Pension Advice Needed

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Matt74
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Pension Advice Needed

Post by Matt74 »

I'm looking at setting up a pension for one of my son's.
Long story short he was seriously ill at 5 weeks old which has left him with learning disabilities and his chances of earning a decent living are pretty much zero. He is 17 now.

I am now in a position where I can afford to pay about £200 a month into a pension for him.
I have been looking at Aviva and Virgin stakeholder pensions.

I think these will be cheap to begin with but as the fund grows so do the charges. As my knowledge is limited I feel I should seek advice before committing to a pension.

Can anyone give any advice or recommend an unbiased financial advisor I could speak to?

Thanks,

Matt.
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Birdman
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Birdman »

Hi Matt,
A friend swears by St. James's Place Pensions www.sjp.co.uk
My pension policy with Standard Life ended up 1/4 of estimate after 20 years, so, be careful and hope you can take care of your son's future.
All the best Chris
Matt74
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Matt74 »

Birdman wrote: Thu May 07, 20 10:52 am Hi Matt,
A friend swears by St. James's Place Pensions www.sjp.co.uk
My pension policy with Standard Life ended up 1/4 of estimate after 20 years, so, be careful and hope you can take care of your son's future.
All the best Chris
Thank you Chris
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morgan
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by morgan »

With respect, its a horrible time to invest anywhere. We are heading for a horror show over the next couple of years - I'd be very careful; I think you are right - independent is key - but its the same big companies at the back end of it all and someone needs to pay for their shiny offices and bonus's.
Some of the larger independent firms do offer their own investment portfolios - which is interesting as the company owners also have their own wealth invested - which I always think focuses the mind a little. Perhaps some local advice (rather than a big firm call centre) would be first port of call ?
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Matt74
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Matt74 »

morgan wrote: Thu May 07, 20 4:31 pm With respect, its a horrible time to invest anywhere. We are heading for a horror show over the next couple of years - I'd be very careful; I think you are right - independent is key - but its the same big companies at the back end of it all and someone needs to pay for their shiny offices and bonus's.
Some of the larger independent firms do offer their own investment portfolios - which is interesting as the company owners also have their own wealth invested - which I always think focuses the mind a little. Perhaps some local advice (rather than a big firm call centre) would be first port of call ?
You raise some interesting points there Morgan.

Thanks for your input.
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Dave999
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Dave999 »

i'm with legal and general through work
seems alright

i find the best thing about it is i can choose from about 100 funds and dictate what it gets invested in
or i can let their big computer do it like everyone else does and i mean most of my work colleagues, who show no interest at all.
i choose not to do that i take an interest and try to make it work for me.

so in the first years i invested in anything with a risky profile and spread it about over 8 different funds that looked like they were going well
i.e anything that did over 40% growth in 5 years. obviously the fact sheets are no guarantee and they never quite do in future what they did in the past BUT

what i found was when everything went bad in 2008 it looked like i had lost a lot.
but you fail to think about the fact that each unit/stake/share in the funds at that time cost a lot less. so while all the previous investment was worth, in some cases a lot less than i paid for it, during the slump everything invested came in much cheaper. So when it all got right again, my cash came back ++£ .
The slump was gone and for the funds used to purchase, during the slump i was getting more for my £1 and that translated well when the value increased

so am looking at a pension now that i've built up since i was in my 20s and i've seen 35K taken off it due to covid 19, but i know as i've got a good few years left in me, and its all spread about across some good and bad stuff, that in theory when it all picks up again it should swing back..

once i get to my late 50s i'll be putting it all in something sensible, that just reliably sticks on a bit of growth....like the standard life absolute returns fund... to avoid being caught out by a slump should someone start coughing again

so i'm not suggesting legal and general particularly, i'm suggesting a place that gives some flexibility to you, to decide what you want done with it on a month by month basis, having a good online way to make changes counts for a lot in my book
and if they provide all the fact sheets about the investment funds as well... you can make some informed decisions.
then you can guard against the lazy investment routine chosen by default By them for you.
Low risk, low returns, computer does all the work, they don't have to pay anyone to keep an eye on it, no human bothers looking at it, it just sits there making a little cash and makes you more worried every year, when the send out things saying, you can look forward to a lump sum of £10K and a monthly income of £34.52.. id prefer £35 and if i caused it to be crap its my fault, i own it... i can't be filled with anger at the company if i did it.

needless to say as long as you don't swap things about all the time it doesn't take up much time 20 minutes every month or so, and you can spread it about across a diverse portfolio, based on your appetite for risk and keep a little not of what went in and how much it made since you last looked

