Sipp or standard pension

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I'm 40, self employed any only recently had enough spare cash to start a pension. I opened a sipp account with hargreaves lansdown. Ive now read that a sipp is more suited to people with a lot of money to invest and who know a lot about making their own investments.... I don't have a lot to put in and neither do I know anything about investments. Can I close this and transfer my money to a standard pension account? If so, who with? I'm honestly clueless about pensions and feel out of my depth with all the jargon. Given that I've started so late, I really need to get this sorted as soon as I can.

I would definitely stick with it, I am with them too.
It means you have control over your own money - rather than devolved to multiple other organisations, and small pensions in lots of places.
As you get older it’s comforting to have your pension in one single place and simplify your admin
They have some very useful lists of top performing funds on their website.
Examples might include Fundsmith, Lindell Train and also the HL own MultiManager Funds - eg global growth
It can be a boring rainy day job to sit down and take a look at the funds.
I had 10 years service with a company that went under - bit had transferred my company pension into my HL SIPP beforehand.
Maybe have a look at the finance page on here - I think there have been similar investment threads with more ideas recently.

I think that there is some confusion about SIPPs as the term is a bit of a catch-all.

A proper, full on, all singing and dancing SIPP is one that accepts a wide range of different asset classes including commercial property and is intended for experienced investors who want to make their own choices about what they hold within their pension fund. The admin for this can be complex which is why this type of SIPP has relatively high admin charges.

But the term SIPP has also been used for personal pension accounts which accept a more limited choice of asset classes and hence have lower running costs, and are more akin to a standard personal pension account, but because the investor chooses which specific funds or shares they are going to invest in this is the "self invested" bit of the personal pension. So pretty much all the personal pension accounts available from the fund supermarkets like HL, ii, AJ Bell etc are called a SIPP even though they are a simplified version.

If you're only going to invest in funds then there is no point paying additional fees for a full SIPP where you're never going to use the additional features it offers. A simplified SIPP will do the job at a competitive price. This may be with a fund supermarket, or it may be with a more traditional provider like an insurance company where the fund choice may be more limited but still meet your needs.

Thanks for the replies. That makes me feel a bit better. I still have no idea what I'm doing with investments but I'll spend some more time looking into it.

Good luck....

Pension expert on youtube is totally free, and even i find it useful, after 20 years of investing, being a trustee for a pension scheme and being trained as such. You'll find there's lots to learn. but stick with it... it's not too late, you have 25odd years and that's a great investment time period for your money (no matter how small) to make money for you...

ps. I'm not connected to pension expert in any way, just find it incredible that such knowledge is available for free, especially after i've paid more than my fair share of ifa fees over the years.

Thanks very much, this is really useful. I shall be an expert in no time! Hopefully.

Hi I recently started a SIPP too. I have invested in my first fund now. It is very nerveracking but I have told myself I am relying on a fund manager and they are the expert! There are reviews available and you cañ look up the past performance of a fund.

Oh, I didn't notice reviews. I'll need to dedicate a day to it. Do they all need a minimum £1000 investment? That's what it looked like to me when I had a look. I haven't got that much in yet but nearly there.

As far as I understand a SIPP offers more flexibility than a 'standard pension' (not sure exactly what that means). The key is that you have the choice whether or not to try to use that flexibility if you think you have some amazing investment ideas. My advice (and BTW I work in the investment industry) would be to firstly look at all fees on anything you may consider investing in - they can eat up silly amounts. Secondly unless you work in investment management put your money somewhere you could leave it 5 years and sleep easy. Looking at it every day will induce you to make rash decisions. Thirdly - also have money elsewhere (in the bank or wherever); life throws curveballs and it is useful to be able to access at least some money without it drastically changing your life plans.

Hope your company / work goes well. That will be the thing that makes you 'rich' or not; the pension is a cushion

Bard, have you got a link for pension expert on youtube as I cannot find it using search or filtering by channel.

Tracker funds within your SIPP are your friend, OP. Choose funds with low charges. I like Vanguard for that reason. I like their global trackers which (in my view) spread the risk nicely.

Thank you all. This has definitely given me food for thought. I feel like it's something everyone else seems to know a lot about but I just find it hard to get my head around. Thanks Beck. I've been self employed for 10 years now but had high debts which every spare penny went towards and have only recently finished paying them off. I'm hoping I will become busy again once restrictions are lifted.

Would it be worth opening a standard person also and spreading my money between the two or better just to keep the one sipp?

I have very recently transferred my workplace pension into a SIPP with HL. I have converted it to a cash pot so I had ~ £200k to invest in whichever companies I wanted to. I’ve stayed quite safe with my pension and only gone with safe blue chips.

I’m confident this will do better than my workplace pension which made just 2% last year.

RaphaTwat - have a look at Fundsmith Equity accumulation fund. A good workhorse for your money. Didn’t suffer too badly in the march 20 dip, averages about 18% per annum over past 19 years.

ooo my bat. Pension Craft.

youtube.com/c/Pensioncraft

Rapha - also take a close look at the vanguard funds - they are very low fees to use and again, great performance. LifeStrategy may be of use, but failing that there plenty to choose from that follow indexes or stay passive.

@RaphaTwat

I have very recently transferred my workplace pension into a SIPP with HL. I have converted it to a cash pot so I had ~ £200k to invest in whichever companies I wanted to. I’ve stayed quite safe with my pension and only gone with safe blue chips.

I’m confident this will do better than my workplace pension which made just 2% last year.

I would be very careful with single company shares and no experience of investing. A low cost managed fund may be more appropriate, look at the vanguard funds