Vanguard recomendations

[Mabozza]

I've not fully utilised my ISA allowance by £10K for tax year 23-24, I have an ISA with Vanguard, so was looking at making a single payment to fully utilise my allowance in the next week or two.

I'm not fully immersed in S&S investments or know "whats whats", so appealling to those savvy PH'ers that are - Are there any recommendations for perfoming funds to simply place the full £10K in to, as opposed to spreading it over the existing (chosen at random/best guess) investment/funds I already have?

many thanks

itchy

[bitchstewie]

Depends on your objectives as it could be LifeStrategy 40 or it could be the S&P 500

Main thing is get the money in the ISA wrapper this financial year, no need to rush on the actual fund purchase.

[rdjohn]

I am in LifeStrategy 80, but wish I had been in LifeStrategy 100, last year.

Hindsight is wonderful, the main thing is being “in it, to win it”. NASDAQ was up 44% and S&P up 20-odd%. I feel certain that will not be repeated this year.

You just need to plan for the longer term. It will tend to come to you.

[Simpo Two]

bhstewie said:

Main thing is get the money in the ISA wrapper this financial year, no need to rush on the actual fund purchase.

Yep. Many people don't realise you can hold cash in a S&S ISA, so you can add it as cash and invest when it suits.

[DaveCWK]

Simpo Two said:

Yep. Many people don't realise you can hold cash in a S&S ISA, so you can add it as cash and invest when it suits.

In my Freetrade S&S ISA you can also invest in cash investments e.g an ETF that just tracks the SONIA interest rate, for all intents making a cash ISA.

[simon800]

Mabozza said:

I've not fully utilised my ISA allowance by £10K for tax year 23-24, I have an ISA with Vanguard, so was looking at making a single payment to fully utilise my allowance in the next week or two.

I'm not fully immersed in S&S investments or know "whats whats", so appealling to those savvy PH'ers that are - Are there any recommendations for perfoming funds to simply place the full £10K in to, as opposed to spreading it over the existing (chosen at random/best guess) investment/funds I already have?

many thanks

itchy

It completely depends on what the existing funds are, your risk appetite, your financial goals etc. It's impossible for anyone to give clear direction without knowing a lot more.

[Mabozza]

thanks for the feedback. As suggested, I have added the remaining ISA allowance as "Cash" for now.

With regards to my aims, I'm early 50s at the mo, looking to retire before 60, potentially in the next 5 or so years change from a high tax bracket professional role to a lower tax bracket less stressful job, maybe part time time.
I dont expect to need draw down on these funds until fully retired, so at least 10 years away.


Whilst in my current role/career path, I intend to utilse my ISA allowance with Vanguard with continued monthly payments (direct debit).
Risk appetite is medium, so would look for a performing fund that would hopefully ride out any dips and provide a decent return after 5/10/15 years time once the money is needed.

[Kickstart]

Mabozza said:

thanks for the feedback. As suggested, I have added the remaining ISA allowance as "Cash" for now.

With regards to my aims, I'm early 50s at the mo, looking to retire before 60, potentially in the next 5 or so years change from a high tax bracket professional role to a lower tax bracket less stressful job, maybe part time time.
I dont expect to need draw down on these funds until fully retired, so at least 10 years away.


Whilst in my current role/career path, I intend to utilse my ISA allowance with Vanguard with continued monthly payments (direct debit).
Risk appetite is medium, so would look for a performing fund that would hopefully ride out any dips and provide a decent return after 5/10/15 years time once the money is needed.

I would really recommend a good read of the Bogleheads website and wiki - lots of great practical advice - good luck

[bitchstewie]

Agree with this ^^ and I don't work in financial services so please don't listen to me but if you don't want to pay for advice but very broadly speaking if you want to do "something sensible that's medium risk" I think you'd do worst than look at some of the low cost 60/40 multi-asset funds out there.

With Vanguard this would be LifeStrategy 60.

[simon800]

Mabozza said:

provide a decent return after 5/10/15 years time once the money is needed.

Without it wanting to come across as being too specific, but this bit here is worth exploring further too.

Money invested for 5 years would likely be treated very differently (in terms of asset allocation) compared to money needed in 15 years.

If the total pot may be needed at different points in future, I'd probably separate the pots and have pot A needed in 5 years invested very differently to pot B needed in 15 years.

Not doing this can be a mistake - for example if you invest your whole pot as if it's needed in 5 years there's a massive opportunity cost applied to the bit that actually isn't needed for 15.

VLS have various offerings - active, passive, target retirement, multi asset etc so there will almost certainly be sensible options that align with your aims and appetite.

Have you done the risk questionnaire on the Vanguard website?

https://investor.vanguard.com/tools-calculators/in...

It's a reasonable starting point.

[superpp]

not recommending anything either way...

Personally I just use a Global tracker (FTSE Global All Cap), so my investments are spread across many markets (although they lean heavily on the US).

[mark seeker]

I'm someone on the internet so this is not a recommendation but I would take a look at a global tracker and the S&P500..

VHVG (0.12% fee) and VUAG (0.07% fee)

There are many views on the Lifestrategy products, 0.22% plus the platform fee to me seems fairly expensive compared to VUAG/VHVG and there is some UK bias to LS products which may or may not appeal to you (have a read).

Personally I think a low cost global tracker which is accumulating is where I would put the unused money, put it in and forget about it. Watch out for products with higher fees as they do eat into returns over time.

You have time before April so read around the options and don't feel pressured to buy immediately. Vanguard (from memory) gives 2% interest on cash held on account so whilst you're thinking there are better places hold this money (although tax may erode it).

[rdjohn]

simon800 said:

Have you done the risk questionnaire on the Vanguard website?

https://investor.vanguard.com/tools-calculators/in...

It's a reasonable starting point.

That is a .com tool, so you cannot log into it with you .co.uk credentials - at least, I could not.

[simon800]

That’s odd, I click the link and it takes me directly to a page with a button “start the quiz”. How peculiar…

[forest172]

Vanguard also now have Sterling money market fund which seems to be earning just over 4%. But does carry slight risk