Junior ISA Advice / Opinions

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Hi everyone, Mel here....

Both myself and Matt have iWeb Stocks & Shares ISAs and are now thinking of investing a little into JISAs for the not-so small people in the household.

I have already checked with iWeb, but they don't offer a junior ISA.

Our intention is that we're most likely to want to just invest a small amount of around £50 per month for each child into a World equity index tracker fund.
We're prepared to sacrifice the choice of investment vehicles over the fees. i.e. we want a JISA version of our iWeb ISAs in order to keep fees to a minimum.

The eldest is 16, so obviously not got long left to invest in a JISA, but we're just wanting to get her started on investing with the intention that it will convert to an adult ISA when she turns 18 and she can hopefully then continue the investment.
The feisty one is 13 and has a Child Trust Fund which she received when she was born - we did nothing with it as we were not thinking about any kind of investing at the time and just left it to its own devices , so we'd need a JISA that would allow transfers in of the CTF too.

Has anyone got any experience of a very cost effective platform for investing a small monthly amount for smallish people?

Thanks in advance,

Mel

[Chrysalis]

We are with Charles Stanley direct. Platform fee of 0.35% (used to be 0.25% ) , free fund dealing. There are minimum investment amounts so you’d probably need to stick to a simple one or two fund portfolio. They accept CTF transfers in.
An alternative would be Youinvest - I think they do JISAs. There are dealing fees but no platform fees if you invest in ETFs rather than funds (but then you have to reinvest distributions - personally in JISA/ISA I prefer to use accumulating funds to keep it simple).
Your 16 year old will be able to transfer to iWeb in a couple of years.

[Chrysalis]

% platform fees are quite cost effective for small portfolios, especially if no dealing fees. Move to a flat fee broker later when cost effective!

[tjh290633]

Rather than a tracker fund, might I suggest that you look at what Jump Savings have to offer, using Witan IT as the savings medium.

TJH

[Urbandreamer]

I opened an equity JISA for two of mine this year with A J Bell/youinvest. The eldest of the two is 17, and I expect her to manage the JISA herself!

Of course being a JISA I get emails when she mistypes her password and can see what she buys. The 14 yearold expects me to run his though and pays little attention to what's in it. He's currently underwater as he decided that it wouldn't be a bad idea to invest 1/3 in a games company when I suggested it as a possibility.

I must confess that I'm pleasently surprised at how low the costs currently are compared to a standard ISA, which is what her's will turn into next year.

FWIW they have 1/3 SMT, 1/3 CTY and the final 1/3 (cash waiting investment or FDEV).

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Thanks all for your opinions / advice, at least we've a few options there to look into further.

Something to do over the Christmas break!

Thanks again,

Mel

[Loup321]

The small person in our house is 7, and recently there was an article in Moneywise about investing for children. https://www.moneywise.co.uk/investing/investing-children/the-best-stocks-and-shares-junior-isas This came out just as her regular saver matured. We went through it together, and she chose the BestInvest JISA because her lump sum was just under £500 so some others were ruled out (even though I said I'd give her the £11 required). By the time we'd got that far, her brain was too full, so I got to pick the fund. Maybe next year when her regular saver matures she won't have to decide on the platform, and she can make the pick on the fund.

[TheWildshot]

Ho everyone, we are looking to open a JISA stocks and shares for our 17 month old daughter From my research at the moment I'm seeing HL (Hargreaves Lansdown) being recommended. They also offer the Fundsmith fund with monthly payments which works for me.

For my personal ISA I use IGG so have no experience of HL, does anybody here have experiences they'd like to share about HL? Are they good to use and reliable?

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Ho everyone, we are looking to open a JISA stocks and shares for our 17 month old daughter From my research at the moment I'm seeing HL (Hargreaves Lansdown) being recommended. They also offer the Fundsmith fund with monthly payments which works for me.

For my personal ISA I use IGG so have no experience of HL, does anybody here have experiences they'd like to share about HL? Are they good to use and reliable?

We tried them, then cancelled in the cooling off period.

IMHO their charging system is stupid. Basically you are meant "guess" what your charge might be and have at least that as cash sloshing around in the account.

If there's insufficient funds, rather than invoicing you, they sell a part of your investments to cover it!

That wasn't for us.

[TheWildshot]

Thanks for sharing your experience and reasons why it didn't work for you. I picked that up from their website charges information. I guess if I'm making monthly payments we should be covered.

Out of interest, where did you move to and how does it work there? Would you recommend your current provider?

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Thanks for sharing your experience and reasons why it didn't work for you. I picked that up from their website charges information. I guess if I'm making monthly payments we should be covered.

Out of interest, where did you move to and how does it work there? Would you recommend your current provider?

The thing is, IIRC, it's not clear upfront how much you have to set aside for charges. So I think it's con. Presumably lots of HL JISAs get left with surplus cash...

TBH both our kids are in their late teens, so we missed the boat in a way. The eldest is 17, and all the £££ I would have put into an ISA for her is going towards private tuition to help her achieve decent A level grades.

Sorry not to be more help.

One you could consider, though, is maybe if your partner starts their own adult ISA (we use iweb which very good value IMHO), and you basically bung all the money you'd otherwise put in your kid's ISA into a single diversified fund for them in the future. Then when they hit 18 cash it up and give it to them. That's what we'd do now were it not for the tutor's fees.

HTH

[LongWayToGo]

Ho everyone, we are looking to open a JISA stocks and shares for our 17 month old daughter From my research at the moment I'm seeing HL (Hargreaves Lansdown) being recommended. They also offer the Fundsmith fund with monthly payments which works for me.

For my personal ISA I use IGG so have no experience of HL, does anybody here have experiences they'd like to share about HL? Are they good to use and reliable?

Hi Wildshot,

I've done this for both my little ones (2 & 4 years old) via Interactive Investor JISAs using their monthly cheap dealing days for regular investment. I already had my own S&S ISA and SIPP with II so was handy to have everything in one place and means no additional platform fees for adding the 2 x JISAs on top.

I opened the JISAs for my nippers pretty much as soon as they were born and started each off with £1000 (thanks to the grandparents!) in Vanguard Lifestrategy 100. Since birth they have each had £80 a month paid in (their child allowance + a little roundup money) with a monthly regular investment order set to purchase further VLS100 on the cheap dealing day when the cash in the account exceeds £200. Monthly cheap dealing days are 99p a trade, so minimal extra cost.

It's basically fire and forget, once setup it just runs by itself with no real input from me. Should hopefully grow to be a tidy some for them both when they turn 18 for Uni fees, house deposit or just left to keep growing.

Regards,

LWTG