Vanguard Life Strategy Minimum Investment

Upwards_2

Hi,

I'm looking to start investing into a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund and I'm just looking to get to the bottom of what the score is with minimum investment amounts.

I've seen on their site it says for a single investment it's minimum £500 - is this just when starting off or at all times? And for monthly instalments it's minimum £100 per month. However, in a YouTube video I've seen someone invest as little as £25.  I'm curious to know if I can open a Vanguard account and just invest £50 every so often for example, or does it have to be larger sums. 

Thanks
Jake

masonic

The published limits at Vanguard Investor are £500 as a lump sum contribution or £100 per month as a regular investment amount. The fund can be held at other platforms and those will have their own limits, some will allow investments of as little as £25. In most cases you can make a regular investment at the lower limit for one month and then cancel it.

It is generally recommended not to consider investments until you have built up an emergency fund covering at least 3-6 months living expenses. If you only envisage having £50 available to invest every so often, then perhaps you could save it with your emergency fund until it builds up to a suitable level for investment.

Swipe

You can open with a £100 regular payment and then cancel it and then pay in what you like via manually debit card.

masonic

Swipe said:

You can open with a £100 regular payment and then cancel it and then pay in what you like via manually debit card.

It's important to appreciate the distinction between paying cash into the account, and using that cash to make an investment into a fund. The stated limits are around investing in a fund. Can you confirm that as well as paying in what you like, you can use that money to buy an investment, even if you are investing less than the stated minimum?

Swipe

masonic said:

Swipe said:

You can open with a £100 regular payment and then cancel it and then pay in what you like via manually debit card.

It's important to appreciate the distinction between paying cash into the account, and using that cash to make an investment into a fund. The stated limits are around investing in a fund. Can you confirm that as well as paying in what you like, you can use that money to buy an investment, even if you are investing less than the stated minimum?

I'm pretty sure it works because the £500 lump sum or £100 regular is the minimum entry fee just for the account. For example, once I'd opened a LS100 with £500 lump sum, as soon as that it had gone through, it allowed me to buy £100 of FTSE All Global Cap via my debit card without the minimum £500 investment but the T&Cs for that fund still stated £500 minimum lump sum or £100 regular payment. I have no regular payments set up.

masonic

Swipe said:

masonic said:

Swipe said:

You can open with a £100 regular payment and then cancel it and then pay in what you like via manually debit card.

It's important to appreciate the distinction between paying cash into the account, and using that cash to make an investment into a fund. The stated limits are around investing in a fund. Can you confirm that as well as paying in what you like, you can use that money to buy an investment, even if you are investing less than the stated minimum?

I'm pretty sure it works because the £500 lump sum or £100 regular is the minimum entry fee just for the account. For example, once I'd opened a LS100 with £500 lump sum, as soon as that it had gone through, it allowed me to buy £100 of FTSE All Global Cap via my debit card without the minimum £500 investment but the T&Cs for that fund still stated £500 minimum lump sum or £100 regular payment. I have no regular payments set up.

Interesting. If it let you buy £100 of FTSE Global All Cap as your first investment in that fund then I agree it seems like the minimums stated for each fund are probably just a restatement of the account minimums and don't apply to each fund.

george4064

Remember that different (non Vanguard) platforms will have different minimum investments, often is the case that the minimum investment for Vanguard is simply between them and the investment platform which that min value would have already been exceeded by previous investors via that same platform as you are using.

Swipe

george4064 said:

Remember that different (non Vanguard) platforms will have different minimum investments, often is the case that the minimum investment for Vanguard is simply between them and the investment platform which that min value would have already been exceeded by previous investors via that same platform as you are using.

Vanguard only sells their own funds via their platform

george4064

Swipe said:

george4064 said:

Remember that different (non Vanguard) platforms will have different minimum investments, often is the case that the minimum investment for Vanguard is simply between them and the investment platform which that min value would have already been exceeded by previous investors via that same platform as you are using.

Vanguard only sells their own funds via their platform

I don’t disagree, I was making a point to the OP that you can buy Vanguard funds via 3rd party platforms (ie you don’t have to buy it directly). This can lower the minimum investment amount, potentially could be cheaper than the Vanguard platform and may offer additional services that may be of use.

Upwards_2

Thanks everyone for your help. Good to know it just seems like that’s just the minimum entry investment.

AnotherJoe

Here's an argument why buying lifestrategy with their artificial 25% loading of "UK" companies may not be a good idea and you'd be better with a more global fund

https://citywire.co.uk/investment-trust-insider/news/james-anderson-the-uk-stock-market-is-over-after-oil-crash/a1190068?section=investment-trust-insider