Moneyfarm S & S ISA?

[EmpressaurusKitty]

I’m thinking about investing £50 per month in a stocks & shares ISA. I might up the amount later but at the moment that’s what I can afford to lose. I’m planning to leave the account running for 15 years.

I know absolutely nothing about the stock market & don’t have a lot of free time to learn, so I’d rather have a managed, low-to-medium risk account.

Does anyone have any experience of Moneyfarm’s stocks & shares ISA or is there another one I should look at?

Thank you!

Why that provider? If they’re offering an incentive to join, it’s probably because they’re expensive fees-wise. You need to compare fees & what funds you can invest in to find which is right for you. There’s comparison tables if you search and The Bogleheads wiki/ Reddit can be helpful, as can the Rebel Finance School course.

Thanks @Querious. Mainly because Martin Lewis’s site recommends them. I’ll have a look at those sites later.

If you’re with Monzo bank then they have one you can do on the app. I’m sure there are better ones but it’s easy to do.

There's a comparison table here https://www.thefireplace.info/wiki/Platforms

You need to consider the platform.fee,, trading fees (many platforms have a low or zero fee for regular trades, which would suit you), and the fund fee (managed funds are more expensive than passive ones, so have a think about whether you really need that or whether a passive tracker would work).

If you can find this book for cheaper it’s worth a read.

https://amzn.eu/d/0aBTbLCb

You will generally make less money from a managed fund compared to an unmanaged index fund. These typically return higher rates than a managed fund and lower fees. You could choose a world tracker, or (if like me you want to stay out of America) you could do European / UK funds.

I can recommend Hargreaves lansdown or interactive investor. The later has a monthly £5.99 fee. Given you’re investing small amounts the charges might be more than your returns for a while.

As an example, here’s a low fee index linked fund which has grown by about 100% in 5years.

This is really helpful, thanks everyone.

I’ve never used Moneyfarm so just took a quick look. They seem expensive for a £50 monthly investment. I would look at some cheaper ones as the fees will eat into your £50 in a big way.
if you are happy to do a little bit of research to find an ETF which suits your risk profile then T212 is good as it has no platform fees or trading fees.

if you find the choice overwhelming and just want a more simple interface then look at Dodl which is much cheaper than money farm and has a very limited choice of options.

For the platform then T212, Invest Engine or Freetrade all are low cost options and have broad variety of investment options.

You say you are planning £50 a month for 15 years? Whilst a relatively low amount, 15 years is a longer term time horizon which is good.

You mention low/medium risk options, risk means different things to different people, but with that timeline just keep it simple and go for a global ETF fund. That will give you global and sector diversification in thousands of companies. There are many different ones but VWRL and FWRG are two of the most popular ones.

Just because they are well diversified doesn't mean that there isn't risk, and they are probably a 5 out of 7 on a risk scale. There will be times in those 15 years where you could see double digit % drops in price and there will be years where you see the opposite. How do you feel you will respond in those scenarios?