Vanguard noobie.. what now?!

ranciduk

eskbanker said:

ranciduk said:

I now have my initial £500 invested with VG in the lifestrategy 60% fund

daft question, but how do you now add more money into it? 

I don’t quite understand what I’m supposed to do...

You just do the same as what you did for the first purchase - pay in some cash and then buy some units of your selected fund.

So do you have to put cash into your Available Cash thing first?

or do you just hit ‘Invest’ in your portfolio options? 

It’s not very clear ..

Billycock

Thrugelmir said:

Billycock said:

rothers said:

Billycock said:

rothers said:

ranciduk said:

Billycock said:

ranciduk said:

Lol!
fair enough..
do you know though, does the cash go straight to your bank account? Or does it go to the cash section of you investment account- and you then have to withdraw the cash to your nominated bank account?

When you clicked on the 'sell link' you should then have be given 3 options,
1 Pay into bank account
2 Leave as cash for buying later  -this would go to your cash section.
3 Use it now to buy other investments
Providing you asked for it to be paid into your bank, even though it's showing as completed it won't be there until 2-4 business days. Same goes for myself, my ISA transfers have been showing as cash available in my account since last Thursday won't let me choose any investments yet though, maybe it needs to clear first.
You soon bailed out ranciduk, did yesterday's dip in rates scare you? Further dip today, I would have waited until the funds were in profit before selling 

No nothing like that! I’m just very cautious with things like this so I literally just wanted to go through the process of withdrawing some money so I know how it all works - once I know what’s what, I’ll be piling in the loot and I’m in it for 5-10 years

If you need the cash in five years then s&s probably isn’t the best idea. 10 years is usually the minimum that the more knowledgeable people in here recommend. 

If after 5 years and your funds are ++ then there's no reason not to withdraw if desired. Yes, your comment r.e. 10 years, more knowledgeable people etc has its foundations but you're at risk for longer. For many the investment period is simply spurred on by greed after their investment goal was achieved many moons ago.

Absolutely, if your balance goes up to your desired level in three days then withdraw and live happily ever after. The chances of not being in profit reduces with time so if you are ABLE to leave it in for a long period of time then your chance of losing money reduces. You’ve got less chance of losing money if you can leave it in for ten years than if you absolutely need it in five. 

Achieving your goal earlier and 'throwing the towel in' has a greater foundation, namely peace and happiness.

Unsurprisingly most investors fail to achieve this objective. Once they realise that selecting profitable investments isn't always so easy as it first appears. 

Most investors fail? Wow they're never gonna be happy. Probably unrealistic expectations, chasing rainbows. The more people have the more they want is very true.
As the saying goes 'money can't buy happiness', unless you have realistic expectations then, probably to be miserable in comfort would be the best to hope for.

eskbanker

ranciduk said:

eskbanker said:

ranciduk said:

I now have my initial £500 invested with VG in the lifestrategy 60% fund

daft question, but how do you now add more money into it? 

I don’t quite understand what I’m supposed to do...

You just do the same as what you did for the first purchase - pay in some cash and then buy some units of your selected fund.

So do you have to put cash into your Available Cash thing first?

or do you just hit ‘Invest’ in your portfolio options? 

It’s not very clear ..

I wasn't speaking from direct experience of the platform so don't know the detail but conceptually I can't see what the difference would be between what you did last time versus what you need to do next time!

Without visibility of the navigation on their site, I'd assume that if you choose an option labelled 'invest', you'll be constrained by how much cash you have available to invest, so you'd need to pay in first if you don't have enough for what you want to buy.

Having said that, it does sound like they offer a combined process to bundle the two activities together, as an alternative to doing them separately, as outlined in the online help at https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/need-help/answer/why-is-my-cash-not-available-to-invest

If you want to add cash and choose your funds at the same time, please use the 'Buy Investment' option. We will invest your cash at the first available trading point after the payment clears.

Billycock

ranciduk said:

eskbanker said:

ranciduk said:

I now have my initial £500 invested with VG in the lifestrategy 60% fund

daft question, but how do you now add more money into it? 

I don’t quite understand what I’m supposed to do...

You just do the same as what you did for the first purchase - pay in some cash and then buy some units of your selected fund.

So do you have to put cash into your Available Cash thing first?

or do you just hit ‘Invest’ in your portfolio options? 

It’s not very clear ..

Portfolio or portfolio options? Portfolio options would probably be along the lines of choosing a portfolio. Just pay in cash from your current account then put in your LS60 account once it's there. Best way until things become familiar.

ranciduk

“ ....then put in your LS60 account once it's there. ”

Yep sounds so simple 

but it doesn’t tell to u how!!

There’s no option to just put more money into the LS60 account 

Their site is so bloody vague for a beginner 

i guess I’ll just faff around and work it out somehow...

oxfordowl1

There’s no option to just put more money into the LS60 account 

Their site is so bloody vague for a beginner 

As a beginner with investing (both in general and using Vanguard) myself, I do wonder if you are overthinking it a little. On the Vanguard website, I click invest, and put how much I want to invest in the box next to the fund I want to invest in. Then on the next page I enter my debit card details.

I don't think there is a option of looking at your fund holdings and 'adding more of this fund'

Billycock

ranciduk said:

“ ....then put in your LS60 account once it's there. ”

Yep sounds so simple 

but it doesn’t tell to u how!!

There’s no option to just put more money into the LS60 account 

Their site is so bloody vague for a beginner 

i guess I’ll just faff around and work it out somehow...

Nonsense rancid nonsense!
Once your cash is in your account showing as available cash, there'll be an invest 'button' thereabouts, click that and put it in your LS60, it'll ask you if you want to put it there or elsewhere.
And don't forget once your cash is in account you need to wait 24 hours before you can invest it, says so on the website, even if depositing with a debit card.

ranciduk

lol it’s not nonsense!

why is it so difficult to just have an option where it says along the lines of “add more money to this investment” ?

simple

and it doesn’t , it’s not made clear at all

otherwise I wouldn’t be wasting people time with these stooopid questions!

eskbanker

As mentioned earlier, there are two essentially separate processes, even if Vanguard offer an option to bundle them together, so loose terminology like 'add more money to this investment' or 'put more money into the LS60 account' are seemingly causing confusion.

The first is funding your account, which might be referred to as paying in, or funding, or depositing, or similar terms that cover the principle of getting cash from outside into the Vanguard environment.

The second process is investing, or buying investments, etc, i.e. starting with some cash in your Vanguard account (from step 1), using that cash to purchase some units in an investment product such as a fund.

If you consider those as two independent tasks, it should become clearer....

ranciduk

Ok thanks

so I’ve just added cash using my debit card

its still saying I have zero cash 

so I’m guessing I’ll have to wait a few days before I can use this cash and add it to my LS account...