Starting with Stocks & Shares ISA - which platform?

Albermarle

Zerforax said:

boingy said:

iWeb is good for large one-off investments. £5 per trade and no ongoing account fees. But obviously for monthly contributions you'll be paying a fiver each time. You could take the view that a fiver is not much on your 2k each month or you could build up the money in a cash ISA and transfer to iWeb once or twice per year. iWeb don't pay interest on any cash balances so you need to invest the funds as soon as they are in there.

Maybe something I can use in the future. The markets are not doing so well at the moment but I don't have the cash to put everything in right now.

As you said in your OP, you are investing over a 15 year + period, so what is happening in the markets today is of little relevance. Over the next 15 years, there will be a few periods when markets are seen as 'not doing well', and almost certainly at least one period where they will go down a lot more than the recent mild weakness..
However historically at least the long term trend over 15 years should be up. 

Zerforax

Albermarle said:

Zerforax said:

boingy said:

iWeb is good for large one-off investments. £5 per trade and no ongoing account fees. But obviously for monthly contributions you'll be paying a fiver each time. You could take the view that a fiver is not much on your 2k each month or you could build up the money in a cash ISA and transfer to iWeb once or twice per year. iWeb don't pay interest on any cash balances so you need to invest the funds as soon as they are in there.

Maybe something I can use in the future. The markets are not doing so well at the moment but I don't have the cash to put everything in right now.

As you said in your OP, you are investing over a 15 year + period, so what is happening in the markets today is of little relevance. Over the next 15 years, there will be a few periods when markets are seen as 'not doing well', and almost certainly at least one period where they will go down a lot more than the recent mild weakness..
However historically at least the long term trend over 15 years should be up. 

I mean what is happening now in the markets is relevant since that partly determines what you are willing to invest in. Property in the UK has historically done well but now is much more difficult to make money from so less people are investing in property now.

My comment was also in the context of using iWeb and trying to do one big trade to save on costs - something I'm not able to do.

I've heard the adage "time in the market is better than trying to time the market" so I agree with your overall sentiment.

safe_hands2

I think AJ Bell Dodl has that fund available. 0.15% platform charge, minimum £1 a month. No fund dealing charges. With how much you're planning to invest each month, it won't take long for that to be the best offer I think.

safe_hands2

Btw - it's app only though.

boingy

Zerforax said:

boingy said:

iWeb is good for large one-off investments. £5 per trade and no ongoing account fees. But obviously for monthly contributions you'll be paying a fiver each time. You could take the view that a fiver is not much on your 2k each month or you could build up the money in a cash ISA and transfer to iWeb once or twice per year. iWeb don't pay interest on any cash balances so you need to invest the funds as soon as they are in there.

Maybe something I can use in the future. The markets are not doing so well at the moment but I don't have the cash to put everything in right now.

Actually, if you look at the markets just over the last couple of weeks they are doing really well. Of course, if you look at 4 or 5 weeks rather than 2 then the markets are still down a couple of percent. That's the wonders of market uncertainty and graphs. (Always be suspicious of any financial person who shows you a past performance graph that has an odd timeframe, like 3.5 years or something, because that usually means that just before that timeframe the price made a dramatic movement...).

Another option for your regular ISA investments is to use a company that charges a %fee on holdings but has no trading fee then annually transfer the ISA to somewhere like iWeb to reduce that %fee.

Albermarle

safe_hands2 said:

I think AJ Bell Dodl has that fund available. 0.15% platform charge, minimum £1 a month. No fund dealing charges. With how much you're planning to invest each month, it won't take long for that to be the best offer I think.

I had a brief look but could not find it on DODL. 

safe_hands2

Albermarle said:

safe_hands2 said:

I think AJ Bell Dodl has that fund available. 0.15% platform charge, minimum £1 a month. No fund dealing charges. With how much you're planning to invest each month, it won't take long for that to be the best offer I think.

I had a brief look but could not find it on DODL. 

It's in this section - https://www.dodl.co.uk/investments/themed

Scroll along, it's called "On top of the world". They haven't organised them in a very easy way to find.

Albermarle

safe_hands2 said:

Albermarle said:

safe_hands2 said:

I think AJ Bell Dodl has that fund available. 0.15% platform charge, minimum £1 a month. No fund dealing charges. With how much you're planning to invest each month, it won't take long for that to be the best offer I think.

I had a brief look but could not find it on DODL. 

It's in this section - https://www.dodl.co.uk/investments/themed

Scroll along, it's called "On top of the world". They haven't organised them in a very easy way to find.

I ( wrongly) assumed 'themed' meant some kind of in house portfolios.

Zerforax

What is the difference between AJ Bell Youinvest and DODL?

Albermarle

Zerforax said:

What is the difference between AJ Bell Youinvest and DODL?

AJ Bell, owns Dodl, which was only launched as a lower cost alternative a couple of years ago.
The most obvious difference is that the DODL platform fee is only 0.15% as opposed to 0.25% with the main AJ bell site. Dodl has a smaller choice of investments and is app only.