Any thoughts on investing £300k

mtc863

It's been a long time since I've read or posted on this forum, so be gentle!
We're in the lucky position of having saved (plus a small inheritance) around £300k. It's currently in cash as I managed to sell all of our shares etc. back in February before everything took a tumble. We own our house (no mortgage) and have no other debts. Both of us have final salary pensions that will probably give us £33k or so per year between us by the time we get to 65 (which is a way off yet, I'm 53 and my partner 56). We are both working full time.
Fully aware that this is an incredibly fortunate position to be in, nonetheless thought I'd crowdsource a few ideas from the community. I'm open to suggestions; at this point capital growth (or even just not losing it) is more important than income

Cheers

Alistair31

What a shame that you got out at a high but not back in at the low. 

mtc863

To be honest, I’m a bit nervous at the moment! I did put £1500 back into a tracker fund in my ISA and that’s made about an 8% gain but I don’t (yet) have the bottle to follow it up.

bowlhead99

If you are nervous about how to invest more than £1.5k into an ISA, probably the best thing to do with a 'how to invest £300k' problem is to find an independent IFA and get some professional advice, which may cost you 1-2% of it to get going but would have you on the right track.

Alistair31

bowlhead99 said:

If you are nervous about how to invest more than £1.5k into an ISA, probably the best thing to do with a 'how to invest £300k' problem is to find an independent IFA and get some professional advice, which may cost you 1-2% of it to get going but would have you on the right track.

Wise words.

Audaxer

mtc863 said:

Both of us have final salary pensions that will probably give us £33k or so per year between us by the time we get to 65 (which is a way off yet, I'm 53 and my partner 56). We are both working full time.

The good news is that £33k per year for a couple is generally thought to be sufficient for a fairly comfortable retirement, so you should be well covered with your DB pensions alone. I therefore think it is fine to be cautious and consider all options. If you didn't want to go down the IFA route you could consider DIYing using a low cost globally diversified multi asset fund at a risk level you are comfortable with. Some multi asset funds which are discussed on here a lot that would be worth looking at are Vanguard Life Strategy funds, HSBC Global Strategy funds and L&G Multi Index funds. It is also worth looking at sites like Monevator if going down the DIY route. As you are in a comfortable position I would consider any major spend you might be considering between now and retirement, and just keep that amount in cash savings.

Voyager2002

One key question: would you want to spend the bulk of your money on yourselves, or provide a substantial legacy to an heir. If the latter, you should certainly explore tax-efficient ways of doing so, unless you wish to leave a substantial inheritance to HMRC.

mtc863

Yeah. That had crossed our mind too. We’ve no close family, or at all really so the only people to inherit are about the level of third cousins. Probably look to leave what’s left to a couple of educational charities. Which probably means we should get our wills sorted out.

Aminatidi

Maybe start by asking yourself if that £300K was in equities at the start of the year how comfortable would you have been waking up and seeing it was worth £200K?

If you wouldn't what would you have been comfortable with?

DiggerUK

Wills and POA's should be sorted, yesterday. 

I don't see you needing to decide anything  about your finances other than to keep it safe. As you have banked your profits why risk the casino again, what do you need to improve on? I'd advise NSI, it's a secure store whilst you think it over.
At your age we had substantial savings in gold, now we have all our retirement savings in gold. Might not be for you, but we sleep easy.

More important is to decide how you are going to play the end game, our bucket list had gone beyond the consultation process by your age. Time to start thinking about how you are going to spend, spend, spend. Best of fortune..._

Albermarle

You could consider opening a new pension each . Contributions will attract tax relief , so you have an immediate gain.
You can read here all the ins and outs of investing in a DC pension ( as opposed to the DB pensions you already have ) .
https://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/
I would guess if you saw an IFA , this would probably be part of the suggested plan anyway , so no harm getting well informed in advance.