FIREside Chats

zcrat41

Hi everyone. I've very much enjoyed reading the thread so far and hoping it's ok to put my two pennies worth in.

• Why am I investing? - Although it will be used in retirement I'm mainly investing for independence. I work in a family business (farming) and have seen a lot of older farmers not have options when retirement or wanting to slow down kicks in. We are also very bad as  an industry at investing everything back into the business instead of ourselves. I want to change that!
  
• How much do I think I'll need? - I take out 15k a year out of the business at the moment. (I only work part time) I could live on that if needed at retirement especially in addition to the state pension. 25 x 15 is £375 000 which I think is a cracking figure to get to. 
  
• How am I going to get there? - Currently have £188 500. This is a mix of £40k in an old work pension.  20k in a S&S ISA, 20k in LISA (Mainly Vanguard LS and Global Allcap)  and £105 000 realised from an old house sale currently leant to a family member's business (all official and on accounts with a loan agreement etc). To hit £375 000 I need another £187 000. Plan is to top up my LISA annually (I do this if it's been a good year in the business on top of my drawings). My £105 000 is out on loan until next year. Will need to decide then if I drip it into ISA's or do another BTL. Not sure about that. 
  
• How long do I have? I'm 41. I'd like to be in this position by 60. Possibly earlier. That's £9842 per year to find. I'm hoping there might be the odd bumper farming year where I can significantly add to my pension. Especially now the kids are slightly older and I can begin to up my game at work a bit more. 

As to my investing strategy it's rather varied. Traditionally I'm very comfortable with property. I like the physicality of it, I have experience of it and the farm has a couple of properties I tie it in with. I do like the idea of tracker funds, as a bit like the wheat market, as long as you don't hit the highs and the lows if you can trundle along in the middle then I don't think you'll go too far wrong.

My S&S ISA are managed by a financial advisor along with other family funds so it's quite interesting to see the difference. I started my LISA (i.e. my Vanguard funds) a couple of years ago and so far am outperforming the advisor! 

rara32

Hi zcrat41 and welcome.

Another one here with VLS80 ISA and VLS TRF (just past my hoped for retirement date). Running alongside DB pensions.

I think the fact I can just add to the ISA and SIPP and leave it is what I like about it. 

Interesting that a lot of us have taken the same path.

SuperSecretSquirrel

I started out self managing a small collection of funds based on the monevator "pound saver portfolio". At the time the low cost platform I was using didn't offer any vanguard funds, and I think investing with vanguard directly required a minimum investment of 100k.

The platform then started offering vanguard funds so I switched to VLS80 to keep things simple. They also lowered the barrier for entry for direct investment, so more VLS80 for me

My old work DC pension is doing OK, so I've not bothered transferring out into a SIPP. If I did it would probably be more vanguard, though I would have a niggling concern having all eggs in one provider's basket. Probably not a valid concern I know...

QueenJess

@Grogged that's a really interesting way of balancing. You're making me think now!

My way isn't overly sophisticated. I have essentially a bunch of index trackers in different regions and a few bond trackers. I originally set my percentage holding in each region as well as percentage of bonds versus shares. Each time I invest money in my SIPP I use the percentage split between the funds that I originally determined. I track current value of each and have an automated highlight on my spreadsheet if any fund goes over or under by 20% of the targeted percentage - then I would in theory action and rebalance (may do this through the funds I put in). Only had my SIPP less than a year so not needed to do this yet.

I'm sort of doing my own life strategy vanguard type of account, but chosen the trackers individually so it's cheaper. In theory I will reduce risk over time too when I get closer to retirement.

Suffolk_lass

We both have an occupational pension (DB) and have kept other pots separate - so DH has a DC pot that he is drawing down in the gap between earning salary and receiving state pensions so that he minimises the tax he pays on the drawdown (his OP is under the annual TFA) - I think at one time I would have urged others to combine pots into a final or averaged salary scheme (DB) but for us, having the DC pot offers flexibility while the boosted OP offers certainty. 

I know I need to review the S&S ISAs as about half is in individual shareholdings. Whilst quite fun, it's not really imminent retirement aligned. Our star performers are Halma, which have grown by 142% Spirax-Sarco 129% and Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (162%) capital growth in two and a half years.  I tended to split wide with about £500 initial lumpettes for shares and £2k for funds.

I read and saved articles from the weekend editions of the Times and Telegraph and then did some guided research based on these, before choosing what I bought. They usually do a "best ten funds since before sliced bread, best ten shares over the last x years" during August silly season. It did guide what I looked at but not whether I bought it. I am to blame for these! - Royal Dutch Sell is my worst holding, down by over 42% but worst of all are in DH's - Woodford (!) and Fever Tree have been terrible - wrong timing for the latter.

powerspowers

Hi everyone, been reading posts for a while, understanding about half of them 😂 

My first fire goal was to find out where we are now. 

I have a local gov pension, so the best thing for me would be to keep working until I’m 68. However, OH is 10 years older than me so I’d like to retire at the same time. I’d also like some put away in case I were to find myself on my own (not pessimistic but always a good plan)

if I were to retire at 58 and take everything at that point, my pension would be around £12k pa. With OH’s state pension and small work pension we’d have joint income of £27k which is doable-but-not-fantastic until my SP kicks in 10 years later.  I’d like us to have an additional £100k pot at 58 so we could draw down £10k a year until I’m 68 or do whatever we needed it to at the time. Basically aiming for flexibility and choice. 

I currently pay £50pm gross in AVCs. I think my pot is estimated at 15k if I pay in til I’m 58. T has a small private pension he has just upped contributions to aiming for £26k. So a way off £100k- I’m guesstimating we need to pay £200 each a month to get us there? 

We are currently very focused on mortgage and building house savings so don’t want to Chuck a lot at pensions yet, however, feel slow and steady increases will work in our favour. 

I’ve just had a small pay rise so going to up my AVCs to £100pm before tax. Then reassess every year or so. My student loan should be paid off in 5 years so will divert that extra money then, and hopefully will see a wage increase in the next year or so. 

It’s not the most sophisticated of plans but I want to be chipping away without thinking about things for now. Thanks for the inspiration and I’ll keep reading and see if anything sinks in

LadyGnome

Grogged you are far more organised than me. 

I am realistic that I don't have the time at the moment to follow investments so I spread my risk by diversified funds.  My main old work pension is in two diversified growth funds.  My current new small work pension is in their higher risk fund as I am prepared to push a bit.  I have a couple of old S&S Isa's in different funds with different providers.  My current one is with V@nguard Lifestyle 80% so again a bit higher risk.  Then I have the backup cash isa, NS&I etc for emergencies.  

Last year was painful but my main pension is showing a rolling 12 month return of over 18% at the moment - its only when you look at the 5 year chart and see just how low everything dropped last year that you realise its not quite so impressive.  I'm just glad it's bounced back.

South_coast

Question for the knowledgeable folk on here,  am I able to add ad-hoc money to my Vanguard account via bank transfer? I've made a few micro payments this week but using my debit card every time feels like a right blimmin' faff. It looks like I can set up a regular payment, but it's not my focus area at the moment so I don't want to commit to anything

Grogged

Yes, you can set up regular payments from the payments tab.
This will setup a regular monthly transfer from your bank.
When you set it up you can choose to just deposit money, invest or both.
Just be aware that if you invest in a SIPP it will try to buy in the same proportion when your tax is added around the 24th.

South_coast

Thanks Grogged, can I do irregular ones though? I'm not at the point of being able to put money in every month yet, but I'd still like to punt money across from my bank every now and again like I used to do with the mortgage