Moneybox

eskbanker

iarniee wrote: »

eskbanker wrote: »

£0 would fit the bill nicely, invest elsewhere instead....

Like where?

With all due respect, it's best to take a step back and think in a more structured way than

iarniee wrote: »

Looking to pump in around £150 a month into it to see what's going on

The first port of call should really be some sort of basic financial plan, i.e. how much do you have, what do you want to do with it and over what sort of timescales, what's your attitude to risk, what are your circumstances (age, health, job security, family, etc), what assets do you have, including pensions, property, etc?

If there is room in this for investing, on the basis of money that you can afford to lock away for the long term, then do some research at sites suited to inexperienced investors, such as:

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/investing-beginners-guide
https://www.hl.co.uk/beginners-guides/investing
http://www.monevator.com
http://kroijer.com/
http://diyinvestoruk.blogspot.com/

as well as bearing in mind a number of key points of principle:

1. Only consider investing once you have adequate accessible cash reserves.
2. Only invest if you're happy to commit for at least 5-7 years and preferably 10-15 or more.
3. Diversify - ignore individual shares, etc, and concentrate on collective investments that spread your eggs over many baskets. Global multi-asset funds are a good place to start, available from the likes of HSBC Global Strategy, Vanguard LifeStrategy, Blackrock Consensus and L&G Multi-Index.
4. Choose what you want to invest in before considering which platform to hold it/them on.
5. Keep an eye on ongoing costs for funds and platforms - they shouldn't be the primary consideration but can make a noticeable difference over the long term.
6. Minimise tax impact (growth and dividends) by using S&S ISAs.

atush

iarniee wrote: »

Hi John, I'm young and don't really have any idea of much of what you said.

I'm just looking to save some money and invest it somewhere that's all.

Thanks

So have a look at Cavendish online instead as mentioned.

danm

AnotherJoe wrote: »

You might think so. I think its toxic. What its actually doing is fooling you that you are saving when in fact you are spending.

Instead of randomly saving 75p when you buy a coffee for £3.25 save £3.25 or even £4 by not buying the coffee and saving.

In any case it puts the cart before the horse, it trains you to spend first and save second when you shoudl decide what you want to save, save that, and spend whats left if you must. As it is you'd be in the frame of mind to go buy a bunch of things because you'll be "saving".

Interesting way to view it but I think it’s actually an interestingly model (not this specific app, but the principle)

I see it more like the ‘coin bottle’ for the digital age. When I was growing up we had on of those huge 3ft vodka bottles which when the parents came in from work, all the loose change would go into.

As society goes cashless, the app replaces the bottle. I don’t think anyone would spend money in order to do a ‘round-up’ the same way anyone would break a pound coin to put money in the jar.

3.25 for a coffee is a different matter - by volume it’s probably more expensive than the vodka :beer:

glaister

The point is that a 'penny jar' method is a bad way of saving.

You're not saving as much as you think you are, and much less than if you had saved 'normally'. It also decreases your motivation to save normally, as you think you are already saving.

I agree that these round-up features in savings / investing apps are appealing. But in reality, they are not as good as they look.

Malthusian

danm wrote: »

I see it more like the ‘coin bottle’ for the digital age. When I was growing up we had on of those huge 3ft vodka bottles which when the parents came in from work, all the loose change would go into.

Nobody retired on the pennies in a 3 foot vodka bottle though. Or even replaced the boiler.

The difference between Moneybox's pointless "pennies in, pennies out" feature and the penny bottle is that nobody ever promoted the bottle as a substitute for actual saving.

We had one of these in our household and it paid for the occasional day out, but my parents still made regular savings for a rainy-day fund and pension contributions.

By contrast none of the posters who come here about MoneyBox ever say "Hay guys, I've maximised my employer pension contributions and I've got x hundred a month going into a regular saver / stocks & shares ISA, and having got that sorted I like the idea of rounding up my purchases to fund an occasional National Trust visit every few months, what do you think of MoneyBox."

Oh, and vodka bottles don't charge you an eye-bleeding £1 per month (eye-bleeding because it represents a huge percentage of any amount small enough that anyone would invest it via MoneyBox).

3.25 for a coffee is a different matter - by volume it’s probably more expensive than the vodka

Way more. You get around 12g of coffee in a standard coffee measure. A standard 750ml vodka bottle contains roughly 300g of alcohol. We can disregard the tap water content of both. For the equivalent amount of coffee you could get a couple of bottles of Grey Goose and have enough left over for a magnum of Sainsburys' own.

Naturally this is an unfair comparison because the £3.25 coffee is pricing in the cost of the premises and the service. When you buy a bottle of vodka you have to supply that yourself. So it depends on how much you value sitting next to other people who like paying £3.25 for coffee.

masonic

What's even worse with Moneybox is that the one group of people for whom saving the pennies is a valuable way of saving - those who struggle to make ends meet and have no savings - shouldn't be putting what small amount of savings they can make into investments that could lose money.

norsefox

Moneybox is more expensive, but a perfectly accessible and easy to use platform for anyone first saving in a stocks and shares ISA.

I set one up three years ago based on transaction roundings (it’s a total gimmick but it’s a nice idea). On average my direct debits are £15-£20 of roundings each week plus £50 on pay day.

These are payments I don’t miss, and after 3 years I’m at around £3,500, which is a 10.5% return at last check.

It’s currently being transferred to Vanguard. I’ve enjoyed the experiment but I’d rather have lower charges.

Annoying things about Vanguard is there is no app. Whilst I appreciate it’s in there for the long haul, I like to be able to check regularly. Signing in online is not the way things should be now. After all, I can check my NS&I savings in a second, even through Yolt, but Vanguard seem to be years behind right now.

A lot of the comments above suggest Moneybox has no value because it’s not taking saving seriously. I’d posit that doing nothing at all is taking saving much less seriously.

And before the inevitable retort of “well, it makes people thing they’re doing enough when they’re not”. You’ve got to start somewhere, whether that be in recycling or AE pensions. Saving £500 a month might not be possible right now, but saving £50 probably is. If you’re already doing the latter, in 5 years doing the former is a lot more likely than if you’d never done it before.

ffacoffipawb

norsefox wrote: »

Annoying things about Vanguard is there is no app. Whilst I appreciate it’s in there for the long haul, I like to be able to check regularly. Signing in online is not the way things should be now. After all, I can check my NS&I savings in a second ...

Ooh. A new NS&I app. When did that happen?

Shame doesn't show my Premium Bonds and index linked certificates though.

norsefox

ffacoffipawb wrote: »

Ooh. A new NS&I app. When did that happen?

Shame doesn't show my Premium Bonds and index linked certificates though.

I can check my winnings each month through an app and presumably (since I can do it through Yolt) that there was must be a purpose-built app as well?

I can even use an app to check my annual earnings and PAYE but Vanguard don’t have a non-US app? Very odd.