Penfold pension

[.Adam.]

My wife is self employed, and hasn't got a private pension yet. Being self employed it means she doesn't want a pension where she a=has to commit a large amount monthly, she would rather put a lump sum in a few times a year as it is available. I have seen the Penfold self-employed pension, which by the sounds of it seems to be what she is looking for, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with them?

[JulianPH]

.Adam. said:

My wife is self employed, and hasn't got a private pension yet. Being self employed it means she doesn't want a pension where she a=has to commit a large amount monthly, she would rather put a lump sum in a few times a year as it is available. I have seen the Penfold self-employed pension, which by the sounds of it seems to be what she is looking for, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with them?

Never even heard of them so had a look and they only launched in "summer 2019" and are quite misleading, as every mainstream pension provider will allow for this.

The days of having to commit a regular monthly amount with an insurance company are long gone!

So she would be better off choosing a provider that she actually likes and has faith in, rather that selecting one for the outdated reasons.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with Penfold BTW, they could be a great match for your wife, only that every modern day pension provider offers the flexibility she is seeking and so she needn't restrict herself in her choice.

[Mr Pointy]

.Adam. said:

My wife is self employed, and hasn't got a private pension yet. Being self employed it means she doesn't want a pension where she a=has to commit a large amount monthly, she would rather put a lump sum in a few times a year as it is available. I have seen the Penfold self-employed pension, which by the sounds of it seems to be what she is looking for, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with them?

There's nothing special needed for a self-employed pension, she can open an normal SIPP or personal pension with a wide variety of providers. SIPPS & PPs are much the same thing except that SIPPS usually provide you with more latitude to select individual stocks or funds to invest in, which is fine if you want that level of control.

There are many reputable providers that have been operating for many years & hence have a verifiable track record & history of performance. All of these institutions are very happy to take your contributions as ad-hoc sums. AJ Bell & Hargreaves Lansdown have good platforms for new investors where you can select from hundreds of different funds but charges can be high. Charges are a key factor in performance over a long period of time so it's very important to know the total charges being levied. Vanguard are another enormous institution with a smaller selection of their own funds but low charges.

You might also want to read the sticky at the top of this forum:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Simpo Two]

First image on Google confirms my suspicions...

[chip*]

As stated above, there are many companies who can provide you with pension offerings now. You can either buy direct from the investment manager e.g. big reputable players such as Fidelity, Vanguard, Blackrock/ishare to name a few, or you can buy from an investment platform who offer pension offering across many investment managers e.g. Interactive Investors, AJ Bells, Lansdown Hargreaves etc... These platforms are simply like a supermarket, where you have access to many investment managers, so you have a much wider choice of investment fund options.

You will find any reputable investment manager provides a tutorial / educational investment guide on their website which investors will find useful. Taking Fidelity website "Learn about investing" for example:


https://www.fidelity.co.uk/


You will find many investment fundamentals explained in this guide i.e. what's a SIPP pensions + benefits, risk and return, volatility and risk, asset allocation (Equity/shares, Bonds, Property etc..) . They even provide some investment ideas for you to play around with. Imo, definitely worth investing some time to read & understand these important investment guide as they will form the basis of any investment decisions (if you proceed with the DIY route).

[.Adam.]

Thanks for the replies, plenty to think about!

[.Adam.]

Just got back of holiday, and have been taking a quick look again at this. We are not interested in deciding what funds to invest in, so would want a managed fund, and would also want a low risk option.
The AJ Bell option looks quite good, and also Intelligent Money from Julian on here, although the investment will most probably be small compared to most!
We just need to decide if we are happy to set up ourselves, or would be better off paying for a financial advisor to find the best option.

[anonymous-user]

Another vote for sipp deal / AJ Bell. Low cost and you can invest in most markets. No advice though, it's your money and your choice where it goes.

