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Consolidation ahoy, but some questions occur about Interactive Investor and Vanguard

bluegreendeployment
Posts: 3 Newbie

Hello all. New to the forum. 
Ahead of starting to use my pension to fund my proposed lavish retirement lifestyle of visiting tea shops when there's a pensioner's special deal on, I'm looking to find the 'best' SIPP to eventually consolidate 4 DC pots into (totalling around £600k). Using flexi-access drawdown with regular (monthly / quarterly) withdrawals is the intention, some time in the next 5 years.
I've been taking my time to just read around the subject / forums / etc. Doing this has answered many questions, so thanks to forumites here for this wealth of info.
Starting at the bottom, cost-wide, for me, would be an Interactive Investor (II) SIPP. One thing I've read is that the II SIPP interface provides no way to see the value of your pension on any day except today. If true, this seems a big oversight, since it's very handy to just dip in occasionally to see how things are doing. Part of this process is looking at a graph or copying monthly / quarterly figures to a spreadsheet.
Vanguard are next cheapest. I am aware they offer just their own funds, so that information would be part of the decision-making process. My smallest DC pot is actually with them already, so I am more familiar with them.
Anyone any thoughts on II and Vanguard as SIPP destinations? I'm targeting a smooth flexi-access drawdown experience, with a nice UI that can clearly show current and historical valuations, and also the 'still in your pension' vs. 'moved to drawdown' figures.
Many thanks for reading this. A

