Reorganising my investments with HL

coyrls

minimalising said:

badger09 said:

Hope this doesn’t sound patronising, but before you make any rushed changes, can I suggest you read some of the articles on the Monevator website linked to earlier in the thread. It provides basic information about investing, fund choices, platforms etc all in non jargon language. 

Without this basic understanding, I think you’re in danger of chopping & changing and then in a year or two, going through the same ‘throw a dart at the board’ exercise. 

Good luck

I will do although my view on this is that I'd probably just put it in Vanguard and let it do its thing.  Essentially Dave Ramsey/Andrew Craig/JL Colins style.  I rarely make changes (beyond adding a fund occasionally) anyway.

The thing is, what the IFA said to me yesterday is the only actionable advice I've really had as no one else is allowed to give advice given the constraints around the topic.  You get a lot of 'you're wrong' but not any 'but this is what you should consider.'

But yep, I'll definitely read ahead.

If you have only had a free session with the IFA, you haven't had any formal advice.

eskbanker

minimalising said:

The thing is, what the IFA said to me yesterday is the only actionable advice I've really had as no one else is allowed to give advice given the constraints around the topic.  You get a lot of 'you're wrong' but not any 'but this is what you should consider.'

The thing is, you're hoping for answers but haven't really clarified the question - you say that you "explained my position and goals" to the IFA, but you haven't really shared much on here about what you're actually trying to achieve, i.e. your objectives, timescales, risk tolerance, other assets, etc, so it's perhaps unsurprising that you're not getting much specific back.

Having said that, I'd agree with other posters who suggest that a single multi-asset fund or global equity tracker ought to suit many investors with fairly typical requirements - to turn it round the other way, is there any reason that you're aware of why that might not be suitable for your needs?

minimalising

Esk, no I'm pretty typical I reckon.  There's no real rhyme or reason to my current selection of funds which is why I produced that table.  So that I could try to compare and contrast over the last five years (as mad as they've been, moneywise) and try to make some decisions.

In terms of my position:  I've been paying into a SIPP and ISA for six years.  At this point I'm putting in about a third of my overall pay each month.  I'm 50 next week btw.  The reason I started this thread is that I'm also overpaying my mortgage and that should be paid off by June next year at which point I'll have another £400 a month to put into my SIPP/ISA.  So I want to make sure that everything is a bit more optimised in terms of fees and diversification.  
 
I've been quite risk tolerant up til now but I'm not looking to be working in my 60s and so everything now is about building enough money to retire early.  The plan was to live off my ISA for a couple of years, then my SIPP for as long as I could and then take my NHS pension early but that might not be the most tax efficient way to do things when the time comes. 

Either way, by aiming for early retirement I'll be in a better position at 55/57/60 than I would have been if I never aimed for it I guess.  

minimalising

coyrls said:

minimalising said:

badger09 said:

Hope this doesn’t sound patronising, but before you make any rushed changes, can I suggest you read some of the articles on the Monevator website linked to earlier in the thread. It provides basic information about investing, fund choices, platforms etc all in non jargon language. 

Without this basic understanding, I think you’re in danger of chopping & changing and then in a year or two, going through the same ‘throw a dart at the board’ exercise. 

Good luck

I will do although my view on this is that I'd probably just put it in Vanguard and let it do its thing.  Essentially Dave Ramsey/Andrew Craig/JL Colins style.  I rarely make changes (beyond adding a fund occasionally) anyway.

The thing is, what the IFA said to me yesterday is the only actionable advice I've really had as no one else is allowed to give advice given the constraints around the topic.  You get a lot of 'you're wrong' but not any 'but this is what you should consider.'

But yep, I'll definitely read ahead.

If you have only had a free session with the IFA, you haven't had any formal advice.

Not formal but definitely advice I can act on.

ShinyStarlight1

minimalising said:

El_Torro said:

if you're concerned about fund fees then one of the cheapest things you can do is go all in on global trackers or multi asset funds. You're talking a fund fee of about 0.25% or less if you do this. Most of us on this forum (myself included) are not big fans of managed funds (excluding multi asset funds, which it could be argued are managed funds). I do use a managed fund for my global smaller companies fund but most of my investments are in multi asset funds. 

Apart from being cheap global trackers (or multi asset funds) are well diversified and will change as the global market changes. So for example if the US starts losing value compared to other markets a global tracker will rebalance accordingly. 

As you say we can't give advice but my suggestion, assuming you don't really know why you bought this selection of funds in the first place, is to go this way. You don't have to use Vanguard, there are other providers too. This article gives you some idea of the different choices available: https://monevator.com/passive-fund-of-funds-the-rivals/

If you go this way the most important decision to make is how many bonds you want. Bonds will reduce the volatility but also impact the long term gains. To give you an idea my ISAs have about 40% bonds and my pensions roughly 20%. The idea being that I can dip into my ISAs whenever I want and I value stability at the expense of long term growth. 

Thanks, Torro.  I've heard a lot that managed funds don't generally beat index trackers so that was part of my thinking in terms of maybe ditching my managed ones and doing what you say.  I guess I don't know what I don't know though.

The reason I ended up on HL in the first place is that one day I said to a Director in work 'Chris, you're loaded, what do you do with your money?' and he got me started on the idea of a S&S ISA and a SIPP.  His were both in HL I think.  But back then I put the SIPP into Standard Life but then moved it to Vanguard because I'd read some stuff saying they were cheaper/better in some way.  

As you can probably see I'm trying to figure this out as I go along but at the moment it's up there with trying to learn jazz guitar!

I think the monevator link that El Torro posted will be very helpful to you. In fact, that whole site is, and the comments sections are illuminating, respectful, and helpful.