A financial advisor is handy. But these days you'd be hard pushed to find one who would actually advise.....none will say, invest in this fund, its good steer clear of that, its rubbish. they will just chunter on about your attitude to risk and ask you to define what you mean by GOOD and RUBBISH

they are all scared you will take them to court if it all goes bad

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Dave999
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Dave999 »

the other option of course is a stocks n shares ISA

armed with a debit card £100 and a PC you can have a hargreaves lansdown ISA set up in 15 minutes

you then choose some shares and some funds to watch...and you watch em for 2 or 3 months

when they go for a bit of a dip and look like the end of the world is Nigh you sling £50 here and £100 there

you wait till its come good again. sell and stick a proportion of the profits in a fund much like the ones pensions are invested in

once you have a bit of cash you take it out and pay it into a proper pension

i currently put anything left on the day before pay day up to a max of £50 into one. its a pocket money experiment.

currently have put a bit into hurricane energy and RockRose energy both oil companies that can still make a profit on a barrel of oil when its $20 a barrel because their production costs are $17 and both are cash rich... but their shares are really low at the mo. for obvious reasons..
once we all go back to work productivity per unit of energy will be rubbish and many will use cars over bus n tube so we will use more energy, oil price will go up share price probably will. after SARS china used 10% more oil then before to make 80% of the products they were making before... i can't think much has changed

its risky but i'm risking a friday night pub kebab and taxi night out. and thats all. profits go into a lindsell train world equities fund... risky but not as risky as shares in oil companies.

other potentially risky but might come good investments

Banks.... after northern rock no bank is going bankrupt but their shares are worth diddleeeesquat.. one presumes they will be worth more again once stuff calms down....

its an option
but its risky

PS don't take advice from me. if i was any good at this i'd have a superbird by now.....do i have a super bird? NO :) but i have a bit of fun and haven't yet cried into my keyboard...yet.... its like a visit to the bookies when the race you bet on doesn't finish for 4 days/months/years.... :)

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morgan
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by morgan »

You've missed your calling. I love it.
Where do I mail my cheque ?
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Matt74
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Matt74 »

That's brilliant Dave.
Thank you for taking the time to reply in such detail.
You have given me plenty to think about there. I was going to take the easy option and go for a set up and forget it type pension but now I'm thinking I should do something similar to what you are doing. I think I will invest some money into an ISA and the rest in a pension and stocks and shares

There's lots to learn I think but what you have said has given me a bit more confidence.

Are there any investment magazines that you can recommend at all?

Thanks again Dave I really appreciate your input.
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Dom66
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Dom66 »

Yep, shares ISA's are well worth considering. Years ago I bought a chunk of shares in the company I worked for then, an Australian mining company on the ASX. I watched them get exciting a couple of times, but the idea was to sell if/when they would cover my mortgage and they never quite got close enough when you factored in capital gains tax. Come GFC, they went through the floor, from $3.00 to about 46c, so I burned the lot at a loss, no capital gains and immediately repurchased them under 2 share ISA's in mine and my wife's names. So now I can watch and think yeah, when they get to there we're good and no tax to pay. They were doing well until Covid, but even now they're not disastrous and the value is probably 65% based on the gold price, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Anyway, whatever I get I won't have to share it with the taxman.
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Trigger_Andy
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Trigger_Andy »

Another option is to invest in Gold.

My Grandad put £500 in an account for me when I was born in July 1979. Gold was £130 a ounce back then. So he could have bought me 3.8oz of Gold.

When I got the money when I turned 21 it had gained very little interest. But now 3.8oz of Gold is worth around £5200.

Thats an increase of 10x the initial amount. Inflation alone is 5x. So doubling inflation.

Its physical so something you can keep at home. Imagine getting handed a bag full of Gold one day? Id love it! In my opinion its far less risky that Stocks and Shares. I invest a little in the company I work for. 2 years ago their stare price was $52 a share, 6 weeks ago it was down to $4.20, thankfully I'll not be cashing in for a while, but it just shows you the volatility of markets. But I managed to buy a lot of shares at this price. :D Already the Shares I bought from 1January to 31st March have almost doubled in Value. My plan at the end of this year is to sell all the shares I bought this year if they have at least doubled in value to buy a Wood Gasifier Boiler before the government closes the RHI scheme on them in March 2021, which essentially means I get 100% of the £20k the system costs back over 7 years, if shares pay for at least 50% of that Im laughing. :D But on the other hand the markets could tank again and Im out on my arse.

