Financial advisor?

Squids_in

AnotherJoe wrote: »

You are putting £40k a year in ?

Er no! Sorry, I just meant I’m putting in as much as I can - a fraction of what I should be.

AnotherJoe

Squids_in wrote: »

Er no! Sorry, I just meant I’m putting in as much as I can - a fraction of what I should be.

So, you already know that, so you know you dont need to be spending on an IFA to tell you you need to put more in, and similarily you dont need to be spending on an IFA to help you look up "best childs savings rates" (though I'd be investing for a child but whatever) and you dont need to be spending on an IFA to help you look up "best savings rates".
In your circumstances, an analogy would be, you are having four friends round for dinner and are planning to hire a cook to help you as you are unsure what temperature to cook the chicken as you are "too busy" to look it up.

Dont let the fact there's some money involved make you immediately think you cannot manage it and must get a professional. The stuff you've asked is trivial, you can work it out yourself (in less time on your part than you could find and see an IFA) and the spend would be wholly disproportionate even if you could find one who would be interested.

foofi22

Squids_in wrote: »

I have a work pension which I maximise.

Squids_in wrote: »

Er no! Sorry, I just meant I’m putting in as much as I can - a fraction of what I should be.

Hopefully what you are putting in, at the very least, maximises your employers contribution. i.e. if your employer offers matching up to 10% then you will be contributing at least 10% also.

bowlhead99

Squids_in wrote: »

Er no! Sorry, I just meant I’m putting in as much as I can - a fraction of what I should be.

Not quite as much as you can then, if you have a spare £200 of income that you are not putting in? If for some reason your company scheme won't accept more contributions than you are putting in, you could always pay into a personal pension instead. Pensions can hold the same sort of investment assets that you are already considering for your S&S ISA (e.g. the lifestrategy fund you mentioned)

But still, if you are not a higher rate taxpayer you are not missing out on masses of tax relief by choosing to use a shorter-term solution like an ISA that can be accessed before personal pension access age. It's very sensible to have cash savings and medium to long term investments that are not locked away untouchably inside pensions. But if you know you are only investing a fraction of what you should be investing for your retirement either, get on the case.

so I wondered about the VLS80.
It would be good to hear if anyone has used this approach and what kind of returns they’ve had.

You can see what kind of returns they have by looking at a chart of its performance (change the date range to go back further) and imagining when they might have put their money in and what it might be worth today

https://www2.trustnet.com/Tools/Charting.aspx?typeCode=FACDT

However, the key thing to note is that this particular fund has only existed since summer 2011 and there hasn't been a major stockmarket crash since - the values of stocks and bonds have been generally rising other than the odd blip of ten to fifteen percent here and there. During the last couple of years the pound depreciated heavily against other world currencies meaning that all the foreign assets it holds (about three quarters of its equities) and the UK equities it holds which have foreign income (HSBC, Shell, etc etc) became worth more pounds.

So, just because investors buying the fund 8 years ago have doubled their money due to particularly fortunate economic conditions, you shouldn't really expect to get the same results over the next 10. If sterling strengthens while there is a global equities crash you might find the fund drops 40% in value over a one to two year period, and could take several years to recover. In the long term though, it should be fine.

Lower risk funds are available of course, if you or your other half are the sort of person who would see a 30-40% drop as a scary thing which would cause you to stop your monthly investments and sell out in panic and then miss the subsequent recovery.

Squids_in

Thanks all.

In terms of my current work pension, I really mean I’m getting the most I can from my employer. I could put more in but I’m looking for an investment plan that gives returns pre-retirement. The mrs has a good pension so we plan to rely more on that later in life.
I have older work pensions from jobs I’ve left in the past but I’m struggling to find details on them. Do I just forget about them and trust they’ll pay out at retirement or should I be approaching those providers to try to combine the money in some way so I can more easily manage them?

Aminatidi

LifeStrategy is a decent option, there are others but arguably there aren't significant differences between them.

I would focus on risk level vs product as I would suggest that the difference between 20/40/60/80/100 is more important to you than if you go with Vanguard's offering or Blackrock or L&G or any of the numerous others.

Squids_in

Understood. Is the VLS (or similar) regarded in any way like an ISA? Only asking as I’ve just looked at the HSBC global strategy which isn’t available if you already have an ISA in that current financial year. I do although it’s only fed a small amount each month so not sure if that’s an issue.

Aminatidi

Squids_in wrote: »

Understood. Is the VLS (or similar) regarded in any way like an ISA? Only asking as I’ve just looked at the HSBC global strategy which isn’t available if you already have an ISA in that current financial year. I do although it’s only fed a small amount each month so not sure if that’s an issue.

VLS (and HSBC Global Strategy) are funds.

A Stocks & Shares ISA is a "wrapper" which shelters things inside them from tax.

There are other "wrappers" like SIPPs but they all come with restrictions like with an ISA you can "only" put in £20K/year of new money, with a SIPP you can't access until 57 etc.

So you may choose to open a S&S ISA or a SIPP (two examples of wrappers) but you can hold units of VLS or HSBC global strategy inside each, any restrictions around that kind of thing are usually down to who you have the ISA with which is where you'll hear the word "platform" mentioned.

So for example:

* My platform is Hargreaves Lansdown
* I have a Stocks & Shares ISA with them
* Inside the ISA I hold funds called Fundsmith and Lindsell Train Global Equity, but it could as easily be VLS

Squids_in

Thanks again.
I’m having ANOTHER re-think! Rather than get myself in a mess with ISA’s i’m now considering a SIPP which I’ll be able to access from the age of 57.
Would the return likely be similar?

Aminatidi

I don't know enough about the pros and cons of SIPPs other than, for me, I don't want my money totally inaccessible.

The return of a fund is the same whether it's in a wrapper (ISA, SIPP etc.) or not.

The wrapper may make a difference on how much of the return you see.