advice on regular payments into a SIPP please

MallyGirl

sadexpunk said:

MallyGirl said:

I don't think you can sell under the free regular investing functionality. You would have to pay the £3.99 for that or wait for your next monthly trading credit. You have 2 to sell so you either do 1 a month with trading credits or pay the fee as it isn't much in the great scheme of things.

anything defined in the regular bit is free - even if you only do it once and then change the instruction to something completely different once the first one has completed. When you explore the regular investing screen I think you can set up the regular amount but also specify an additional amount in the first month to mop up any extra balance you have accrued.

you could follow the following steps:

1. Choose a single investment for the future- you can get more sophisticated later when you have got comfortable with the basics 
2. sell the 2 you currently hold so you are now holding a chunk of cash. It may take a few days to 'settle'. There will be 2 fees unless you have got any trading credits by the time you act.
3. In regular investing functionality set up your £100 monthly investment into your new choice. It will prompt you to set up the matching DD. Also add the initial extra amount to sweep up the big chunk of cash you got from selling in step 2.

I can't try this for you without messing up my own setup but I am sure there is an option for an additional amount in the first regular investment.

thanks, ive just sold them and came out of it ok considering.  looked first thing this morning and it seemed as tho i was up by about £500 so went sell sell sell.  said theyd sell at first opportunity (when the markets open i suppose), all done and dusted now but only around £100 up from where i started.  could have been much worse tho.

ill have a look in a bit about setting up the regular investing, and whether that then lets me buy a fund for nothing.  if not ill wait a few weeks.  and i think ill take tor suggestion on board about just the one fund and go for the one recommended on monevator, the HSBC FTSE all world index fund c (acc of course :-) ) 

thanks for your continued help, much appreciated.

EDIT:  now set up the DD for £100pm into the HSBC fund.  gone to stick my 135k into it afterwards and still says no trading credits.  
ive looked back at my secure messages, which states.....
"The distinction between the free trade each month and the free regular investing service might seem a bit confusing at first glance, so let me explain further. Under the Pension Builder Plan, while you do not automatically receive a free trading credit each month for ad-hoc trades, our free regular investing service allows you to make monthly investments into your chosen fund without incurring a trading fee. This means that if you set up a Direct Debit to invest a fixed amount into the fund each month, these transactions would not incur the usual trading costs."

so reading between the lines, those regular investments wouldnt incur a fee, but my initial 135k might?  unless i wait a month.  is this right?

thanks

If the £135k is done as an additional amount on the initial regular investing definition then it would be fee free.
If you just try to buy something with the £135k - not via the regular investing screen - then it will cost you £3.99 which they will deduct from the amount of units you buy (unless you have trading credits to cover it).
the trading credits are added once a month, probably the day your £12.99 is taken, so if you haven't held the account for a month then you won't have been given any more yet.

sadexpunk

MallyGirl said:

If the £135k is done as an additional amount on the initial regular investing definition then it would be fee free.
If you just try to buy something with the £135k - not via the regular investing screen - then it will cost you £3.99 which they will deduct from the amount of units you buy (unless you have trading credits to cover it).
the trading credits are added once a month, probably the day your £12.99 is taken, so if you haven't held the account for a month then you won't have been given any more yet.

hmmmm....... ive just had confirmation from II that if i were to invest the 135k into the HSBC fund, then itll cost me £40, as theres no free monthly trade on the Pension Builder Plan (which ill be in).  cut and paste below.....

"Free regular investing would not incur a trading fee as we would be placing that order for you automatically, if you were to place the trade online yourself this would incur the trading fee of £3.99 per trade (Under the value of £100,000).

As you are on the Pension Builder plan, this does not receive a free monthly trade, so each trade you place outside of the free regular investing would incur the £3.99 trading fee (Under the value of £100,000).

If you place the trade for the remaining cash balance held in your account, this will incur the trading fee of £40 as the value is £100,000 or more.

If the trade value is below £100,000 this would incur the trading fee of £3.99."

so...... ok i get that the figures are relatively small in the big scheme of 100k+, but do you think it now makes more sense to invest in 2 different (but similar global) funds at £3.99 each, rather than the £40 for the 135k lump sum?  ive looked under the 'free regular investing' section and theres no way of investing that 135k for free, in fact i cant invest from that tab at all, i can only set up/edit DDs.

thank you

AlanP_2

Why not make 2 buy trades of c£60-70k at £3.99 each for the one fund you want to own?

You could even do them seconds apart I would have thought.

sadexpunk

AlanP_2 said:

Why not make 2 buy trades of c£60-70k at £3.99 each for the one fund you want to own?

You could even do them seconds apart I would have thought.

haha genius!  i didnt think of that!!     

i should maybe ask them first to make sure......

sadexpunk

"Although there is nothing stopping you placing 2 individual trades under the value of £100,000 to avoid the £40 trading fee, this can be seen as market manipulation, which can lead to restrictions being placed on the account."

  restrict it and i just leave and invest somewhere else?  so its worth the chance?

MallyGirl

As per the picture, there is an option to add a one off extra amount into your chosen investment. This is where I was suggesting that you put your £135k and then there would be no fee

sadexpunk

ahhhhh i see, nice one.
so before i press go, does this look right to you?  all ive done is put my exact balance into the 'extra investment' box.  its added the £100 DD amount to it.  is that how it should be?  and as soon as i press 'save changes', will it buy the funds automatically then?  now? or on a certain day of the month?

thanks

MallyGirl

All the info on regular investing dates is covered on the website. They take the DD on a fixed date - I think there are 2 per month. Then the trade is made on a fixed date a few days after the money comes in from the DD.
The fixed date approach is what enables them to offer the free service - keeps it simple, bulk and automated. The setup looks right - not commenting on the choice of fund beyond confirming that you have gone Acc this time which is good.

sadexpunk

MallyGirl said:

All the info on regular investing dates is covered on the website. They take the DD on a fixed date - I think there are 2 per month. Then the trade is made on a fixed date a few days after the money comes in from the DD.
The fixed date approach is what enables them to offer the free service - keeps it simple, bulk and automated. The setup looks right - not commenting on the choice of fund beyond confirming that you have gone Acc this time which is good.

thank you.  i'll press ahead with that then and it gets bought when it gets bought.

just chose that one after the advice to 'KISS' because im not very financially astute as youre all no doubt aware   and it was the one recommended on the earlier monevator link (https://monevator.com/best-global-tracker-funds/ ) as being much of a muchness with other global trackers but the cheapest one (0.12%).

thank you

sadexpunk

well i think ive done it.  edited the payment as above, although i first added £12,000 from my bank to my SIPP and added that to the extra investment amount too as id always intended a further investment later.  just thought i may as well do it all now.  it says the investment date is 8th january so ill check back on the 9th and hopefully ill magically see it all in that fund.

thank you all very much for holding my hand through this, very much appreciated.