[Mr Pointy]

.Adam. said:

Just got back of holiday, and have been taking a quick look again at this. We are not interested in deciding what funds to invest in, so would want a managed fund, and would also want a low risk option.
The AJ Bell option looks quite good, and also Intelligent Money from Julian on here, although the investment will most probably be small compared to most!
We just need to decide if we are happy to set up ourselves, or would be better off paying for a financial advisor to find the best option.

You shouldn't look at an IFA as just being needed to decide which fund to invest in - that's the last part of the process, or should be if the IFA is any good. They should be starting off with review of your current finances, future plans & goals & they can then build a plan for you. If you've already got your emergency funds & ISAs etc sorted out & you are just putting a pension into place then you can very easily do this yourself. You just need to decide on your attitude to risk & while you may say "I want a low risk option" the truth is you need to build the pot just to counter inflation & fees & big asset is time so starting early is very important.

If you have read the IM thread then you know that they are happy just to have a chat with you & your wife although they can't offer Advice at least afterwards you might know if you do need to look round for an IFA who can offer Advice & construct a plan for you.

[xeny]

.Adam. said:

We are not interested in deciding what funds to invest in, so would want a managed fund, and would also want a low risk option..

splitting that up:

We're not interested in deciding what to invest in

We're going to have to decide on a managed fund

We've decided we want to specify a characteristic of what we invest in.

There is a degree of inherent contradiction there. Also, what do you mean by low risk? For example, cash is perceived as low risk, but has a guarantee of loss of value due to inflation for example.

It's also easy to specify low risk (which implies low return), where after you've paid management fees you have near zero after inflation return for what is still some risk.

It's very easy to say "low risk", but it is important to understand the implications of what seems a quite sensible preference at first glance.

[Simpo Two]

xeny said:

It's also easy to specify low risk (which implies low return), where after you've paid management fees you have near zero after inflation return for what is still some risk.

And if you hire an IFA that's roughly another 1% gone. So if this 'low risk' fund achieves 4%, you're not giving him 1%, you're giving him 25% of the growth. This is the problem with small percentages.

[mikeiow]

Mr Pointy said:

.Adam. said:

Just got back of holiday, and have been taking a quick look again at this. We are not interested in deciding what funds to invest in, so would want a managed fund, and would also want a low risk option.
The AJ Bell option looks quite good, and also Intelligent Money from Julian on here, although the investment will most probably be small compared to most!
We just need to decide if we are happy to set up ourselves, or would be better off paying for a financial advisor to find the best option.

You shouldn't look at an IFA as just being needed to decide which fund to invest in - that's the last part of the process, or should be if the IFA is any good. They should be starting off with review of your current finances, future plans & goals & they can then build a plan for you. If you've already got your emergency funds & ISAs etc sorted out & you are just putting a pension into place then you can very easily do this yourself. You just need to decide on your attitude to risk & while you may say "I want a low risk option" the truth is you need to build the pot just to counter inflation & fees & big asset is time so starting early is very important.

If you have read the IM thread then you know that they are happy just to have a chat with you & your wife although they can't offer Advice at least afterwards you might know if you do need to look round for an IFA who can offer Advice & construct a plan for you.

+1 for a look at the IM sticky.

As well as a couple of ISAs, we have set up (small!) pensions for MrsMikeIOW, as well as Master and Ms MikeIOW (offspring). My wife doesn't earn, so she is limited to putting in £2,880pa (& HMRC contribution)....so IM are fine with small investments!

As a customer, I could suggest the funds we chose, but regardless, you need to make the choice. For low risk, I would suggest their "optimum defensive"...but it is easy to mix things up across 2 or more of their funds.

I would recommend a chat with Nik or one of the others there, then decide if you still prefer to visit an IFA. My view is that they rarely do much for taking a chunk of your funds, regardless whether they go up or down, but that is just one person's view!

Setting things up with IM is stupidly easy. I think their fund choices are decent - easy to understand, low cost, not too many to chose from. The likes of AJBell etc would obviously have hundreds (thousands) of funds....which to someone not that interested in picking funds isn't ideal!!