Sipp lost £3,777. Yikes - advice please?

travelodger

Stargunner said:

I am surprised that you titled this thread about losing the £3.7k in your sipp and not the £60k that you have lost in your ISA.

What is that invested in and what sort of % loss is it?

The difference is that I am still paying into the SIPP every month by DD, but I am not paying into the ISA. Believe me, I am upset and horrified by the loss my ISA has sustained, but there is nothing I can do about it except sit tight and hope and pray it goes back up again.

The ISA is spread across ten funds, run by managers, and each of the ten is diversified into many small or big companies. Sadly the fund I have most investment in is Baillie Gifford Japanese Smaller Companies, which has taken a massive loss. I don't really understand how to read everything when I log in so I don't know the percentage but when I logged in in January my shares were worth £220k and today that has dropped to just £182k. That's a £38k loss in six months - yikes!

travelodger

p00hsticks said:you said that  your self-employed income was £450, which I took to be a month, and said that this therefore explained why your friend had told you you could only pay in £400 to your pension.

Now you say you ar earning around £17k a year , which is considerably higher ?

I am very sorry. I got muddled between months and weeks. I earn about £450 a week not a month and my total for the year is £37k.

travelodger

Eyeful said:

You asked for a Janet-and-John style response I hope the following helps.

6. Before you invest you should make sure you have "an emergency fund", to dip into. How large this fund is depends on the person building the fund.This helps you having to sell your investments at the wrong time. 

7. You mentioned Vanguard below are some things you can watch which I think you will find of interest.

Thank you for all that. I am watching the first video right now.

Where would one keep an "emergency find"? I have £5k in my current account, making zero interest. Should I move it somewhere?

travelodger

Right, I have reinstated my DD to Vanguard, doubling it so I am paying in £800 a month. I will stay with the Lifestrategy 80.

I need that guy in the video to give me some personal advice.

travelodger

Gosh, Eyeful, a million thanks for those videos, I learned so much, esp from the second one. Now I understand so much more about risk, and, most especially, so much about how different we all are. 

I understand now that my situation is extremely different from someone about to retire from work and lose the monthly income they are used to getting. I will not be suddenly giving up a well paid job and plunged into living on a pension.

When I pass 66 nothing will change. I hope to be physically able to continue with my self employment freelancing activities past my state retirement age. I will still get my disability benefits but they will deduct my pension, or some of it. So when I pass 66 my income will be the same as it is now.

The only thing I have to plan for is my disability getting so much worse that I need constant care from someone living in, who will have to be paid. If that was the case, even if I sold all my stocks and shares I could not pay for this for more than a few years, then I would have to sell my house, which is worth about £600,000.

Such a great video! I am going to watch it through again! 

 

Alistair31

travelodger said:

The only thing I have to plan for is my disability getting so much worse that I need constant care from someone living in, who will have to be paid. If that was the case, even if I sold all my stocks and shares I could not pay for this for more than a few years, then I would have to sell my house, which is worth about £600,000.
 

I have watched several family members’ health decline and their care needs increase, they should all have downsized to more suitable homes while they were able, but they didn’t. Then it was too late. 

Not sure what a £600k property looks like where you are but something to think about perhaps. 

bostonerimus

travelodger said:

I'm extremely ignorant on money matters, as anyone who has seen my previous posts will attest. So, Janet-and-John style responses will get through my thick head.

I transferred my HL SIPP worth £43,000 to Vanguard last November and have been paying in £400 a month since then. Logged in today to see how it's doing and got a nasty shock: it shows a loss of £3,777.

It scared me so much I went and cancelled my Direct Debit. Was that the right or wrong thing to do?

I have read on other threads people giving advice NOT to pull out of stocks and shares but to "ride it out" but does the same go for this SIPP?

Thanks in advance from "dunderhead".

So you invested 43k into something you don't understand and now you cancelled your DD without really understanding what you are doing either. Frankly I suggest you sit down and do some reading about investing basics to see if VLS80 is the right fund for you and why it's probably a good idea to keep paying into your SIPP.

travelodger

I've just spent the entire evening watching every one of James Shack's videos!

travelodger

Alistair31 said:

travelodger said:

The only thing I have to plan for is my disability getting so much worse that I need constant care from someone living in, who will have to be paid. If that was the case, even if I sold all my stocks and shares I could not pay for this for more than a few years, then I would have to sell my house, which is worth about £600,000.
 

I have watched several family members’ health decline and their care needs increase, they should all have downsized to more suitable homes while they were able, but they didn’t. Then it was too late. 

Not sure what a £600k property looks like where you are but something to think about perhaps. 

Alistair31, in order for me to have downsized for disability reasons, I would have needed a crystal ball. I was a very fit, very active sportswoman, and the disability was not in any way predictable. So don't berate me for not being able to see into the future.

If I wanted to move house, I could do so, even with my disability. I would simply pay people to pack for me!

My 600k property looks like an 8-roomed house, which I love. I've managed to stay living in it despite my physical issues. I have enough money to pay for adaptations should I need them.

travelodger

bostonerimus said:

So you invested 43k into something you don't understand and now you cancelled your DD without really understanding what you are doing either. Frankly I suggest you sit down and do some reading about investing basics to see if VLS80 is the right fund for you and why it's probably a good idea to keep paying into your SIPP.

Hello Bostonerimus

Could you explain what you think has gone wrong with my investments that you consider to be my fault?

Cos it seems that everyone else is saying that everyone's taken a massive drop in their investments because of global reasons that none of us can control.

Even had I spent weeks studying, and understood every tiny little detail about VLS80, it would not have changed what happened, and my investment would have dropped by exactly the same amount as it did with me in ignorance.

The only choice to be made is to sell the shares and put the money under the mattress, or stay invested and ride it out. People are now saying that the correct thing to do is to stay invested, which I have. So in fact it turns out that I did the right thing. I have not only reinstated my DD but doubled it to £800 as people are saying that when it's low, that is the right time to buy.