S&S ISA newbie

juniperberry

Hi there please excuse my complete ignorance of s&s isa’s

I opened a s&s isa yesterday which will take 25£ a month from my bank. I did it as a little bit of fun. I am COMPLETELY clueless as to what I can do.
Can I just leave the money and not buy shares??
Is £25 a month enough to actually invest in something if I ever did want to buy shares?

Any tips much welcomed....

Hargreaves Lansdown is the name of the “bank”?

Jberry😍

SonOf

Can I just leave the money and not buy shares??

what on earth would be the point of that? You may as well leave the money in a jar in your Kitchen.

If your intention is to buy shares rather than funds then that would almost certainly be daft with just £25pm. The charges vs amount being paid would not be a sensible thing to do.

Hargreaves Lansdown is the name of the “bank”?

They are not a bank and S&S ISAs are not issued by banks (even where a bank logo appears on the paperwork). HL are an investment platform.

Any tips much welcomed....

Stick to funds, not shares. Your contribution amount is way too small for direct investments.

Albermarle

Suggest you read this and follow the link to the 'beginners guide'
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/stocks-shares-isas/

probably would have been better to read this first...…..

juniperberry

Can I close the account - I feel like an utter idiot now...

juniperberry

So I could invest the £25 per month in a fund?

bowlhead99

juniperberry wrote: »

Can I close the account - I feel like an utter idiot now...

Yes, there's no closure fee.

juniperberry wrote: »

So I could invest the £25 per month in a fund?

Although - as others mention above - it is extremely inefficient to buy shares with small amounts of money (because there is a fee every time you buy or sell anything on the stock exchange), you could still use the money to buy investment funds on the HL platform (as there are no transaction fees each time you buy or sell 'funds').

They have plenty of choice of funds that have minimum investment amount of £25 per month. If you don't need the money for day to day spending it doesn't hurt to be putting something away for the long term, 10 years or so.

Still, if you only put £300 a year in, at the end of the year it is not going to be worth much more or less than £300. I mean, you won't be making thousands or losing thousands.

HCIMbtw

yep you can set up a regular investment and purchase of a fund!

don't feel like an idiot though, its fun learning!

thing to remember is investments can make and lose money, read up on funds.. work out your risk tolerance and what you want to invest in and have a little bit of fun!

fund investment is typically for longer term though!

personally i've just stumped for global equity funds.. can be pretty volatile and if global markets crash i'd stand to lose circa 50%.. i'm happy with the risk though and looking at 15year plus investment!

HL is the platform you use to hold your money and invest in funds.. it's!on the pricier side of things, so if you red around you may want to switch

Albermarle

So I could invest the £25 per month in a fund?

You can see HL like a supermarket for financial products . They offer many different brands , including some of their 'own brand ' funds.
However unlike a supermarket their own brands are poor value .
Have a look for a simple low cost fund like Vanguard Life Strategy 80 on the HL website .

juniperberry

Thanks guys... are there any MINING funds at all....

lpgm

juniperberry wrote: »

Thanks guys... are there any MINING funds at all....

Yes, there are. But for how long have you thought your future financial wellbeing might depend on the fortunes of the mining business?

back_to_back

juniperberry wrote: »

Thanks guys... are there any MINING funds at all....

They all are. After putting £25 into any fund, you are officially entitled to rub your hands together and say: "MINE! MINE! IT'S ALL MINE!!!!11!!"

But as for funds that invest in digging holes in the ground, that is a bit specialized. You are better off going for a more general fund, which invests in many kinds of businesses, probably including mining businesses, but not only them.

Despite the stereotypes, owning a mine is not a sure-fire way to make money. I mean, it is if you find gold in your back garden and are then able to sell your land for many times what it was previously worth. But it isn't if you're buying some shares in the mining company which now owns the mine on what used to be somebody's back garden, because the price of the shares in the company is not the same as what Frieda originally paid for the modest bungalow where she thought she would live out the twilight years of her life. It's much higher. And if, after a few years, the mine is still producing gold, but less than was expected due to geological issues, and labour costs are up, and the gold price is down, and the company previously took on too much debt, then your shares in the mine could easily fall in value, or even become worthless. (None of this has any effect on Frieda, who insisted on selling her land for cash up front, not for shares in the company or a "profit share", and is now living in Vegas.)

So, to conclude, you should probably be looking to buy a either a Multi-Asset Fund or a Global Equity Tracker Fund.