% split across your accounts

Wilde00

Hi guys, first thing first: thank you so much for all the work and effort you put in here. I read several things that helped me in shaping my ideas.

My situation
35 years old, 60-70k GBP/year salary. I have around 30k GBP in saving that I kept in a crap cash isa at barclays (only recently I thought about investing smartly). I have also a SIPP account for my pension but I don't want to talk about this, in this post.

I transferred my barclays cash isa to Hargreaves L. Now it's in their platform, in a stock and share ISA, waiting to be invested in some funds.

Question for you - next steps
Reading this site and few forum post, I decided that I am NOT interested in a Lifetime ISA due to the cash-out restriction (I don't plan to buy a house in London/i don't want to block my money until 60years old, too long term).

Given the amount of saving I have, how would you split the sum?
- 100% invested in stock and share isa?
- some in the stock and share ISA and some in a saving account? (like the new active saving from HL)?

Considering the end of fiscal year on in 2 weeks, my idea is :
1) to invest everything (30k) in the stock and share isa (being a transferred ISA I am fine with the 20k annual limit)
2) With the new fiscal year (after april 6th), to put 500GBP monthly on the stock and share isa
3) Open a saving account (active saving? cash isa?) and put any extra money on it

What do you think? The end goal is to have higher returns in 10-15 years. How are you splitting % your portfolio?

I know there is no correct-wrong answer and that depends on many things (how risky, how long term, etc.) but I wanted to test my idea with the community, certainly more experts than me.

Any comments-feedback or idea would be super-appreciated. thank you guys :beer:

Prism

Much of my disposable income goes into my pension, however I do have an ISA and savings account for more immediate access. I have no exact time frame in mind but don't have any current reason to touch it for the next ten years too.

My split is 90% equites and 10% cash. The cash a kind of secondary emergency fund and also used to top up my equities from time to time (end of tax year or tempting drop in equities). I have no bond funds.

Doshwaster

If you transferred all of the cash ISA into HL stock and shares ISA what emergency cash fund do you have? Top priority would be to get at least 3 months essential living expenses into a safe place in case of loss of income.

Wilde00

Great point. I do have a spare 1.5k in the barclays saving account (where my salary goes) and I expect to get around 10k net in the next 45 days (march and april salary... I made a bonus). So i am not truly concerned about the immediate need... I will follow you recommendation of keeping a safety buffer (3months living) for any emergency.

ColdIron

Wilde00 wrote: »

- some in the stock and share ISA and some in a saving account? (like the new active saving from HL)?

HL's Active Savings are not ISA wrapped so you would need to remove cash from your ISA, not sure how this sits with the rest of your post that talks about adding to your ISA. Also apart from one (poor) easy access account their savings are fixed term so you can't add to them monthly

El_Torro

How much percentage of your money is in investments compared to savings isn't really all that relevant. The way to look at it is to make sure you have enough in savings (3-6 months expenditure), then the rest goes to investments.


Generally speaking a 20 year will probably have a lot higher percentage of their wealth in savings rather than investments, whereas a 50 year should be the other way round.

Shashy

Just to check - are you contributing enough to your employer-provided pension to get the full contribution from them? That's free money - would take a hell of an investment to match it.

Wilde00

El_Torro wrote: »

How much percentage of your money is in investments compared to savings isn't really all that relevant. The way to look at it is to make sure you have enough in savings (3-6 months expenditure), then the rest goes to investments.

Interesting perspective.

Just to check - are you contributing enough to your employer-provided pension to get the full contribution from them? That's free money - would take a hell of an investment to match it.

My current company puts 5%. From april will put 8% of my salary. I am not putting anything in this Pension scheme.... :eek:

Alexland

Are you sure it's not the auto enrollment 8% total from April with you contributing 5% and the employer contributing 3%? Still it's free money so worth taking. Might also be worth considering a higher employee contribution if they operate salary sacrifice to save both the tax and national insurance.

Alex

Wilde00

No, I checked... royal London pension scheme. Apparently I am not contributing at all, while my company will do a 8% from April... I guess I have to fix that too.