When markets come tumbling down its metals that traders run to. So I like to keep a little of the shiny stuff but Id like more. If I get the RHI payments of the Wood Burner I'll be exchanging each payment for a Gold Coin and putting them in the Drawer.
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Dave999
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Dave999 »

Magazines i'm sure there are

motleyfool on the web is also good

however at a basic level...i took the attitude that i needed to learn but i needed a start.
i got the news paper summary magazine called "The Week" last 3 pages is the financials and it has what are supposed to be the best and worst performing shares tips of the last week and a few for next week from all the worthy papers. you can read the articles about other things while the sweats die down after your first bad purchase...

i also looked up well performing funds via google just look up 2019 best performing funds for stocks and shares ISA

I set up my Lansdown ISA
i used the WATCH list section to list all the nice to have things, suggested in the paper
and a few of the funds.
and watched for a couple of months, don't be hasty

the ISA lets you invest in shares (risky) or funds (less risky)

i try to balance the two, some goes into funds that just plod upwards most of the time...funds need minimum investment of £100, so every couple of months its fund day and every 3rd month i do shares, the funds work like a pension, and in most cases a section of that fund is peoples pension contributions, its just in a different bucket from the ISA money.

most were way too expensive.. i mean if its £40 a share i'd only get one

but it let me watch them go up and down and plummet and power up again.

i stuck some money in Imperial brands (fags cigars vapes) when it looked like the US and Cuba were friends again (pre trump) they purchased big chunks of cuban cigar manufacturers. i.e it looked like something that was illegal in the states was going to be made available legally again for the first time since the 60s and imperial brands owned half the potential..the future was bright

worst investment i ever made.... trump came in and broke it... then the daft US got in a tizzy about vaping.... people abusing the devices with cannabis oil, yes you will die, vapourised rather than burned oil + lungs = death soon rather than later..but the truth never got in the way of a good story...

you don't always win, and its easy to loose, but they pay a dividend so if i hang on long enough, as in 20 years, the dividends will cover the initial investment if the shares stay at 50% of what i paid.

i mentioned hurricane energy..crazy professor, decided to dig oil out of the north sea from places that were dismissed by the big oil companies as not viable, he is going after what he calls fractured basements, with horizontal rather than vertical drillings...no oil company in their right mind bothers with them

i purchased at an average of 20P a share... its currently at 11p but once every 18 month it hits 60p and he's sitting on millions of barrels of the stuff....they are still on experimental production system... i'm hoping once it goes into full scale production the shares are worth more,
this is a very risky investment, dependent on the ideas of one guy.. it might come good been chuking in money in dribs n drabs for about 6 years i am very small scale got about 5000 shares that were originally issued back in the 2000s at 0.01 Pence now worth 11 pence and at some point will hopefully be worth 200 pence. just have to hope the investors who trust this guys geology and science don't pull out...

Dr Robert Trice.... is the man google him for full story.

watching...not being hasty, understanding that you could loose it all....and not being sentimental if the sale price looks good, flog the lot and never look back to see how good it got after you sold. come back in a few months and if its cheap again, re invest

keep a float of cash in a range of funds, they slump into negative occasionally but mostly its positive, choose funds with a global reach, avoid the impact of loony politicians in 1 area, this is the keep me sane if it all goes wrong with the shares plan.
and keep in mind the first few things you invest in will later look like a very bad idea, once you get the hang of it, i haven't quite got the hang of it yet.


codebusters has been good, UK computer game company recently had a big motor racing game...doing ok
if you can afford it Smurfitt Kappa. they make boxes and packaging...wish i'd had the cash before lockdown... household recycling up by 50% in most areas, thats a lot of packaging...

in the same way BIKES a bike manufacturer might be a good thing now but a bike shop wouldn't, but then again halfords will be suffering..but are unlikely to disappear... they should come back might be good for a punt.

most people who do this invest in 1000s or millions of shares at a time i invest in 5s, 10s 100s or 1000s... its very small scale.
only issue with very small scale is with a charge of up to £11 for a purchase regardless of size you need to keep an eye on that.

face it, when it comes down to it, its 50% luck :)

keep in mind a profit is a profit. if you make £10 off of 100 in a year you still beat a savings account and did better than the premium bonds (30K invested expect £25 every other month if you are lucky)

be careful and i never told you to do it.......:)

there is a pension crisis in this country...1) the companies don't play fair and 2) those who take the first step and open one don't look at it again until they are 65.... actively working on it pays.... pester for a login get one you can change the investments in...

change where the current cash is invested or change where the future cash will be invested...or both.

on the gold front i know a bloke who buys it in the US. gets it sent over as a sample of copper. buries it in his garden...????!!!?? illegal and dodgy, and thats the kinda guy he is.... and i have not yet found out where he lives...Andy's legit method is most definitely safer. always better to buy actual metal and not paper saying you have a share of a big lump in a warehouse in another country, but don't get hung up on what it looks like...its the metal not the shape and detail that counts unless you are getting into rare coins worth something due to what they are, not how much gold they are made from.

any UK company with the word MINT in its name is a company selling gold and silver junk at prices way over the value per oz.... The Royal mint might be ok but the rest, just pretending to be related to it.. as such their output is worth only what it is made from..they may say krugerrand but they were only made by the RAND mint in SA not some 2 bit company with a fancy name ,on Vauxhall Bridge road. i don't know what a mint looks like but google street view gives me a decent impression that a dilapidated retail shop converted to office space on a london street isn't a mint


Dave
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Trigger_Andy
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Trigger_Andy »

Dave999 wrote: Thu May 14, 20 10:19 am i mentioned hurricane energy..crazy professor, decided to dig oil out of the north sea from places that were dismissed by the big oil companies as not viable, he is going after what he calls fractured basements, with horizontal rather than vertical drillings...no oil company in their right mind bothers with them
Interesting comment. This is what I do for a living.

