Catching up and moving forward

elantan

Hi all,

Years ago I was much more on top of our finances, I had time to read and learn and figure out roughly what to do.

Then I went back to university and had to put it all aside, before I did I put a lot of what we had saved into Vanguard lifestrategy 80 and 60 ( giving me a kinda 70 balance) as I reckoned it wouldn't require as much time or effort spent on it so I could concentrate on my studies.

So here is where you all come in ( if you want to) any advice on how to catch up with the current financial world ? I see some talking about a company called iweb, I don't know anything about them, I have Charles Stanley Direct ( for amounts less than £30k and my H&L account for over £30k ( these are both SIPP, although I do have £10k in an ISA)

at this time really looking for pointers in what to catch up with, any big changes in rules amounts etc, for example I read the UK Gov are possibly intending on bringing forward legislation that would mean a person can only draw down personal pension 10 years ( or less) from state retirement, that info will have an impact on me so I need to deal with that


Thanks in advance

elantan

I suppose it would help to know a bit about what I'm currently doing savings wise, so I have a TSB account as does OH ( just opened last night along with closing the nationwide RS) we will be opening a joint one soon, both accounts will have the 1500 In them, shortly ( mine does already OH when he can sign up to the online account), the joint one will have the remainder of the nationwide account in it so 800 we will filter into this account any interest from the other two plus the £2 from Halifax and the money from.santander (123 account) we will also put Tilly tidied into this account.

Santander is where we pay the bill's from for the cash back every month, Halifax I opened when it was £5 a month ( now £2 a month) not sure if I will bother to keep this one going.

will open another Nationwide RS as soon as I can ( tomorrow probably) so that I can get another year of 5%. we pay £250 into this per month

we tend to try and save £500 a month into savings ISA and £500 into a SIPP ... not making it every month but getting close when we don't quite make it.

bowlhead99

elantan wrote: »

Then I went back to university and had to put it all aside, before I did I put a lot of what we had saved into Vanguard lifestrategy 80 and 60 ( giving me a kinda 70 balance) as I reckoned it wouldn't require as much time or effort spent on it so I could concentrate on my studies.

Is there any particular reason for you to change to something that requires more time and effort spent on it? Is the 'lifestrategy' fund allocation no longer suitable for your objectives?

[Snip a few paragraphs of irrelevant back story]

any advice on how to catch up with the current financial world ?

How did you get on top of it last time? "...read and learn and figure out roughly what to do" ? The method is much the same. Savings and investment and pensions planning is still talked about on the savings and investment and pensions boards just as it was a few years ago. If you want a pointer to some specific area, ask.

I see some talking about a company called iweb, I don't know anything about them

They are simply a fixed fee investment platform which charge a reasonably low transaction fee when you trade (although don't discount the fee if you are making regular monthly purchases as some rivals do). They offer many (but not all) of the popular open ended funds discussed here.

People with high investment values may prefer the IWeb or Halifax Sharedealing or ii price structure to one which has a percentage based annual fee on your asset values (eg at HL or Charles Stanley Direct). Vanguard themselves now have a platform with a relatively low percentage based fee (lower than HL or CSD) but only offer their own funds on it, and don't yet offer a pension.

"Snowman's Spreadsheet" is still a good platform comparison tool found using a forum search. Cost is not everything though.

I have Charles Stanley Direct ( for amounts less than £30k and my H&L account for over £30k ( these are both SIPP, although I do have £10k in an ISA)

Two sipps seems relatively inefficient unless they have very different assets at providers with very different price structures. Generally you get a better result from a cost perspective by pooling your assets in one place (esp. using fixed fee providers)

for example I read the UK Gov are possibly intending on bringing forward legislation that would mean a person can only draw down personal pension 10 years ( or less) from state retirement, that info will have an impact on me so I need to deal with that

In 2014 the coalition's government of the day said they planned to implement this, but it was not made into law at the time. Then we had a conservative government who has not done it yet either. As it was mooted in 2014 and still not made it into legislation around five years later, and the government has other things to deal with at the moment and may be changed out for another government at the next election, it could be a while before we see it, if at all. One would assume there would be some notice period /transition period, but you never know.

What you can say is it would be prudent to assume that rules on pension access may may change - if you are planning to need cash at a specific age, so have a plan B. You can see the population isn't getting any younger and that state pension age is starting later and later, so maybe having personal pension access more than a decade earlier than state pension - by the time you get there - is optimistic

elantan

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Is there any particular reason for you to change to something that requires more time and effort spent on it? Is the 'lifestrategy' fund allocation no longer suitable for your objectives?

[Snip a few paragraphs of irrelevant back story]
How did you get on top of it last time? "...read and learn and figure out roughly what to do" ? The method is much the same. Savings and investment and pensions planning is still talked about on the savings and investment and pensions boards just as it was a few years ago. If you want a pointer to some specific area, ask.

They are simply a fixed fee investment platform which charge a reasonably low transaction fee when you trade (although don't discount the fee if you are making regular monthly purchases as some rivals do). They offer many (but not all) of the popular open ended funds discussed here.

People with high investment values may prefer the IWeb or Halifax Sharedealing or ii price structure to one which has a percentage based annual fee on your asset values (eg at HL or Charles Stanley Direct). Vanguard themselves now have a platform with a relatively low percentage based fee (lower than HL or CSD) but only offer their own funds on it, and don't yet offer a pension.

"Snowman's Spreadsheet" is still a good platform comparison tool found using a forum search. Cost is not everything though.

Two sipps seems relatively inefficient unless they have very different assets at providers with very different price structures. Generally you get a better result from a cost perspective by pooling your assets in one place (esp. using fixed fee providers)


In 2014 the coalition's government of the day said they planned to implement this, but it was not made into law at the time. Then we had a conservative government who has not done it yet either. As it was mooted in 2014 and still not made it into legislation around five years later, and the government has other things to deal with at the moment and may be changed out for another government at the next election, it could be a while before we see it, if at all. One would assume there would be some notice period /transition period, but you never know.

What you can say is it would be prudent to assume that rules on pension access may may change - if you are planning to need cash at a specific age, so have a plan B. You can see the population isn't getting any younger and that state pension age is starting later and later, so maybe having personal pension access more than a decade earlier than state pension - by the time you get there - is optimistic

Hi Bowlhead, thanks for the reply

just now I'm relatively happy with where my funds are, I need to tweak them a bit but that's nothing I need to do urgently, I just have always thought it's good to keep an eye on things ( not obsessively), I just haven't had time for the last while to check it all out so this was an Initial right let's start to have a look kinda thing,

I certainly will be reading and researching, I was merely looking for a wee heads up of areas that may have changed, so that I could focus my efforts, but ultimately any learning will be good it may just take longer.

I had intended on getting on top of the SIPP situation shortly ( again it's just something I haven't had time to deal with) thanks for the reminder