Managed Stocks and Shares ISA - ideal as a long term "set and forget"?

Eyeful

The following may be of help.

1.(a) Savings: If you think you may need the money within 5 years put it in a Bank or Building society savings account protected by the FSCS up to £85k. This is to cover emergencies like car or boiler breakdown.

1 (b) Investing: Putting your money at risk, you may get back less than you put in. You should keep the money invested for at least 10 years. Understand what you are investing in.

2. Invest tax efficiently. This means using Pensions, Stocks & Share ISA's or a combination of the two.

3. Fees and platform charges really do matter when you think long term. The more you pay in these, the less money will end up in your pocket. Only those selling or managing investments will tell you they are not important. Take a look.
                                            https://larrybates.ca/t-rex-score/

4. Crash course:    https://www.kroijer.com/

5. Most actively managers (after charges) fail to beat the index they measure themselves against.
    So use a low cost index fund or ETF or  multi asset fund. At lest until you have a lot of money.
                                      https://monevator.com/passive-fund-of-funds-the-rivals/


6.   https://monevator.com/find-the-best-online-broker/

EasyToAssemble01

Linton said:

EasyToAssemble01 said:

boingy said:

If it's for your retirement you should be thinking about putting it into a pension. 
And rather than paying for a managed fund, consider a low-cost tracker of some sort. 

Although that makes the most sense, I'm slightly worried about locking everything up until retirement. I have no intention of using unless I absolutely need to. But the recent economic turn has made me slightly nervous about making my money inaccessible in emergencies. Of course, dipping into S+S before they've matured renders that pointless too, but I won't be faced with the same penalties.  

Are you really going to want all your pension money in an emergency?  When investing in a pension it is normally recommended that you keep perhaps 6 months living costs as cash to cover such things as redundancy or a new boiler wso that you dont need to sell investments.

Yes, I'm probably just being over cautious. I definitely have 6 months' worth available for emergencies. I'm so used to thinking short-medium term, but now trying to alter that by creating separate savings horizons to aim for.

EasyToAssemble01

Albermarle said:

 Of course, dipping into S+S before they've matured renders that pointless too, but I won't be faced with the same penalties.  

S&S ISA's do not mature. You can access the money anytime you like.

However the recommendation is to treat them as medium to long term investments ( at least 5 years preferably > 10 years) and to leave them alone as much as possible, but there is no specific maturity date.

I have been recommended Nutmeg by a colleague, so will look into that

Be aware though they are not the cheapest option, and recent performance of their investment funds has not been great.

Sorry - I used the wrong term. I meant using it before the benefits of growth and compounding have had a chance to accumulate. Obviously, I want to avoid doing that at all costs.

I've since seen Freetrade recommended quite a bit (one that's recommended for beginners), and heard that Index Trackers are quite a reliable, steady way to go. 

EasyToAssemble01

boingy said:

I was just about to say exactly the same thing.

It's not an exact science but split the money into imaginary pots:
Short-term savings - stuff you might need in the next few years to cover unexpected things.
Long-term investments - 10+ years.
Pension - stuff you can lock away until your mid-fifties and beyond. 

Yes, although I've been saving for a few years, having separate savings goals is something I've only recently started to grasp.

I am probably being a bit too binary in my thinking, and perhaps should look at having both S+S and a pension. 

Albermarle

EasyToAssemble01 said:

Albermarle said:

 Of course, dipping into S+S before they've matured renders that pointless too, but I won't be faced with the same penalties.  

S&S ISA's do not mature. You can access the money anytime you like.

However the recommendation is to treat them as medium to long term investments ( at least 5 years preferably > 10 years) and to leave them alone as much as possible, but there is no specific maturity date.

I have been recommended Nutmeg by a colleague, so will look into that

Be aware though they are not the cheapest option, and recent performance of their investment funds has not been great.

Sorry - I used the wrong term. I meant using it before the benefits of growth and compounding have had a chance to accumulate. Obviously, I want to avoid doing that at all costs.

I've since seen Freetrade recommended quite a bit (one that's recommended for beginners), and heard that Index Trackers are quite a reliable, steady way to go. 

The main index trackers that are normally talked about follow the global stock markets. There are a few different ones but the differences tend to be marginal, as are the costs.
So they are 100% invested in company shares ( although thousands of them).
Historically over the long term this type of investment has produced a good return, although better in some periods than others.
The downside is that they can be volatile, and can drop alarmingly in a short space of time. Many investors do not like that level of volatility. Some think they will be OK with it until it happens. The main risk is panicking and pulling out when the markets seem to be rapidly heading South. 

Dandytf

Albermarle said:

 Of course, dipping into S+S before they've matured renders that pointless too, but I won't be faced with the same penalties.  

S&S ISA's do not mature. You can access the money anytime you like.

Whilst I'm far to early to think of accessing Isa savings.
I did query how I could make a withdrawal from HL s+s Isa.
Is it correct Ide only have options of either closing whole account Full Amount or Drop some funds (Partial withdraw)

Albermarle

Dandytf said:

Albermarle said:

 Of course, dipping into S+S before they've matured renders that pointless too, but I won't be faced with the same penalties.  

S&S ISA's do not mature. You can access the money anytime you like.

Whilst I'm far to early to think of accessing Isa savings.
I did query how I could make a withdrawal from HL s+s Isa.
Is it correct Ide only have options of either closing whole account Full Amount or Drop some funds (Partial withdraw)

No need to close a S&S ISA just to withdraw some of the money. You just need to sell some of the investments to cash, so there is enough money in the cash account when you request a withdrawal.

dunstonh

and heard that Index Trackers are quite a reliable, steady way to go. 

Index tracking is an investment style and not a reliable steady way to go.   The style is popular but you can track hundreds of different indexes, some of which will lose 40-80% during negative periods.

enthusiasticsaver

We have S and S ISAs and pensions and draw a combination of both to maximise PAs and make it up  by drawing from ISAs. 

We use an IFA who invests in mainly managed funds rather than trackers and they have outperformed the benchmarks on most of the funds in our portfolio. If we had left ours in VLS60 which was where it was invested before moving to a different investment strategy we would have lost money if we had drawn on it as we are doing now to subsidise our pensions. 

Eyeful

If you do intend using index trackers. Stick to  low cost broadly based well known indexes with hundreds or thousands of companies in it.
Examples are:-  S&P 500 Index, FTSE All World Index, MSCI World Index.

As index tracking becomes ever more popular you can expect that people wanting to sell you stuff will have the idea of just making up their own index, which may not be broadly based, have relatively few companies in it and using the word "index" in the name of the fund or ETF. However you can be sure they will have figured out a way of obscuring the costs so that more money will end up in their pockets not yours.