SIPP fund choices - what would you do?

shoebox13

Title says it all really! I'm 31, self-employed and earning around £40k. I've never had a workplace pension and finally opened a SIPP in a catch-up panic last year.

I currently have just shy of £8k in there, and am adding £266 a month (so that with the tax relief that's about 10% of my income - I know that given my age I should be aiming at 15%, so will try to up that soon).

I initially chose Hargreaves Lansdown's Portfolio+, setting it to adventurous growth (hey, I've got a quarter century before I can get anything out, now is the time to embrace a bit of risk?!). Now, having realised that the charges are pretty hefty....and feeling more at home with the whole thing....I'd prefer to be choosing myself.

Im doing as much reading as I can but would be very interested to know what other people would go for, and why!

A_T

I certainly wouldn't use one of HL's own portfolios. Have a read of this:

https://monevator.com/category/investing/passive-investing-investing/

shoebox13

Thank you! Super interesting and definitely in line with reading I've been doing suggesting that trackers are the way forward...

BLB53

Keep it simple - maybe Vanguard Lifestrategy 80 or their Target Retirement funds.

Here's an article from the DIY site on the Lifestrategy funds

http://diyinvestoruk.blogspot.com/2015/04/vanguard-lifestrategy-one-stop-solution.html

dunstonh

The point of DIY is to save money. At the moment, you are paying charges that are higher than using an IFA.

You dont have enough saved to build a portfolio of funds (wait until you get closer to £100k). So, a good low cost multi-asset fund will do the trick.

Prism

In my pension I am 100% equities, although I do have a good chunk of cash/bond investments outside of the pension. You need to decide what risk level you are happy with

Clive_Woody

I was looking at HL range of tracker funds recently, they have their top 50 funds, 10 of which are trackers which all seem pretty low cost.

I am no expert and certainly not qualified to offer advice but I liked the look of the Legal & General Global fund linked below. Others may be able to offers reasons to avoid this fund or suggest better alternatives to consider.

https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/l/legal-and-general-international-index-trust-c-accumulation

I believe there are cheaper platforms other than HL that you could consider and if you like the sound of Vanguard then you can go direct to them....although their SIPP is still pending release and will not be available until the next tax year (after April).

Zorillo

Consider a LISA. There's £19k of free money available to you that could pay for a year or two of retirement by itself. You could put the maturing LISA money into a pension in your early 60s, if that suited your circumstances.

It doesn't suit an early retirement strategy though.

A_T

dunstonh wrote: »

The point of DIY is to save money. At the moment, you are paying charges that are higher than using an IFA.

You dont have enough saved to build a portfolio of funds (wait until you get closer to £100k). So, a good low cost multi-asset fund will do the trick.

He could easily have a portfolio of OEIC funds if he uses a platform that doesn't charge for trades like HL, Fidelity, etc.