£7500 to invest, advice welcome

DavidLaGuardia

EdInvestor wrote:

Hello David

It seems quite obvious to me that the OP is a) inexperienced and b)only interested in savings, not investments, because he effectively says so in his first post.

Many people confuse savings and investments.THe two words are not interchangeable. To clarify, "saving" means taking no risk with the capital."Investing" means there is a risk of losing your capital.

Clearly VCTs fall in the latter category and thus won't be suitable for the OP.

Firstly, the original question was "£7,500 to INVEST"

Secondly, "Saving" means either securing a discount or in the context of investing: making regular instalments as it is the present participle verb of "save." Invest is a verb that applies to either a regular instalment or a lump sum whether that is a cash deposit or otherwise. In this sense invest is normally, but not necessarily, a lump sum but "saving" is always a regular premium in this context.

The distinction you make between "Saving" and "Investing" is a recent eroneous disctinction invented by certain quarters of the financial media which is (to those who know their classic Greek) "bovine skeses".

dunstonh

Although I personally wouldnt have mentioned VCTs, mainly due to the small amount involved, the word invest was used and that does make VCTs a valid product to consider.

The use of the word "invest" when it is really "saving" is a common error, as David pointed out. It does make things confusing. Just like the term "bond" which now covers a number of product areas thanks to marketing departments.

EdInvestor

My dictionary says:

For invest: " to lay out money for profit as in buying property, shares etc"

For saving, it says: "directed against the avoidance of loss, rather than the making of profit."