AJ Bell LISA

redblueplanet

Thanks to this forum, I decided to transfer my cash LISA (for retirement not house purchase) to a S&S LISA with AJ Bell. The transfer has gone through and now the money is sitting in cash and apparently I need to select an investment from a frankly mind-boggling choice.

I am totally clueless on this - I don't even know what words I should be searching for to find options!

If I were wanting a 15-20 year investment with low charges that I could basically ignore, what should I be looking at? The amount is only about £5k at the moment, but I'm looking to add to it and I'm happy with a medium/high level of risk but prefer more ethical investments.

Also, do I invest the total sum that's in the account or do I need to hold some back for charges?

Any help very, very gratefully received 🙏 

Marcon

redblueplanet said:

Thanks to this forum, I decided to transfer my cash LISA (for retirement not house purchase) to a S&S LISA with AJ Bell. The transfer has gone through and now the money is sitting in cash and apparently I need to select an investment from a frankly mind-boggling choice.

I am totally clueless on this - I don't even know what words I should be searching for to find options!

If I were wanting a 15-20 year investment with low charges that I could basically ignore, what should I be looking at? The amount is only about £5k at the moment, but I'm looking to add to it and I'm happy with a medium/high level of risk but prefer more ethical investments.

Also, do I invest the total sum that's in the account or do I need to hold some back for charges?

Any help very, very gratefully received 🙏 

I appreciate you're in a LISA, but as you want to use it for retirement, it may be no bad idea to look at some of the basic investment guidance in relation to pensions eg https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/building-your-retirement-pot/pension-investment-options-an-overview

redblueplanet

Thank you - grateful of all advice. I didnt even know the difference between a DB and  DC pension before I found this forum.

I have got a small DB pension(£5k pa) which I'm still paying into and I will be opening a SIPP too quite shortly but was looking to use the LISA to help bridge the gap until 67/68 which is why I originally plugged £4k into it a couple of years ago.

MallyGirl

a desire for ethical makes it more challenging.
Ignoring that desire, and given you are in it for the long haul, you could go all equities with the LISA - maybe VWRP (https://www.vanguard.co.uk/professional/product/etf/equity/9679/ftse-all-world-ucits-etf-usd-accumulating) or if you wanted a bit more of a mixed asset approach then either HSBC Global Strategy Dynamic or Balanced (depending on attitude to risk) would be reasonable options. Just a couple of ideas to read about - not advice

Marcon

redblueplanet said:

Also, do I invest the total sum that's in the account or do I need to hold some back for charges?

Any help very, very gratefully received 🙏 

See https://www.ajbell.co.uk/lifetime-isa/charges-and-rates which confirms you need to keep enough cash in your account to meet charges.

Also see https://www.ajbell.co.uk/our-services/investment-options in particular the box with the heading 'Funds' which might make your life easier!

Gemok

A couple of things 
1) For charges, by default the fees come out of each account so you need to keep enough cash in your LISA to pay the fee likewise if you have a SIPP or ISA with AJ Bell you need to keep cash in each of them.

With a LISA this could be awkward after 50 when you can't put anymore money in. You'll need to sell some holdings for which there's a fee.

You can email AJ bell and ask them to take all custody fees from your general investing account with them.

2) As your portfolio gets bigger it is worth considering holding ETFs rather than plain funds as the fees are capped for ETFs  and stocks but not funds. 

noclaf

I have an AjBell LISA and currently using a single equity ETF (distributing version). There is a small cash amount on the account and this gets topped up each quarter from the remaining balance after dividends are reinvested.

redblueplanet

Thanks all, great advice and loads to look into there 👌