Big companies have been exploiting marginal pay zones for years now. Horizontal Drilling and Well Completion is main stream now and has been for a number of years in the North Sea and almost anywhere you can think of with mature reserves. In Saudi (for an example) the have to 'Flaot' the Tubing into place. This means that the String is closed ended and empty. The Packers, what isolate the different pay zones are either Swell Packers and react will whatever fluid is currently down there, ie Brine, Oil Based Mud etc and swell over a period of time and seal off each Zone. To Produce each zone we run Interval Control Valves controlled from surface, usually in conjunction with Position Indicators and Pressure/Temp Gauges. Anyway, one time some Scottish lads accidentally opened one of the ICV's and flooded the Closed Ended Tubing grinding it to a halt where it was. :D You ant Bananarama! any further down and you cant pull it out. I think the had to cut the Sting into pieces and pull it out bit by bit. Some of these horizontal sections are over 4km long. We're now running Multi-Laterals more and more now as well. So you drill your section. Install a Whipstock, drill again then kick off of the Whipstock and drill the new horizontal section. Repeat as required. When you come to run the Tubing you have to install Diverters and Liner Hangers to Complete each Multi-Lateral. Then you run in with the final Completion String with with a Stinger and a bunch of Seal Assys on the end to maintain the Tubing/Annulus Barrier.

Its been around since the late 80's but really taken off in the last 10 years.


Sorry for the thread hijack. :D
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Dave999
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Dave999 »

ah-ha

so do you think hurricane are onto a good or bad thing?

lincoln and warwick fields on the rona ridge off north scotland...
i don't understand half the stuff he's talking about but he seems like a proper decent upstanding chap with a good idea
https://www.hurricaneenergy.com/assets/ ... reservoirs

he looks for fracture and sticks his pipe in from the side hoping the natural gaps in the broken rock running deep into the crust under a good solid cap allows enough pressure and flow to keep it going for a prolonged period of time... rather than forcing it out of the mud and porous rock the theory is it just flows

my other little punt is rockrose energy. slightly more traditional in their approach and a much older company
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Trigger_Andy
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Re: Pension Advice Needed

Post by Trigger_Andy »

Dave999 wrote: Fri May 15, 20 10:27 am ah-ha

so do you think hurricane are onto a good or bad thing?

lincoln and warwick fields on the rona ridge off north scotland...
i don't understand half the stuff he's talking about but he seems like a proper decent upstanding chap with a good idea
https://www.hurricaneenergy.com/assets/ ... reservoirs

he looks for fracture and sticks his pipe in from the side hoping the natural gaps in the broken rock running deep into the crust under a good solid cap allows enough pressure and flow to keep it going for a prolonged period of time... rather than forcing it out of the mud and porous rock the theory is it just flows

my other little punt is rockrose energy. slightly more traditional in their approach and a much older company

I dont really know if they're onto a good thing or not? They are certainly not doing anything unusual when it comes to intelligent Completions. This is all I do off-shore. Well after Well after Well. :D The whole concept behind 'Smart' or whats now called Intelligent Completions is to exploit marginal and mature reserves.

For their ESP Pumps they'll have to go with either Shlumberger or Baker. But as they Hurricane is using Shlumbergers Intersect modeling I'll assume they are getting the whole contract for the ESP's and the Intelligent Completion side of things as well? Cant see much about extraction, if they are planning on Zonal Isolation, or if they'll just have a long section of perforated Tubing to produce from? Maybe some Sand Screens? Shlumberger are our direct competitor in this field, but we where the first.:D We have the biggest share on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, Shlumberger are almost non-existence in Norway when it comes to Completions and Intelligent Completions.

I have not worked in the UK for close to 14 years now. I did one job in the UK last year as a favour and hated it, Ill not offer to do that again. I'll stick with Norway I think. :D


https://www.halliburton.com/en-US/ps/we ... fault.html


I see you say they break even at $17 a barrel, thats incredibly low. Hard to believe actually. After the last down turn and Oil Companies tightening the budgets to see sub $30 a barrel break even was unusual. Saudi managed it as well as Norway on some fields, but Ive never heard of sub $20 a barrel. How many wells do they have on-line and how many do they plan on bringing on-line?

So how do you invest in a company like this? I might have a wee punt as things are rock bottom just now.
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