General advice for savings and investments of around £500k

Eco_Miser

kempiejon said:

What_time_is_it said:
Amazing! Thanks so much for this level of detail. It’s so helpful.

One thing that isn’t quite right in your workings is that if we take our DB pensions early then there are early retirement factors. Currently we would get around 60% of the total if we took it at the earliest available time (which I think is pretty good!) but in reality so expect this to be cut before we reach that age so I’ve been working on the assumption of getting about 50%.

Don't put to much store in my random thoughts I hope it's a good pointer to do some of your own research. I made a couple of edits to double check.
I think the premise holds even with reduced DB at 57, you could make it happen today.
So back to your earlier point about retiring as early as possible what's your plan for the time now the money is nearly sorted?

Consider not drawing your DB pension until normal age, instead running down your ISAs more, potentially to zero by SP age.

thunderroad88

What_time_is_it said:

MX5huggy said:

Presuming you’ve opened / used 24/25 ISA allowance then come April 6th open a new S&S ISA’s with your chosen cheap provider and put £20k each in them in a Global Index fund then do the transfer to those when the cash ISA mature. 

This is presuming your happy to hold for 5 years plus (more like 10). 

I use VHVG fund it’s cheap but not truly global because it is Developed World only the Emerging Markets are missing but you pay extra for these to be included. 

Thank you. That sounds like a sensible approach.

I’ll check out that company too.

I’d second that approach…your priority should be to get those s&s ISAs open asap in April to start building an equity position….you can do cash isa transfers later at your leisure. If you’re investing for long term and not intending to trade a lot, a good platform is iWeb which has no costs other than a £5 dealing charge when you buy your fund, Put your £20k in in one go and the only cost you’ll ever have for it is £5 until you sell any of it. VHVG is a decent etf fund but if you want something that’s a little more global with emerging markets, less Mag7 and US, similar performance and the same fees you could look at SPDR ACWI. Personally I prefer OEIC funds for my long term investments and favour Fidelity World P and HSBC World C for global index funds. You have your cash earning good interest sensibly invested already in fixed term savings accounts and you should able to get 4-5% via those for a few years yet. They effectively act as bonds for you so maybe no need to go into bonds just yet depending on what happens with interest rates, although there may be a slight tax advantage for you with individual gilts depending on what interest rates/yields you can secure.