Ist it worth taking out a shares ISA at my age

moneyfoolish

Albermarle said:

moneyfoolish said:

bdb47 said:

I have a bond maturing in a few week, currently deposit accounts are rarely offering more than 0.5% I could put the proceeds of around 25K into a shares ISA but as I am now 74 and may need access to it in a couple of years or so I wonder if it's too late in life to consider it. Any advice appreciated

I'm in a similar situation although I am nearly 76 and won't ever need to access the money. However, I can never make up my mind on suitable investments so I'll probably just end up putting it in the best cash ISA currently on the market!

If you read this forum often enough, you will know what the recommendation will be for someone like you > low cost medium risk multi asset fund e.g Vanguard Life strategy ; HSBC global strategy etc .....

Yes and I am thinking about a VLS fund. However, I'm unsure about whether to go for a 20, 40 or 60 fund. From what I've read, I should be looking at a 20 fund (100-75=25). However, if I invest I only intend to use ISAs and will only be putting in £40,000 (ISAs for this year and next year) which means I will still have 5/6 of my savings in Cash ISAs, NSI Index Linked Bonds, Regular Savers or (very low) interest paying current account which indicates to me that I could possibly use a higher risk VLS fund even at my age? I'm even toying with the idea of using a VLS fund for 1 of the ISAs and a managed fund for the other. Looking at Trustnet, there seem to be 3 funds in the 40 to 85% equity class which stand out; Baillie Gifford Managed Class B Acc, Royal London Sustainable World Trust C Acc and Liontrust Sustainable Future Managed 2 Inc. Looking through those 3, I prefer the Baillie Gifford Fund as its equities are more evenly spread between America, UK and Europe and its Risk Level is slightly lower plus its charges are also lower. I'd appreciate any suggestions from some of the many people on here far more knowledgeable than myself.

soulsaver

Similar comment regarding the 90 year old example: If the market takes a substantial dive, will she be around long enough to recover the lost value?

soulsaver

soulsaver said:

Similar comment regarding the 90 year old example: If the market takes a substantial dive, will she be around long enough to recover the lost value?

Does it matter? Not to her, but her heirs should take a view.

moneyfoolish

soulsaver said:

Similar comment regarding the 90 year old example: If the market takes a substantial dive, will she be around long enough to recover the lost value?

Not quite the same as 75 is a fair bit younger than 90 and I'm only talking about a relatively small percentage of my savings (1/6 to be exact). Plus, if I die before my wife, she will get what is left and she has a similar amount of savings as myself plus will get half of my final salary pensions to add to her state pension and a house worth around £500,000 with no mortgage which she can downsize whenever she wants. I guess that the only problem could be if either of us has to go into a care home but, at the moment, neither of us has any health problems and are very active. You mentioned heirs in another post and that is really the only reason I'm thinking of investing anything at all as we have 4 children and I would like to increase the amount which will be left for them as they are far from being rich! If we had no children I wouldn't even consider any investments as we have more than enough to live very comfortably.

soulsaver

moneyfoolish said:

soulsaver said:

Similar comment regarding the 90 year old example: If the market takes a substantial dive, will she be around long enough to recover the lost value?

Not quite the same as 75 is a fair bit younger than 90 and I'm only talking about a relatively small percentage of my savings (1/6 to be exact). Plus, if I die before my wife, she will get what is left and she has a similar amount of savings as myself plus will get half of my final salary pensions to add to her state pension and a house worth around £500,000 with no mortgage which she can downsize whenever she wants. I guess that the only problem could be if either of us has to go into a care home but, at the moment, neither of us has any health problems and are very active. You mentioned heirs in another post and that is really the only reason I'm thinking of investing anything at all as we have 4 children and I would like to increase the amount which will be left for them as they are far from being rich! If we had no children I wouldn't even consider any investments as we have more than enough to live very comfortably.

I wouldn't disagree; I should have made it clearer that my comment is aimed at the poster with the 90 year old relative.