Ahead of starting to use my pension to fund my proposed lavish retirement lifestyle of visiting tea shops when there's a pensioner's special deal on, I'm looking to find the 'best' SIPP to eventually consolidate 4 DC pots into (totalling around £600k). Using flexi-access drawdown with regular (monthly / quarterly) withdrawals is the intention, some time in the next 5 years.
I've been taking my time to just read around the subject / forums / etc. Doing this has answered many questions, so thanks to forumites here for this wealth of info.
Starting at the bottom, cost-wide, for me, would be an Interactive Investor (II) SIPP. One thing I've read is that the II SIPP interface provides no way to see the value of your pension on any day except today. If true, this seems a big oversight, since it's very handy to just dip in occasionally to see how things are doing. Part of this process is looking at a graph or copying monthly / quarterly figures to a spreadsheet.
Vanguard are next cheapest. I am aware they offer just their own funds, so that information would be part of the decision-making process. My smallest DC pot is actually with them already, so I am more familiar with them.
Anyone any thoughts on II and Vanguard as SIPP destinations? I'm targeting a smooth flexi-access drawdown experience, with a nice UI that can clearly show current and historical valuations, and also the 'still in your pension' vs. 'moved to drawdown' figures.
Many thanks for reading this. A
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Comments
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bluegreendeployment said:Hello all. New to the forum.
Ahead of starting to use my pension to fund my proposed lavish retirement lifestyle of visiting tea shops when there's a pensioner's special deal on, I'm looking to find the 'best' SIPP to eventually consolidate 4 DC pots into (totalling around £600k). Using flexi-access drawdown with regular (monthly / quarterly) withdrawals is the intention, some time in the next 5 years.
I've been taking my time to just read around the subject / forums / etc. Doing this has answered many questions, so thanks to forumites here for this wealth of info.
Starting at the bottom, cost-wide, for me, would be an Interactive Investor (II) SIPP. One thing I've read is that the II SIPP interface provides no way to see the value of your pension on any day except today. If true, this seems a big oversight, since it's very handy to just dip in occasionally to see how things are doing. Part of this process is looking at a graph or copying monthly / quarterly figures to a spreadsheet.
{not true - you can click on any fund you hold, or are watching, and see a graph of prices over time}
Vanguard are next cheapest. I am aware they offer just their own funds, so that information would be part of the decision-making process. My smallest DC pot is actually with them already, so I am more familiar with them.
Anyone any thoughts on II and Vanguard as SIPP destinations? I'm targeting a smooth flexi-access drawdown experience, with a nice UI that can clearly show current and historical valuations, and also the 'still in your pension' vs. 'moved to drawdown' figures.
Many thanks for reading this. AI’m a Senior Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on the Pensions, Annuities & Retirement Planning, Loans
& Credit Cards boards. If you need any help on these boards, do let me know. Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any posts you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button, or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com.
All views are my own and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.0 -
MallyGirl said:bluegreendeployment said:Hello all. New to the forum.
Ahead of starting to use my pension to fund my proposed lavish retirement lifestyle of visiting tea shops when there's a pensioner's special deal on, I'm looking to find the 'best' SIPP to eventually consolidate 4 DC pots into (totalling around £600k). Using flexi-access drawdown with regular (monthly / quarterly) withdrawals is the intention, some time in the next 5 years.
I've been taking my time to just read around the subject / forums / etc. Doing this has answered many questions, so thanks to forumites here for this wealth of info.
Starting at the bottom, cost-wide, for me, would be an Interactive Investor (II) SIPP. One thing I've read is that the II SIPP interface provides no way to see the value of your pension on any day except today. If true, this seems a big oversight, since it's very handy to just dip in occasionally to see how things are doing. Part of this process is looking at a graph or copying monthly / quarterly figures to a spreadsheet.
{not true - you can click on any fund you hold, or are watching, and see a graph of prices over time}
Vanguard are next cheapest. I am aware they offer just their own funds, so that information would be part of the decision-making process. My smallest DC pot is actually with them already, so I am more familiar with them.
Anyone any thoughts on II and Vanguard as SIPP destinations? I'm targeting a smooth flexi-access drawdown experience, with a nice UI that can clearly show current and historical valuations, and also the 'still in your pension' vs. 'moved to drawdown' figures.
Many thanks for reading this. A
I don’t know about II but that’s something I can see on my Aviva pension website and my Vanguard ISA. My AJ Bell pension doesn’t show it though.1 -
Yep, I'm after confirmation whether it's possible in II to see my whole pension's historical performance. I can do so with Vanguard, Aviva and Aegon.
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bluegreendeployment said:Yep, I'm after confirmation whether it's possible in II to see my whole pension's historical performance. I can do so with Vanguard, Aviva and Aegon.
That said, I’m 4 years into retirement….so I keep a monthly track of all our funds on my own spreadsheet 🤓
Funding those tea stops is important, & we absolutely love a deal - even discovered the Morrisons Over-60 £5 breakfast was a reasonable deal, unlimited hot drinks 🤪
Good luck!Plan for tomorrow, enjoy today!1 -
Yes I think you need your own spreadsheet to track monthly your overall situation. Cash at hand, DC fund values, other pots ..A little FIRE lights the cigar2
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You can get an "analysis report" with II.There is a button (Analyse my Portfolio - used to be at the top right of the list of investments) which gives you multi-page information that you can download as a pdf. You get a portfolio x-ray, graph of portfolio performance vs a benchmark (I seem to remember you need to choose your benchmark before downloading), risk & return statistics, holding overlap, and 1yr, 3yr and 5yr performance of investments, plus a few other things.It was done via Morningstar, but I haven't looked since the latest site re-vamp.1
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LHW99 said:You can get an "analysis report" with II.There is a button (Analyse my Portfolio - used to be at the top right of the list of investments) which gives you multi-page information that you can download as a pdf. You get a portfolio x-ray, graph of portfolio performance vs a benchmark (I seem to remember you need to choose your benchmark before downloading), risk & return statistics, holding overlap, and 1yr, 3yr and 5yr performance of investments, plus a few other things.It was done via Morningstar, but I haven't looked since the latest site re-vamp.0
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bluegreendeployment said:LHW99 said:You can get an "analysis report" with II.There is a button (Analyse my Portfolio - used to be at the top right of the list of investments) which gives you multi-page information that you can download as a pdf. You get a portfolio x-ray, graph of portfolio performance vs a benchmark (I seem to remember you need to choose your benchmark before downloading), risk & return statistics, holding overlap, and 1yr, 3yr and 5yr performance of investments, plus a few other things.It was done via Morningstar, but I haven't looked since the latest site re-vamp.The landing page, after you log in gives total value, investment value and cash value of each account (SIPP / ISA / GIA) that you hold.You also get a downloadable quarterly report that tells you price per share / unit, no of shares / units and market value of each investment at the quarter date, as well as a record of transactions over the quarter.Then there's an annual statement for a SIPP that gives details of contributions, plus the statutory projection of benefits, and a costs and charges statement which covers each investment in the account in more detail than I (at least) am interested in.I did have a look today, and the button for an analysis is just called Portfolio X-Ray.You can change the columns shown to an extent, although originally they were difficult to fix if you moved things. That got sorted some time back.1
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Thumbs up for any web based platform that actively works on improving the user experience.A little FIRE lights the cigar0
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LHW99 said:bluegreendeployment said:LHW99 said:You can get an "analysis report" with II.There is a button (Analyse my Portfolio - used to be at the top right of the list of investments) which gives you multi-page information that you can download as a pdf. You get a portfolio x-ray, graph of portfolio performance vs a benchmark (I seem to remember you need to choose your benchmark before downloading), risk & return statistics, holding overlap, and 1yr, 3yr and 5yr performance of investments, plus a few other things.It was done via Morningstar, but I haven't looked since the latest site re-vamp.The landing page, after you log in gives total value, investment value and cash value of each account (SIPP / ISA / GIA) that you hold.You also get a downloadable quarterly report that tells you price per share / unit, no of shares / units and market value of each investment at the quarter date, as well as a record of transactions over the quarter.Then there's an annual statement for a SIPP that gives details of contributions, plus the statutory projection of benefits, and a costs and charges statement which covers each investment in the account in more detail than I (at least) am interested in.I did have a look today, and the button for an analysis is just called Portfolio X-Ray.You can change the columns shown to an extent, although originally they were difficult to fix if you moved things. That got sorted some time back.I think....0
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