Any Financial Advisors about?

[ElvisPresleysSideburns]

Wondering if anyone could give me some pointers.....

DH and I have had a fair bit of money held in an NS & I Guaranteed Income Bond for the last 3 years.

It's been great for us, paid out enough for us to live on once a month without us dipping in to our capital.

The bond is now coming to an end and the interest on offer for a new term is just 0.36% for 3 years or 0.50% for a five year term.

Any suggestions as to what we do next?

As interest rates are so low, we're thinking of not tying it up again yet, but spreading it over some easy access accounts until rates improve a bit, which will at least bring in a little.

We saw an IFA before putting it into NS & I - I think we're both a bit risk averse!

Just for info, we don't have a mortgage or other debts to pay off.

Anyone? Please?

Anyone at all?

If you have a fair bit of money then maybe pay a financial advisor for advice rather than expect them to work for free for a random on the internet?

Im not a IFA but work with them. They charge alot of money for their time and expertise

No one here can give pointers as don't know your individual circumstances

Honestly a good IFA is worth their weight in gold....litterally!!! Money is such a personally specific field that if you dont feel you can make this choice then please pay for a professional

@CheddarGorgeous I wish there was a like button

@Capital76 God loves a trier though.

I had an email from a Nigerian Prince the other day looking for investors, said he'd double your money within a week. I'll see if I can dig it out for you.

Why not contact your usual bank? They will have an adviser on their staff. You may not have any intention of following their advice (they can recommend their own products only) but they should take you through an info gathering process which might point you towards the right type of products. That would be a start. We did this recently.
We also contacted 3 well-known investment companies. We went through an info gathering exercise with one of them, which led to them providing a report and proposed recommendations for us. None of that cost us a penny, but it helped us work out where we wanted to put our money.
Tailored advice in detail will cost you, and rightly so, but you can dip your toe in the water free, as we did.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what an IFA charges? Is it a fixed rate fee, or per hour or commission on products sold?

I would try the MSE forums

If you are risk averse and just want to protect the capital, there's little point paying a financial advisor.

You could look at the NSI Premium Bonds for one of your pots - your capital is safe but the interest recouped is chance.

@SpeakingFranglais Commission on in investment products (includes pensions) has been banned since 1st January 2013 so most advisers are now fee-based, though there is still commission payable on insurance policies that advisers can choose to receive.

Commonly advisers may use a mixture of fixed prices and a percentage of sums being invested. It depends on the complexity and type of work being undertaken. Speaking for myself, I have a fixed fee for the first parts like fact-finding, information gathering and reporting on my initial observations. Where I am moving money about or taking on responsibility for managing it then I will charge a percentage based fee. This is because other overheads like PI insurance now apply and these costs are more variable - the higher the fund value the more there is to lose.

I could charge per hour but rarely do. I also do quite a bit of work for free at my discretion.

@CheddarGorgeous

If you have a fair bit of money then maybe pay a financial advisor for advice rather than expect them to work for free for a random on the internet?

This x 100.

[quote Sunseed]@SpeakingFranglais Commission on in investment products (includes pensions) has been banned since 1st January 2013 so most advisers are now fee-based, though there is still commission payable on insurance policies that advisers can choose to receive.

Commonly advisers may use a mixture of fixed prices and a percentage of sums being invested. It depends on the complexity and type of work being undertaken. Speaking for myself, I have a fixed fee for the first parts like fact-finding, information gathering and reporting on my initial observations. Where I am moving money about or taking on responsibility for managing it then I will charge a percentage based fee. This is because other overheads like PI insurance now apply and these costs are more variable - the higher the fund value the more there is to lose.

I could charge per hour but rarely do. I also do quite a bit of work for free at my discretion.[/quote]
Thank you for taking the time to respond. Valuable information.

We have good pensions, mortgage free for a few years and independent children so, I guess, we are looking for "wealth planning" perhaps? in other words knowing the best places to put savings for maximum growth (and minimum risk LOL).

Anyway, that has helped mu understanding so thank you!

@ElvisPresleysSideburns how much are you talking? There are cash consolidators

You can get double that interest rate - e.g. I'm looking at 1.1% on a 5 year bond - that's a Sharia account - for the record they don't pay "interest" - they call it "profit" but it's a technicality - in practise I don't believe any UK Sharia account has ever NOT paid the "expected profit" rate out. I think there's a 3 yr one offering 0.8 listed on moneysavingexpert. Your only alternatives to that involve capital risk.

Note - my guess is that interest rates aren't going to rise for the forseeable future so tying your money up for 3 yrs is not a bad idea if you won't need to suddenly access the capital.

My first meetings are all on a no obligation basis, it starts with a fact find and can include cash flow modelling to work out how long your finances are going to last and the impact of tweaking certain things. Fees are a percentage of an investment and very transparent.

I am very IFA averse I;m afraid. Every time I have dealt with them they seem more interested in steering everything towards products THEY get the fattest commisions on.

OP It sounds like you are very risk averse - I would look on monysavingexpert for best savings rates/bonds. Otherwise I would suggest putting some into the lowest risk funds.

Have a look at Vanguard INvestor. They are hoovering up people at the moment beacuse they have such low fees and you can just choose a ready made fund or blended fund based on your risk profile.

HTH