Complete beginner

Deedlebod

I am a complete novice to investments, all my focus on the last few years has been on getting out of debt and I've finally made it. I now need to get my head into a saving and investment zone and have been reading through the forums. I think what I'm looking for is a really basic step by step introduction into how to start investing in stocks but all the terminology you guys use just confuses me.
My history: cleared £kkkkk's of debt and have managed to save a 6 month emergency fund, now have £10k to start my investment path but haven't got a single clue what to do and how to do it. Any takers on keeping it real simple for me??

Fatbritabroad

Well done for doing the hard part!

A few questions:-
How old are you.

What's the rest of your financial situation?

Higher rate lower rate tax payer?

The 10k is in addition to your emergency fund? And where is this emergency fund in high interest current accounts?

Do you have and are contributing to a work pension?

bobobski

Congratulations for getting to where you have.

Other wiser people will be along soon I'm sure but my initial thought is that your emergency money should be as accessible and secure as possible, i.e. in the bank and NOT invested. Save some more money then invest that - don't risk your security blanket.

Good luck!

mollycat

bobobski wrote: »

Congratulations for getting to where you have.

Other wiser people will be along soon I'm sure but my initial thought is that your emergency money should be as accessible and secure as possible, i.e. in the bank and NOT invested. Save some more money then invest that - don't risk your security blanket.

Good luck!

I read the OP as having an emergency fund saved and £10K to invest.

But maybe I have that wrong?

Fatbritabroad

mollycat wrote: »

I read the OP as having an emergency fund saved and £10K to invest.

But maybe I have that wrong?

Thats why I asked

coffeehound

Also have a look at the beginners guides on the main site:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/which-saving-account

Deedlebod

Thanks everyone for initial responses. To clarify, I am 42, married with two kids, work full time, higher tax rate payer, contributing the maximum amount to th work pension. My other half is self employed lower tax bracket. The 6 month emergency funds are in cash ISA's. the £10k is sitting in a normal savings account earning nothing. Now I've got to this stage I could probably save £1k a month for investing. Is it a stocks and shares ISA I go for? What do I pick? Dilemma!!!

BLB53

really basic step by step introduction into how to start investing

Well done with getting out of debt...that is a good start.

There are a few good books like 'Smarter Investing' but probably the best free learning resources are the UK blogs. A couple I recommend are Monevators investing page..lots of great articles
http://monevator.com/category/investing/passive-investing-investing/
also diy investors basics covers probably lots of what the beginner needs to cover
http://diyinvestoruk.blogspot.co.uk/p/basics.html

As for keeping it simple, I hold the Vanguard Lifestrategy 60 fund in my ISA and it does not come any simpler than that...started just over 2 yrs back and return is just over 25% so far.

Good luck!

YorkshireBoy

Deedlebod wrote: »

The 6 month emergency funds are in cash ISA's.

Why? It should be in high interest current accounts. How much? 5% AER for a year is available on £7.5K with Nationwide for a couple. Even for a higher rate tax payer that's likely to be 3 times the interest your ISAs are paying (maybe even 5 times as much due to the PSA).

What about your partner's pension arrangements?

xylophone

Look at sole and joint Flexdirect and Flexdirect regular saver for emergency funds.

Look at TSB Plus.

Look at Tesco current accounts/ BOS Vantage if you can find the DDs.

You could each open a stocks and shares ISA for the long term, making regular monthly investments.

You might consider the L&G offerings as a start?

https://www.legalandgeneral.com/investments/products-and-funds/mixed-investments/

https://investorhub.financialexpress.net/factsheethtml/telegraph/en-GB/dtg/?TypeCode=FO:BKF0&specialunittype=ORDN

http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

Fatbritabroad

Deedlebod wrote: »

Thanks everyone for initial responses. To clarify, I am 42, married with two kids, work full time, higher tax rate payer, contributing the maximum amount to th work pension. My other half is self employed lower tax bracket. The 6 month emergency funds are in cash ISA's. the £10k is sitting in a normal savings account earning nothing. Now I've got to this stage I could probably save £1k a month for investing. Is it a stocks and shares ISA I go for? What do I pick? Dilemma!!!

In terms of the cash you need to make best use of it and you can do that by spreading around a number of different accounts between you and your wife

As an example I have the following

Santander 123 with about 6k In earning 1. 5% plus money on bills and mortgage

Nationwide x 3 (2 singles and Jojnt between girlfriend and I 2500 in each earning 5%

Tsb x 3 with 1500 earning 3%

A nationwide monthly saver 500 a month earning 5%

A santander monthly saver earning
200 a month 5%

You can earn slightly higher but I can't be faff ed messing around with DD.s for other accounts

If you want to invest the first thing I'd say as someone who's been at this about 3 years is knowledge is power. As someone who works in financial services (but not investments) I thought I was reasonably au fait but I've learnt a huge amount from this forum, financial freedom blogs and books like investing for dummies
Read up preferably before you start investing as it will help massively with the psychological aspect and that fear of losing money. When you do this you'll realise that for example 'risk' in terms of funds refers to volatility. People lose money generally because they don't diversify or they panic at the first sign of a crash and take their money out.
For you I would suggest a stock and share isa with a %based fee like Charles stanley direct.

If you can deal psychologically with the 'risk' (see above) of seeing that 10k reduced to 5k overnight in a black Wednesday style event and you are confident you won't need it for 10 to 20 years then bung the lot in. Otherwise drip feed but again you'll realise after learning that you still get the best returns if you are prepared to continue buying monthly even when the world is going nuts

Pick a fund that is passive and buys the whole stock market_ you'll see lifestrategy by vanguard for their world index funds mentioned on here but there are others (HSBC and l and G are two) again learn WHY these are recommended what the different types are and don't just buy it because someone on a forum tells you to.
Once you have 30k to 50k you may want to swap to a fixed fee platform as this keeps charges low

Once you have 100k plus you MAY want to try your hand at buying individual stocks if your feeling cocky but know most people pick losers and imo I'm going to need a lot more research on how to value companies before I do that!

Hope this helps