Pointless to seek a Financial Adviser? DH adamant we can ‘self serve’

What is a decent stocks and share ISA to go for?

Agree with this.

We have an FA through our private bank and also consulted tax advisors. Essentially useless. (Caveat, one of us works in a financial sector) (caveat to the caveat: my uneducated past O level mother knew more tips and tricks than the tax advisors)

We had 7 figures invested and they didn’t provide us with some amazing insight. We just invested in commodities, maxed out ISAs, don’t pay off our mortgage (debt is cheap. We can make more by investing the money instead)

the tax advisors charged us best part of 10k for our tax returns. Am still pissed off about it. Waste of time and money.

Clearly your experience is extraordinarily limited.

Also @ViciousCurrentBun has it right the first law of being rich is not getting divorced.

Having gone to look its not 1% it's 0.1x% works out about £600 a year, but still less than if you went direct.

IME if you're someone who takes a moderate amount of interest in investing, you'll know more than most IFAs

First off, ChatGPT should be avoided as should an FA/IFA.

I recommend reading the book Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins, which explains why the only thing you need to do is follow the advice that Warren Buffett has given his wife for when he’s gone: quite simply buy index trackers and don’t sell. As an investor you have to learn to yawn (or buy) through stock market crashes/dips).

On the topic of mortgages… mortgages are not the evil of the world, very wealthy people usually have them as they are the cheapest way to borrow money. Basically don’t overpay your mortgage if it’s costing you 4% if you can get a higher return (such as 6%) by investing. Of course when you get older feel free to de-risk by paying the mortgage off (which is what I did with a small part of my investment profit).

When building wealth, one needs to compare investment returns to interest paid.

For example when my son goes to uni I could pay outright for his fees or I could invest the money for him. I will compare the planned investment returns to his loan repayment costs (I will assume he gets a good job). I strongly suspect that if I go the investment route he will after 20 years have far more credit in his investment account than debit in his student loan account and so will be able to pay off the loan and have a good retirement nest egg waiting for him.

An IFA is a complete overkill (and waste of money) unless you're talking very, very large sums of money (I'd say 200k plus) or particularly complex finances.

Just use the Reddit UK personal finance flowchart https://ukpersonal.finance/flowchart/

This is an excellent starting point.

If he works in FS, they likely provide access to a IFA as part of his package

Hang on, you want your parents to be the financial advisors?? And you are wondering why your bf is saying “no thanks, I’ll do it myself?!”. Knock on with ya!

I’ve never used a FA, ever. All the information is out there and readily available (it has to be, by law). You just have to read it. People are intimidated by maths and numbers, but the only unknown is “what will happen in the future?” and nobody - least of all a FA who is a parent - can honestly answer that!

1% is quite high for a pension.....

I have only lost - not gained - money, by using an IFA. FWIW, here is my financial advice to you - and it's free.

Mortgage? Shop around for the best product for your needs, go to L&C mortgages; they charge you no fees and from my experience, give unparalleled advice.

Mortgage again? An IFA may try to persuade you to invest in the market which always has risk attached rather than reduce your outstanding mortgage.Consider making overpayments / lump sum payments if at all possible, instead.

Investments? Only invest in products you thoroughly understand. And investments that you are prepared to manage yourself. If you don't know how to do this, learn about it ... but only invest in stocks & shares etc with caution.

Investments? IFAs will be paid an upfront commission fee and charge you on-going fees for managing these on your behalf. To the extent financially they will never lose out on your investments, but your returns will be reduced once the fees etc are netted off.

Pensions? If you have a work-based scheme, consider joining that. If you have a defined benefits scheme, absolutely join that and pay in the max allowed.

Finally, read what you can - financial pages of reputable publications; MSE, reliable books - check your sources of information for credibility. Be very aware of any financial advice from FB and all social media.

Some financial institutions have deals on products that are only accessible to FA.

My pension type isn't accessible to the general public, its fees are reduced to 1% vs the 6% paid on the product to the public. This enables the FA fees to be incorporated into you charges.

If DH works in finance and doesn't know that...

