ST JAMES PLACE OR IFA

hulahula

Helllo. I have been approahed in work by SJP regarding investment. I am only small fry and have 20/30 to invest. Have just seen some negative comments from October 2019 and now doubting whether i should invest with this company. They have reduced upront charges to 3. 3 %. Obviously in present climate anything is better than banks but although 30 grand is a drop in the ocean to some it is my hard earned  savings and not money I can afford to lose. Please can you advise what my best options would be. Thanks so much. 

AlanP_2

Search on here for SJP, I think you will find more than "some negative comments".

They are not Independent and only sell their own products and their fees are very high compared to alternatives. Cheapest route is DIY, then Independent FA then an FA like SJP typically.

Would you be happy to go the DIY route or do you need an adviser?

Before you start, irresepctive of how you end up doing it, I would suggest you think about your overall financial situation (family context), timescales for investment, do you have enough Emergency Cash on hand, invest via an ISA or a Pension etc. etc.

Know why you are investing, for how long and what you want to achieve. 

Someone investing for retirement in 30 years will have a different approach to someone retiring next year after having won £5m on the Lottery - there is no one size fits all answer.
 

hulahula

Thankyou for your reply. I dont feel confident enough to go DIY like I said it is a lot of monry for me to gamble on myself.haha. 
I have enoughh emergency cash. I pay into a work pension but dont have an ISA as such. It is just sitting in a zero interest account doing nothing. I dont mind investing long term. 

bowlhead99

hulahula said:

Obviously in present climate anything is better than banks but although 30 grand is a drop in the ocean to some it is my hard earned  savings and not money I can afford to lose. 

You won't lose it all. However, there is no guarantee of returns 'better than the banks' over the next few years, after fees.  If you invest cautiously you would not expect much of a return. If you invest in higher risk assets you could get negative returns if you don't leave the money for a long time (and SJP are known for having exit fees if you want to get out).

As a side note, St James's Palace as per your title is a royal residence, and might make a good investment if it were on the market. Probably cost you more than £20-30k though.

hulahula

Haha thanks I sent it off my phone and it has auto corrected.  

Alexland

hulahula said:

I dont feel confident enough to go DIY like I said it is a lot of monry for me to gamble on myself.

So you would rather pay really high fees to get SJP to invest in the same markets? Everything you need to learn is free on this forum if you invest time and brainpower. Alternatively pay an IFA less money than SJP for a better choice of lower cost funds.

JustAnotherSaver

I was in a similar position to you in a way.

I went to an IFA to handle my retirement plan. Very small contributions per month. It totalled [an amount] before he retired. I needed somewhere to go.

After seeing that IFA i actually went to another IFA to handle my mortgage application & this guy really impressed me. So much so i was happy to deal with him for the whole shebang. So when the first IFA retired, my natural reaction was to go to the second IFA.

However in between us applying for a mortgage and the first IFA retiring, something happened with the second IFA that i didn't realise until after a meeting with him. He no longer had the "I" in IFA on his website. In the meeting he pushed this "St James' Place". He had bought in to being a director of the company he had previously only worked for when we had our mortgage sorted.

I did some googling and ended up here reading in to St James' Place and saw the not so great feedback about them.

At that point i decided to try and teach myself as best as i could and i was going to go the solo approach rather than pay an IFA a wedge to put my money in a high cost envelope, or rather pay an FA a wedge.

I had zero confidence. Right now i'm only marginally better but back then i didn't even know how to begin. Never mind choose what to invest in, i didn't even really know where to put my money as in online platform. I knew literally zero and had no confidence to start.

I read more and more. I read plenty threads here and probably asked even more questions. I read Smarter Investing by Tim Hale which gave me the confidence to make a start. I also read Investing Demystified by Lars Kroijer which helped further.

If you see any of my posts on the topic i'm still lacking in confidence and knowledge. I constantly wonder if i've made a mistake, but i at least have enough confidence not to pay someone else.

Whether that's actually the correct decision and worked out for me, i'll let you know in 30 years.

Albermarle

One point to consider is that £30K is on the low side for an IFA. Many will probably not be interested. SJP salespeople will be more keen to bag a sale for their own bonus + the charges are higher anyway.
OP - you mention a workplace pension. Increasing contributions to this could be a good simple starting point and more tax beneficial than investing outside a pension anyway .Especially if you are thinking long term. 
If you tell us the following info , we can probably point you in the right direction:
Your salary and age 
Current % contributions from you and your employer
Name of pension provider
Name of the fund(s) that the money is invested in within the pension

hulahula

Age 46 just over 40K and pay into Teachers Pension fund.

hyperhypo

So you're employed and contributing to a relatively good pension scheme. As other's have intimated , working out what you want your money for, and when you're likely to need it is a good starting place. Then some homework on risk, asset allocation and the like.  Whilst you're considering this, at the start of the new tax year particularly, you might simply  the money in a instant access banking account  . I do this  and getting 1.45% on my cash reserve (according to last month's interest, likely to drop going forward, but  generates a  useful interest on a lump sum. 
 But i'm replying to your OP as i have soon to decide how to play  my cards on the very same question ...how to invest a 30k redundancy payment  directly into my SIPP. So those basic questions of timescale for investment, level or risk , need to be revisited again and again. 
I my case i 'm considering  a small number of Invesment Trusts, some directed at capital preservation, some at growth , as part of the longer term timescale to support a drawdown type pension on a medium to longer term basis ...ie from 5 to 20-25 years hence.    Or simply work out a way to support existing cash reserve,  as my timeline for receiving a DB pension (in two years time) and SP (in a further 3 years time) will need some cash income support ...and five year timescale is short for me  to assume gains from equity based funds.  

OldMusicGuy

hulahula said:

Please can you advise what my best options would be. Thanks so much. 

Your best option is not to rush into anything. Do some searching here for SJP and make sure you understand the difference between a truly independent financial advisor (an IFA) and a tied financial advisor (like SJP). Don't commit to either until you really understand the difference, and why you would choose one over the other. DO NOT be swayed by slick marketing, because both options are expensive (SJP is very expensive) and there is no guarantee that you will do well out of either. 

Also think long and hard about your objectives and what you want to do with this money. Neither SJP nor an IFA have a magic wand, they cannot make your money magically grow at a specific rate. They will be guided by you and unless you know how long you want to invest it for and what risk level you are prepared to tolerate, you could end up in investments that are not suitable for you.