Wedding Investment

ghostrun

Hello, I have three daughters 18,20,23 and would like to make some financial preparation for future marriage. The first two are still in further education with no partners my third works full time in the British Virgin Islands and may have a meaningful relationship of less than a year. I have very limited knowledge of investments but would like to put by 10k each towards wedding costs. This may well be a bit on the late side, I'm hoping for long engagements! I am looking at some sort of share investment, any advice would be much appreciated.

artyboy

1) Registry office.
2) Knees up at the local village hall
3) Catering courtesy of George's Fish Bar

Ok Ok Ok... tongue out of cheek, I don't really get this obsession with spending lots on weddings, but as I have 2 daughters of my own, I can empathise to a point. 

The key question here is the timeframe - anything less than 5-7 years until weddings start, and you'll be taking a big risk 'investing' as opposed to 'saving'. If it was me, at this point in the game, I'd be putting it into 2-3 year fixed term savings, ideally within an ISA tax wrapper - if you've not already used your allowance?

ColdIron

One of the problems with investing for fixed dates/terms, particularly for less than 10 years, is that you become a hostage to fortune. Now you don't know the date(s) when you will need the money but it could come at pretty short notice, perhaps three times. You could become a forced seller when the state of your investments is far from favourable. It's a bit of a gamble in my view

eskbanker

Given the lack of clarity of timescales, it may be more prudent to split the money between savings and investments, e.g. you could put £10K into a savings account and £20K into a S&S ISA, reconsidering the split in future years once the situation becomes clearer?

grumpy_codger

Investments are normally for 5+ years.
For shorter time it's savings - Top savings accounts

subjecttocontract

You could decide to give them the £10K each now and release yourself from your self imposed burden. Let them invest the money for their weddings on the understanding that they won't be getting any more.  This is what I did, it worked for me.

Bostonerimus1

As this money is earmarked for a specific item that might well be quite short term, ie. less than 5 years, I would put the money into cash ISAs or NS&I. Then give your daughters the money as an engagement present and let them decide how to spend it. When I got married my fiance's father gave us $10k and we spent $5k on a small wedding and put $5k towards a house deposit.

ghostrun

Sorry for my late reply I was called away, thank you all for responding. Ok not as simple as I had hoped and time is against me which I knew already. The Stocks and shares ISA is of interest thank you and flexible variants are available but as you say this may not give sufficient time to build and risk a possible loss. Oh what a shame, thought I could come up with something good. 

ghostrun

Probably not the best time to buy shares with the current market? 

trickydicky14

Don't take this the wrong way but how do you know they will all decide to marry.

ghostrun

I know two will want to, my third I wouldn't be so sure. But if they did decide not to that's fine, I would still give them the money for house deposit, business etc