I paid for a independent financial advisor when I got divorced and I had two pension pots plus a sum of money.

he told me to do what I’d been planning to do.

you can pay outright for their time which is what I did, or some work on commission.

honestly unless you have very unusual circumstances they are not going to recommend anything out of the ordinary and you can easily self serve.

Were those defined benefit pensions?

MSE/ Martin Lewis doesn't do investment advice - just money saving.

The MSE forums on investments and pensions are very good, but it's a lot to wade through and the language/jargon quite technical and difficult to understand unless you already understand investments.

If you do decide on an advisor, you'll want an IFA, not a FA.

im very confused about all of this. When I wanted to transfer some pension pots I was told I couldn’t without independent financial advice
the pension provider would not do it directly with me
now I’m thinking this was not correct advice

@MidnightPatrol Perhaps my salient words are “am retired”. At 28 my husband and I earned the same. One salary was swallowed by the mortgage (not a pretty cheap debt), the other paid bills and living expenses. We had a 30 year horizon.
The OP mentioned “a keenness to start investing to potentially retire early”.
With the same aim we invested according to the advice given by an IFA then moved to paying off the mortgage after 20 years.
I totally agree with you about financial efficiency. For that I would always consult an IFA but that’s just me.

I think you have had some good advice from MNrs. Your DH is right.

FAs are expensive so def depends on how much you have to invest.

The one piece of advice I'd offer is to equalise your pensions whilst you're young, it'll serve you both well in the end. £100pcm in your pension will provide >10x more money than paying £100 off your mortgage will save, so box clever.

I voted YANBU but agree that an IFA (not FA) won't take you on with small amounts of money because it will cost you too much. I've used an IFA for 25 years and he has made me a lot of money over that time.

You can get free independent pension advice from the government service. As others have said, MSE is a great place for lots of financial advice. Just don't be tempted to get some "free financial advice" provided by a bank or insurer, as these are NOT independent and will push you towards products that they earn money from.

IFAs don't all charge commission - some work on a flat fee/annual fee basis.

After a conversation with friends recently who are approaching retirement, they were very glad to talk to an IFA. Not high earners at all, but have always worked, they had had several jobs and so several pension pots. The IFA is working out what to use, what to save, where to keep investing etc etc. I think it’s a myth that you need lots of money to use IFAs. My friends are very pleased.

I found it incredibly difficult to find an IFA willing to talk to me when I was your age. They work on commission, on the basis that it's reasonable for them to pocket 0.5% of your overall wealth if they can structure it to grow 5% faster than it would do otherwise. Unless your existing pension pots are massive but stagnating with plenty of potential for them to be reinvested more profitably, no IFA will want to take you on. From their point of view you'd be asking them to do far too much work for far too little reward. Once you have grown your (non-home) assets to at least £400k through DIY efforts, then they will be pleased to swoop in and advise you how to get that to grow to £500k +

They charge an absolute fortune for advice you can find for yourself. My neighbour is one, he spends his days lounging around working from home, buying expensive properties (think 1m+) to invest in, all on the back of charging extortionate fees and taking high commissions from ordinary everyday people such as yourself. He also walks about with a smugness that is so hard to convey and tolerate, and barely says hello to anyone, because he thinks he is so superior to everyone else. Perhaps they are not all like that, but your husband is not being unreasonable in the slightest!

Reddit uk finance independence is amazing. At your stage I would also self serve to be honest.

Interesting - this is not the advice I have received. The mortgage is pretty cheap debt really.

You will make better returns investing your money - and that lump sum is going to make far greater gains invested and having your mortgage paid off doesn’t impact on the capital gain of your home.

Maybe a ‘I want to retire soon, how can I reduce my costs’ strategy, but for a younger person with a 30 year horizon it’s pretty inefficient and I’d be surprised for an IFA to give that advice.

Ditto on ‘Trump proof savings’. As someone who is old enough to be retired, you need a v different investment strategy to a younger couple. My investments have taken a hit sure but… it’s irrelevant in the short term as I don’t plan on touching the money for 20+ years.