A J Bell charges confusion

22225

Hi please can someone clarify. I pay £25 into my LISA using A J Bell online buying vanguard  lifestrategy 80. I thought it was a cheap platform. But now I'm worrying that it charges £1.50 a month to deal... have I misunderstood??? I've looked at my statements online but I don't really understand. Am I paying £1.50 a month on top of my £25????? Thanks in advance.

jay1804

AJ Bell has dealing charges, for regular dealing the charge is £1.50. That cost for them facilitating the deal.

dale_cotterill

22225 said:

Hi please can someone clarify. I pay £25 into my LISA using A J Bell online buying vanguard  lifestrategy 80. I thought it was a cheap platform. But now I'm worrying that it charges £1.50 a month to deal... have I misunderstood??? I've looked at my statements online but I don't really understand. Am I paying £1.50 a month on top of my £25????? Thanks in advance.

Yes. You're effectively 6% down before you even start. You should find a provider which does free dealing for funds.

https://www.ajbell.co.uk/lifetime-isa/charges-and-rates

It may well be using the £25, rather than on top of, so you pay in £25, it takes the £1.50 charge, and buys £23.50 of investment.

PinkBerrys

dale_cotterill said:

It may well be using the £25, rather than on top of, so you pay in £25, it takes the £1.50 charge, and buys £23.50 of investment.

Im still confused! what is the 25 pound for?

22225

Hi can anyone make a suggestion as to what I can do ? Can i transfer to a different platform? I'm mid forties. How do I get round the dealing charge? Do I just put in a lump sum once a year? But I wanted to DCA. I thought AJ Bell was the cheapest when I chose it. I obviously didn't understand very well.

Altior

Sounds like Dodl, part of the AJ Bell family might be a little more suitable for you, at your level of investing it will cost you £1 pcm. However, you will need to be flexible on the fund choices. One of AJ Bells funds would work, or one of the themes that is to your liking.

https://dodl.co.uk/lifetime-isa

Sarahspangles

For small, regular amounts you need a platform/account that doesn’t charge a fee per trade.  The fee wouldn’t matter as much if you were planning on investing more - AJ Bell’s would be 1% of your contribution if you put in £150 a month, or saved up your smaller contributions as cash and bought funds every six months.  But as you say, you then lose the benefit of averaging.

This AJ Bell Dodl account is designed for your current scenario.  On this page they compare charges of similar providers like Vanguard.  Note that there are independent websites that do the same comparison but I think you’d still end up looking at the same suspects. 

http://www.dodl.co.uk/charges 

If you move you need to check any charges to do that.  Then later on if you want more freedom to choose and have more to invest to you could move back.

shortseller09

22225 said:

Hi can anyone make a suggestion as to what I can do ? Can i transfer to a different platform? I'm mid forties. How do I get round the dealing charge? Do I just put in a lump sum once a year? But I wanted to DCA. I thought AJ Bell was the cheapest when I chose it. I obviously didn't understand very well.

Are you really getting that worked up over £18 per year? Your actual investment probably fluctuates more than that each week...

ColdIron

shortseller09 said:

22225 said:

Hi can anyone make a suggestion as to what I can do ? Can i transfer to a different platform? I'm mid forties. How do I get round the dealing charge? Do I just put in a lump sum once a year? But I wanted to DCA. I thought AJ Bell was the cheapest when I chose it. I obviously didn't understand very well.

Are you really getting that worked up over £18 per year? Your actual investment probably fluctuates more than that each week...

Unlikely on monthly payments of £25

22225

I've just looked at dodo but it still says there is a £1 minimum monthly charge. So not sure what to do.

22225

Dodl I mean