investing/saving

bowlhead99

Deleted_User said:

Seriously...how do you people KNOW all this stuff?  

When we were curious about something, we asked someone about it or looked it up. 

[Deleted User]

bowlhead99 said:

Deleted_User said:

Seriously...how do you people KNOW all this stuff?  

When we were curious about something, we asked someone about it or looked it up. 

Ah ha! I'm learning too now

Albermarle

Deleted_User said:

Seriously...how do you people KNOW all this stuff? You're right. It didnt plummet! I'm exaggerating! And really.... with so little in it... 'plummet' is bigging it up
So.... to sum up so far I should put as much as I can into my salary sacrifice SW pension and then consider adding some money each month to some sort of multi assett global fund and maybe dumping a whole lot of my savings into premium bonds.
Such a lot to think about. I'm truly grateful ...and thank you all for taking me seriously and not laughing at me.

Probably some of us forum contributors are a bit geeky about personal finance matters:) 
On the other hand the lack of knowledge about these issues amongst the vast majority of the public is quite amazing, and large quantities of hard earned money are wasted on poor decisions and having no plan or strategy at all . Even worse the lack of knowledge makes people vulnerable to scammers , losing their pensions etc 
So at least some personal finance knowledge would be beneficial to everybody .

[Deleted User]

Yes. I definitely agree. It should be taught in schools, maybe it is now?

Albermarle

Here and there it is, but not universally . There is a lot of pressure on school curriculums to cover too many different subjects and issues and it gets pushed out I think ,

[Deleted User]

I think that’s probably spot on 

LHW99

Deleted_User said:

LHW99....I used to be with Hargreaves and I liked their service. Everyone seems to be chatting about Vanguard atm and I do like their TV ad

Hargreaves is good when starting out, but don't put too much reliance on their Wealth 60 list - its good for them, maybe less so for you.

Vanguard is fine, other similar funds (from HSBC, Blackrock etc) are available. They all come in a range which have a variety of equity proportions and geographic splits (some with more UK, some with less depending on what you use). Worth having a search here, to read up what people say about them.

[Deleted User]

Thank you. That’s so helpful 
Thank you all again. This forum is the best 😊

K_W_the_Second

I'm sure there's some sound advice here. Except for premium bonds. The so-called interest rate of 1.4% may seem attractive, but it's spurious. And it's falling to 1.0% in December in any case. Read Martin on premium bonds before buying. My take on it is that over 80% of the "interest" goes to two £1m winners each month. Most people get 0% of course. But of the winners, 98% get just £25, and that's 0.002% of the "interest". (My calculations from Martin's figures.) Maybe buy one for the fun of it. Not sure about two.

King Weasel

eskbanker

K_W_the_Second said:

I'm sure there's some sound advice here. Except for premium bonds. The so-called interest rate of 1.4% may seem attractive, but it's spurious. And it's falling to 1.0% in December in any case. Read Martin on premium bonds before buying. My take on it is that over 80% of the "interest" goes to two £1m winners each month. Most people get 0% of course. But of the winners, 98% get just £25, and that's 0.002% of the "interest". (My calculations from Martin's figures.) Maybe buy one for the fun of it. Not sure about two.

King Weasel

I think you've misunderstood quite a bit or have a broken calculator....

Nobody disputes that the headline 1.4% rate is distorted by the very small number of very large prizes, but the top few tiers of those large prizes make up no more than 5% of the prizes by value, not 80%.  The concept of a median return rather than a mean average is more useful to represent expected returns with average luck, and 90% of the notional rate is a sound estimate of average expectations, so 1.25ish% just now and 0.9% from December, which is still very competitive with standard savings accounts, especially when the tax-free status is factored in.  However, returns are highly variable, especially for small holdings or small duration, so buying one or two is a complete waste of time!