Statement of intent

twinklie

I don't get a word of what you just said...but your charts look soooo pretty! x

StuartGMC

Twinklie, I'm sure once you are in a position to look at investing it will soon make sense :A

The previous charts were here
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=25637795&postcount=903

The areas I need to look at I think are:
1) Lower risk UK fund(s) to get a steady growth (or reinvested income for now, but income provision when I'm old(er):eek:) without the volatility of the higher risk funds we are using to give capital growth presently. Tracker is likely and should therefore be cheap in terms of fees.
2) Consideration of one or more specialist funds (forestry, property, green tech, energy etc)
3) Consideration of areas where we are not presently exposed such as Europe (Euro zone) and possibly a fund with higher India coverage than First Asia Pacific Leaders.

We are contributing to 6 of the present 7 funds, and I would hope we can move to 10-12 funds per month next year. Certainly something to keep me busy in the autumn and winter evenings.

setmefree2

StuartGMC wrote: »

SMF2 - do allow yourselves a small celebration won't you once you dip under £100k :beer:

Ummm my thoughts exactly - nice bottle of champers :beer:

I had a look at the MorningStar site (funny name for a financial site - reminds me of the communist daily news paper!) How do you look up specific funds?

Will probably put some money back in a FTSE tracker either this weekend or one after and then I will probably leave it there until next April/ May.

taka

twinklie wrote: »

I don't get a word of what you just said...but your charts look soooo pretty! x

Glad its not just me then! :rotfl: I'm too much of a scardy cat to try investing anytime soon...

StuartGMC

taka wrote: »

Glad its not just me then! :rotfl: I'm too much of a scardy cat to try investing anytime soon...

Taka
This year has been JUST the RIGHT TIME to invest provided you can leave the monies there for a flexible period. Look at the returns made in the past 12months such as 100% from Russia, 85% from Latin America.... just wish I had sufficient capital lying around that I could have risked to get those returns on a sizeable sum, rather than that we have invested so far.

Look up contrarian investing; typically joe public invests when markets are high because by then the media is full of the positive news - so he pays a lot for his shares/units, but when the market drops he then (silly thing) decides to sell to "cut" his losses - in fact selling crystalises the losses which would only be there on paper (screen) and which could be made up for later.

Of course, there are stop loss strategies etc that you should apply, but you get the gist of it. Buying over the last 18 months has taken some stiff resolve especially at times when you invest and the next day your value drops (and in some cases for us, it lost as much in a day as we had just paid in for the month!). However, it has been a really exciting ride so far and has had me forced into taking a more proactive approach to our funds and gathering data to help us, something I may not have spent so much effort on if everything was easy and all was positive.

When you have sufficient stability to risk a little each month, then consider it, but ideally read around the subject in advance for a year or so.

....go on don't miss out on the thrill of the ride :D:D:D

StuartGMC

setmefree2 wrote: »

I had a look at the MorningStar site (funny name for a financial site - reminds me of the communist daily news paper!) How do you look up specific funds?

:rotfl:That was exactly what my OH said :rotfl:

Just dial in the name, I think you may need to register (but that's entirely free so no worries) and use the x-ray tool or just search on the fund?

Will probably put some money back in a FTSE tracker either this weekend or one after and then I will probably leave it there until next April/ May.

Check them out online first although if it is in your pension you'll be limited on choice I guess?

setmefree2

StuartGMC wrote: »

you'll be limited on choice I guess?

Half my pension used to be with Equitable Life. This was transfered to Friends Provident and I can invest this in a reasonable range of funds. Most of these funds have high(er) fees attached to them.The remaining half of my pension pot can be invested in a much more restricted range of funds. These funds have very low charges attached to them. I will pick the best performing FTSE tracker fund of those on offer from the restricted choice - probably Friends Provident own fund which is pretty good.

I'm learning as I go - which is good because when we are mortgage free we will probably start a share ISA.

Kind Regards

Smf2

taka

StuartGMC wrote: »

Taka
This year has been JUST the RIGHT TIME to invest provided you can leave the monies there for a flexible period.

Sadly until I have the PhD nonsence sorted I'm saving like a mad thing. I can't risk money I may not be able to afford to be without... and mort likely I'm going to need it in just under 2 yrs time. Investing was something I was going to look at this autumn as i theory I should've had money to risk but it looks increasingly unlikely now... I need to save to keep me out of debt and quite possibly to entirely live on for ~14 months.

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

taka wrote: »

Sadly until I have the PhD nonsence sorted I'm saving like a mad thing. I can't risk money I may not be able to afford to be without... and mort likely I'm going to need it in just under 2 yrs time. Investing was something I was going to look at this autumn as i theory I should've had money to risk but it looks increasingly unlikely now... I need to save to keep me out of debt and quite possibly to entirely live on for ~14 months.

Taka,
Best of luck with the PhD... I can say from experience that the grass is greener with "Dr" infront of your name instead of "PhD student" behind it!

Stuart... sounds, as always, like you have everything under control and you know what's going on with all your pennies. Hope the family is well.

StuartGMC

taka wrote: »

Sadly until I have the PhD nonsence sorted I'm saving like a mad thing. I can't risk money I may not be able to afford to be without... and mort likely I'm going to need it in just under 2 yrs time. Investing was something I was going to look at this autumn as i theory I should've had money to risk but it looks increasingly unlikely now... I need to save to keep me out of debt and quite possibly to entirely live on for ~14 months.

Taka
You are quite right not to be risking your monies in such a short time frame. At a future point in time your financial situation will be different and probably more appropriate for investing. Focus on the positive aspects of the personal satisfaction you'll get from the PhD.