Keep calm and carry on....

Chiglepig

Those videos gave me pause for thought too, SC. I have less time on my side, but it's a tantalising prospect.

Grogged

The trick (if there is one) is to be boring and time.
I'm on the clock pension wise too, I just invest in global funds and let them do their thing.
Chasing money or fads just turns investing into gambling.
As a rough rule of thumb, if you have less than £160k then Vanguard is probably the easiest and cheapest (which is who MrsG uses), after that a fixed fee platform will be cheaper.

remote_control

S&S ISAs seem quite scary! I think I might just put £1000 in one and see how that goes. I have 4 years til I am 40 and I would like to pay off our 0% cards, save a big pot for emergency/travel fund and make some mortgage progress.

South_coast

If you're under 40 then you might want to look into opening a LISA. The government will top up whatever you put in by 25% (up to £1k if you put £4k in), so you could dabble in S&S, knowing it would have to lose more than 25% before it starts to eat into your own capital investment. Would that help it feel less risky? You can only open it until you're 40 though, can't pay in after 50 and can't access it until 60, so it's a long-term thing. 

I'll be moving to Vanguard once the new tax year starts Grogged 😀 In my head it seems like it'll be easier to transfer when there haven't been any transactions in that tax year - no idea if that's right though 🤷‍♀️! The fees are definitely the draw, 0.22% from memory, as opposed to 0.85% with my current provider (just reduced from 1.00%, which they made a big deal about how great it was!) Suddenly I understand what The Escape Artist keeps banging on about, I wasn't really bothered about the fees before as there's not much in there - but hey, that's still my money 🤦‍♀️!

Chiglepig

@South_coast , @Grogged , I use Vanguard too. 0.22% is the charge on their life strategy funds, others vary depending on whether they are active or not, but I don't think anything is as high as you're paying SC. The advice on this board is so much friendlier and less combative than of the savings and investing board.

edinburgher

@Chiglepig - another happy Vanguard customer here - Mrs E and I have old DC pensions sitting with them. I also use them for S&S ISA and a Junior ISA. Please note there's also a platform fee of 0.15% that is paid in addition to your fund-specific fees. It's still very good, I pay 0.39% total for one of their Target Retirement products, I can live with that.

remote_control

Hi South Coast,
I've just read through the guides for the LISA, you're right it does sound like a good option. My OH is a higher rate tax payer and is paying into his pension the max amount that his company will max (9%).  I'd discounted LISAs as I thought we should probably put more money to pensions. I don't know why but I sort of want to have eggs in different baskets and also options to get hard cash for travelling in later life. 

edinburgher

@remote_control - if OH is a higher rate tax payer, additional payments into a SIPP will likely be a better option than a LISA

South_coast

Ooh, lots of pension chat 😀 Feel like I should know more about what a SIPP is, I only have the vaguest of ideas - think BF may have one 🤔? First job is to get work to actually start taking contributions off me for their scheme, I've not had any paperwork yet so don't think it's been processed for this month's pay 🤦‍♀️ I like the eggs in different baskets idea though, it's why I never combined my two previous work pensions as I thought I might do different things with them. Will probably transfer my little private one into the new work one though to give it a head-start, as there's only about £2k in there so not much point having that hanging around on its own

South_coast

South_coast said:

I like to think of them as having a race - old job is beating old-old-job at the moment, but only by £123.34 🤣!

Ooh, just snuck a peek and old-old job is now winning by £97.80 🤣! Wonder where they'll be by the 1st of the month when I update my "Ultimate money needed" sheet!

I need to get out more! Time for bed!