Investment & Investing

Agree!

Also worth noting, places like SJP and HL do not charge for first meeting. Whilst the first meeting won't give you all the info you need, it's a great opportunity to understand what sort of things you need to consider when planning. Can use this and the head off into the sunset with a better idea of what sort of things you need to do/look at

my mum has been doing peer to peer lending
first tranche £1500 returned 4.5% no problems with any defaults or whatnot
the peer to peer lender was also offering an isa at similar returns

stupidly enough i didn't ask which peer to peer lender

I understand the basics, it's actually doing it that I struggle with - I'm lazy with money and reasonably risk averse too as well as suffering from analysis paralysis as soon as I look at anything like this with so many variables. Appreciate all the comments from you and others so far.

How do you find a decent IFA? Didn't Kahneman(sp?) write something along the lines of "algorithms outperformed human traders all the time". Basically, experienced traders were no better at making money than a program fed a bit of knowledge about the market or something.

Like going out for a training ride when you're tired. If you can just get your foot out the door, you're 95% done completing the training session. :)

I completely understand. So much second guessing about what and where you should invest in.

My best suggestion for you is Nutmeg. All that worrying about where to put funds is taken away from you and they can help you choose appropriate portfolio based on risk. They aren't too expensive, and have decent returns. I would suggest putting a small amount in and seeing what happens. If you are happy then start regularly contributing as this is far better in long run. I have nothing to do with Nutmeg btw - I use it and have recommended many people to do it. There are other similar offerings out there so suggest looking at them as well.

In terms of finding IFA's it's hard to know. My suggestion would be to find someone you genuinely like and could happily go for a beer with. As soon as they start pressuring you into doing stuff send them packing. Be completely honest about your expectations and make them work for their fee. Finally, if you can, get some references from their existing clients - some provide this, sometimes can find via google. Can't really offer much more than that, but treat them like you would any supplier, make them earn their fees, keep them honest and only do what works best for you.

@hippy I've got a nutmeg referral code apparently, can sling it your way.

I agree with this ^ above, if you think a pension is a good start, and I think it is, the you could do worse than Nutmeg given the amount of time and focus you can give this.

Short - Medium term you could skill yourself up if you want, or hunt down a good IFA. But give something a crack for a year with an amount from your LTD and your own personal stash and see how it gets on.

Ok, maybe I'll kick off a nutmeg and look at other options while the dust settles.

It's 500 in + 100/month. Is there a fee for quitting?

You can withdraw the cash easily enough, takes about a week but no penalty.

Over what kind of time period? 4.5% per annum would be low so I guess something shorter.

Cool.

Sounds like a plan. I can learn about big buy schemes like H&L, Vanguard while Nutmeg lose all my money.. ;)

@Howard - wanna send me that referrer ting?

@Howard - wanna send me that referrer ting?

PM me ya email address - apparently not as simple as me chucking you a code.

You can withdraw the cash easily enough, takes about a week but no penalty.

Pension tho...so you'll get a weird tax bill I'd have thought?

@hippy with pensions you transfer the value to another pension scheme* - you very, very rarely withdraw the money unless you are desperate for it back.

* that performs better I guess

Ah, I assumed ISA. I assume pension will be more complicated and wouldn't try and take that out.

Oh, this was just a personal investment option for now. I was going to look at other stuff for a pension, wasn't I? Shit, I forget now. I swapped investment chat for whisky, lots of whisky.

Bit late but just to follow up I've done this. Just to try it out. Might do it again at some point but no plans at present.
Ratesetter - lent £1000 over 18 months. Got around 4% interest. No problems at all. Recently cashed it in.
Zopa - lent around £400 over about 2 years (couple of years back). Had a few late payers but all paid eventually and didn't require any action from me. Would be covered by bad debtor fund anyway if defaulted.

Of the two I found Ratesetter better.

Interested in a few things:

1. Long term savings for my son / my yacht, depending how I feel about him in the future.
   
   

Low risk, just sitting there and if it earns, great, if not, meh. Looking at 15+ years minimum. Don't want to be tied to regular minimum monthly deposits. Have a couple of grand in premium bonds for him at the moment. Could plod along with these, depositing similar amount each year if they're the best for purpose. Otherwise open to alternatives.

1. Mid to long term low risk pot as a lump sum to dent mortgage in my 40s.
   
   

Would like to start with about 20k and see what that could potentially earn in 10+ years . I'd like to see theoretical returns on whether it could outperform the reduction in interest/years if I just used the sum for early repayment now.

1. Also interested for novelty value in very high risk, short term but not the kind of product where I'd need to put any real effort in myself - so something managed I guess. Relatively small though. Maybe 10k. This is my "I missed bitcoin so what else is out there" request. Would want to cash out if there's any left within a year. Again, purely for novelty rather than need so not concerned by how ludicrous the risk (unless it's deep sea mining funded by the CIA).
   
   

Nutmeg and others sound fun - can you dictate risk levels of your portfolio?

Huh. Interesting to see how Microcosm renders numerical lists :/

(I typed 1., 2., 3., but I guess paragraph structure or something threw it).

Long term savings for my son / my yacht, depending how I feel about him in the future.

Cheap / free index linked fund wrapped in a JISA? HSBC do funds costing 0.07% (FTSE allshare, for example) and Hargreaves Landsdowne have JISAs with no fees. With reinvesting, it has been making 8% return pa

Mid to long term low risk pot as a lump sum to dent mortgage in my 40s.

Same thing, but grown-up ISA?

Also interested for novelty value in very high risk, short term

Casino winnings aren't taxed

NSandI offering 2.2% on 3 year bond. Surely worth a look? Lowest risk.

I've genuinely never been to a casino. That sounds like a stupid but actually fucking great idea.

Roulette seems suitably arbitrary?

I watched Wish List last night. 2hrs of weird Jason Statham shit I'll never get back.
It did make me feel like playing Blackjack though.

Forum casino ride?

Vague Arse

That @inchpincher chap took me to one once. Won £100-odd quid and believe I spent it on a steak. Never been again. Your mileage may vary.

Ta - haven't visited their site in a while so will investigate. Just wanted to run past hive mind in case there were new suppliers in vein of Nutmeg or P2P systems I hadn't heard of (which is basically most of them) that might make the process slightly less painful for me.

Gamify all the things etc.