Great Hunt: Are you interested in investing your money?

Plus

There's two things I'd say. One is that Get Rich Slow is better than Get Rich Quick - because if you get rich quick, getting poor quick often isn't far behind. Conversely, it's harder to get poor slow with sensible investments - the way to do that is to stay in cash, which gets eroded by inflation.

The other is to get a grip of yourself when markets fall. They go up and down, it happens. Eventually they'll usually win, but it can take years. If you panic and sell out when things are down you're doing it at the worst time. The thing to do is sit tight and wait for them to come back again - or, better, buy more when things are cheap. You can make this easy by simply not looking at your account more than once a year - no chance to get worried by all the little bumps.

(The flip side of this is take investing advice in newspapers with a pinch of salt: any time there's an article on the latest hot thing, you've already missed the boat. What's hot now is likely to be cold later - buying expensive and selling cheap is the opposite of investing)

XChrisJD

My wife & I invested £22428 in 2105 in world wide stocks & shares ISA run by a reputable firm - starts with A & has 3 letters - & recommended by our IFA. As at today it is valued at £27655. We have not added to it or sold any. Only debits are the charges. By contrast a small sum of £750 in a well known banks savings accounts pays out 2p a month in interest. i wonder which is best!!!

System

I am still in the research stage of investing, but I am not brave when it comes to money but feel I am being forced into it because the interest rates are so rubbish and the banks don't want to know about us savers.

So from reading the forum a Stocks and Shares ISA seems the best starting point, but I don't if I should just invest a lump sum or not? Any advice for a complete novice?

Mogley

Novice201 wrote: »

I am being forced into it because the interest rates are so rubbish and the banks don't want to know about us savers.

There are good interest rates on current accounts and regular savers between 2-5%. This is good for cash to be kept for an emergency fund (3-6months of expenses).

Novice201 wrote: »

So from reading the forum a Stocks and Shares ISA seems the best starting point,

A stocks and shares ISA is a good option once you have your cash savings pot sorted and you want to invest for > than 5 years (preferably 10).

Novice201 wrote: »

but I don't if I should just invest a lump sum or not? Any advice for a complete novice?

Do a lot more research on sites like this and Monevator before deciding to invest a lump sum or drip feeding your cash. This depends on your attitude to risk.

eskbanker

XChrisJD wrote: »

My wife & I invested £22428 in 2105 in world wide stocks & shares ISA run by a reputable firm - starts with A & has 3 letters - & recommended by our IFA. As at today it is valued at £27655. We have not added to it or sold any. Only debits are the charges. By contrast a small sum of £750 in a well known banks savings accounts pays out 2p a month in interest. i wonder which is best!!!

Hope you had a good time machine to get you back from 2105, what level is the FTSE at then please (or perhaps you can advise on next week's lottery numbers)?

Your experiences won't be unusual in the context of a good few years in the markets but obviously you need to be prepared for the likelihood that at some point in the future your £22K may become, say, £15K, rather than a continuing linear increase, so a short time period during a bull run isn't a very good basis on which to judge the merits of investing versus saving....

DragonQ

XChrisJD wrote: »

My wife & I invested £22428 in 2105 in world wide stocks & shares ISA run by a reputable firm - starts with A & has 3 letters - & recommended by our IFA. As at today it is valued at £27655. We have not added to it or sold any. Only debits are the charges. By contrast a small sum of £750 in a well known banks savings accounts pays out 2p a month in interest. i wonder which is best!!!

Well yes but putting the money into a savings account paying less than 0.1% is a bit silly, especially when you can get up to 5% by putting it into a current account or regular saver.

PathMan

XChrisJD wrote: »

My wife & I invested £22428 in 2105 in world wide stocks & shares ISA run by a reputable firm - starts with A & has 3 letters - & recommended by our IFA. As at today it is valued at £27655. We have not added to it or sold any. Only debits are the charges. By contrast a small sum of £750 in a well known banks savings accounts pays out 2p a month in interest. i wonder which is best!!!

On the face of it, this looks like a good investment (23.3% growth over two years). It's about 12% growth per annum, and if you could expect the same year after year I am sure you would be quite happy. My experience is even better, and I have one favourite fund which has averaged over 20% growth year on year since 2013 (Fundsmith Equity).
Open a stocks & shares ISA with iWeb (a one-off cost of £25 and no annual fees, with a £5 trading charge), put your money on this one and see the investment GROW!
:beer:

PathMan

Novice201 wrote: »

I am still in the research stage of investing, but I am not brave when it comes to money but feel I am being forced into it because the interest rates are so rubbish and the banks don't want to know about us savers.

So from reading the forum a Stocks and Shares ISA seems the best starting point, but I don't if I should just invest a lump sum or not? Any advice for a complete novice?

See my other post below.
Open an account with iWeb for £25 and then chose one or more funds, either managed (like Fundsmith Equity) or even a tracker fund.

XChrisJD

Yes - of course we are always told that S & S can go down as well as up. I wonder what effect Brexit will have on these in 2 years time? So much depends on the fund managers. We had a chunk of our money in Perpetual & the fund manager was so good he left & set up on his own. As an example, our investment is spread between 63% Equity, 33% Bonds & 13% Other. Across 7 countries & regions & is managed by 49 investment managers. Mine is mid risk but my wifes is minimal risk.
Yes - I know we can get better interest rates than 0.1%, but money goes in & out according to needs - it is instant access. Even so!

jimjames

PathMan wrote: »

On the face of it, this looks like a good investment (23.3% growth over two years). :beer:

Many investments grew 25% last year alone so less over 2 years isn't quite so good!

XChrisJD wrote: »

Yes - I know we can get better interest rates than 0.1%, but money goes in & out according to needs - it is instant access. Even so!

Every penny of my savings gets an average of 4% and it's instant access too. Instant access doesn't have to mean lack of interest when current accounts are paying such good rates.