Help me understand stocks and shares ISAs

[whataboutbob]

I am disillusioned with my cash ISA (0.1% interest rate with Halifax). I would like to put £5000 in a S&Ss ISA. I’m not a big risk taker but am fed up with inflation making a mockery of my savings.
From reading previous threads I gather you need to be careful about charges. Also, while interested in understanding the markets, I find it all a bit intimidating. I’ve looked at Standard life’s Easy Life ISA. It has a management fee of 0.6% pa. Does this sound Ok, or excessive ( assuming I’ve understood correctly!).
Also, is a DIY stocks and shares ISA realistically inadvisable for the lay person ( I’m a health care professional with no financial training).
Thanks for any insights and advice.

VanguardInvestor has a 0.15% platform fee. Not sure if that is the lowest on the market or not but it's probably pretty close to being the lowest. The downside is that they do not offer that many fund choices but when starting out that may be a good thing.

Fund charges will vary, as will performance. FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust Accumulation fund has a 7.88% annualised return over 5 years. This is a tracker fund, so it is designed to mirror what the market does, in this case the FTSE UK All Share.

Use tools like MorningStar Quick Rank to find the annualised return, then look at the information from the fund manager themselves. www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/fundquickrank/default.aspx

I would suggest you do a lot more research so that you understand more about how funds work and that you understand your risk level. Nothing is risk free... the market goes up and down.

I don't understand it myself yet, still learning. I recommend listening to the Meaningful Money podcast, that often covers issues relating to investing in the UK. He also has a book coming out next month, that may be useful. meaningfulmoney.tv/book/

As part of an investment strategy I feel that doing some investing yourself is fine. I put money into workplace pension (so someone else manages that), I put money into short term savings (so little interest but hardly any risk), I put money into some mutual funds within an ISA wrapper, plus I have property. So if you look at your overall wealth, your £5k may be quite a small amount and thus is something you can use to learn about how investing works.

Thanks nannynick for taking the time to answer, and sorry for my delay in responding. I agree I need to do a lot more research first. I’m waiting till the kids go back to school next week to get stuck in. I’ll be downloading the meaningful money podcast podcast as you suggest.
I absolutely agree nothing is risk free, it I am willing to take some risk. Thanks again for your suggestions.

Just coming back to Thank @nannynick for recommending the meaningful money podcasts, have been listening lately and they are great. Lots to absorb and with about 300 past episodes it’ll keep me busy for a while! I’m going to listen to a few more before deciding on the way forward with savings/investments

The Meaningful Money podcasts are very good. And good idea to get your money out of cash and put it to work for you.

By way of comparison, have a look at Hargreaves Landsdown S&S ISA - they have a tool that lets you put in the amount you want to invest, what level of risk you're happy with and then it makes suggestions for funds to invest in.
They have also got a Wealth index where they recommend specific high performing funds in different categories. Definitely worth spending some time on their website, I've found that they explain things quite well - take the mystique out of a lot of it!

Thanks misssue. I listened to one of the investment platforms podcast and he mentions Hargreaves LAnsdown so I will definitely look a their S&S ISA. Glad you like the podcasts too!