If you had 2k to invest where would you put it?

[StripeyKnickersSpottySocks]

I've got a shares ISA with New Star that I opened about 8 years ago with £1800, after 8 years I now have just over 2k. Hardly a good return - in the last 6 months I made £15 on it.

Do I just find the best cash isa at about 6% and give up on shares or is this fund poorer than average? Any finance divas know about this stuff as I am clueless!

Having bought Northern Rock shares a couple of months ago as a gamble - you probably don't want my advice

I don't think that you can look at a 6 month period to give you an idea of return unless you see what the stock market as a whole was doing. The FTSE 100 was at 6,300 in Aug last year, and is now around 5,800, so the market has fallen by nearly 8%. So if you have made money during that period you have done a lot better than most.

To be honest you have just been unlucky with the time of your investment. If you invested in 2000 then the market was still very high on the back of tech stocks etc - the FTSE was around 6,300 in Jan 2000 for example. By August 2002 the market was down to 4227 and since then has crept very slowly up - it was 6781 in October 07, but has crashed since then due to the credit crunch (US subprime saga etc).

If you are just investing a lump sum then shares will always give you a timing risk. Investing monthly helps to smooth the timing aspects to a certain degree. But given that this is a lump sum and below a cash ISA limit then I would look at a cash ISA.

Ah, possibly not Are they likely to be worth much now?

Ladymuck - do you think this sum of money over the next 30 years will do better where it is or in a cash isa?

I'm assuming that you have no debt of any kind. If you are actually looking at 30 years, then have you considered a pension plan? If you have paid tax in recent years then this would be worth looking at as you would get a tax credit as well.

Someone such as Prufrock would be more knowledgeable, but if you have no debt and a pension is not applicable then in the long term shares do tend to out perform deposit accounts. You do have to be careful towards the end of the 30 years to avoid holding on until just after the crash in 2038! A pension plan would automatically start to switch investments out of shares into less risky investment int he period runnign up to your retirement date.

I'll start paying into the NHS pension plan later this year. But will look into the benefits of a private one as well. Thats a good idea as thats what I'm planning on using the money for. And yes I'm debtfree.

Reinvest in a stocks ISA -the stock market will get better. But you have to forget about the next five years really and just look at the long term (ie the next decade). Obviously if you have a mortgage etc though, in the short term you'd be better to pay some off that so it's a step closer to being free of it (which is fab btw, there's nothing like knowing you know nothing to nobody).