a temporary cash holding they work well for me.

HTH,
Mickey